Keeping the High Street Alive

One of the things we truly love about running these businesses is the positive contribution we can make to the livelihood and well being of our town centres.

As well as Andover Picture Framing, we also have Romsey Picture Framing. Both are on the respective town high streets.

We run the two businesses in a very similar fashion (both front of shop and behind the scenes). Our ethos is all about understanding the needs of our customers and taking the time to get their picture framing needs just right. Framing a persons precious artwork, memorabilia and textiles is a very personal and often emotional thing and it goes without saying we are always excited about making the finished framed picture look the very best it can for the customer.

Of course, providing such a service comes at a price. We can report that we got through the Christmas period and the nations “Plan B” for tackling the pandemic but we would be lying if we didn’t say it came at a cost. Like many businesses, the festive period is an important time and like many we are sensitive to the ups and downs of business on the high street. Effects that may ripple through the coming year depending upon consumer confidence and (importantly) the quality of our service and end products.

We love the fact we are providing our staff with a great job and want to continue supporting the local community as best we can.

We all know that energy prices and the costs are on the rise - As a small independent business, our resilience to such change isn’t as robust as a larger one. We really don’t have deep pockets. So our strategy to survive on the high street is ultimately steered by consumer opinion and our underlying costs.

Thankfully, we continue to receive wonderful comments about the quality of the work we do. It’s great when someone comes in to the shop to collect their much anticipated framing order and we do the reveal. The amazed look on the customers face and, quite often, the apparent emotional significance of what they are seeing is truly wonderful. We truly believe people love the work we do and understand that this skilled, professional and reliable framing design and build service is why people pay us to do what we do.

With all this in mind we have simplified our bespoke and standard frame pricing (some going up slightly, some down) and looked to absorb other cost rises in to the skilled professional services we offer. This way we trust we can keep things priced fairly and competitively.

So, whether you are purchasing from our range of quality inhouse handmade standard frames, commissioning us to mount, clean, re-glaze, lace or provide a complete end to end bespoke picture framing service for your artwork - We have adjusted our prices to more accurately reflect the material costs and effort we put in depending upon the job.

We thought we’d end this news item with a picture of a more unusual thing we have framed of late. Of precious value to the customer, we carefully mounted some ornate metal straws on to a map of the Falkland islands.

Andy & Sharon