This post will deal with the humdrum and slightly annoying topic of uncollected, abandoned picture frames and akin picture framing goods. We will begin by saying that an unglamorous part of our online business retail of
ready-made picture frames and the factory manufacturing of custom picture frames is the non-collection and ensuing abandonment by Customers of orders and custom picture framing jobs that they ordered. Each year this consists of anything between 10 to 15 assorted online orders and custom picture frames totalling in value between $1,000 to $2,000, some of these orders are shown below. Individually, nearly nearly every order is worth less than $200. This amount is important, as it will be seen a little later on as we continue reading.
Picture Frames, Picture Framing and Picture Framers' Blog
Welcome to our weblog about picture framers, picture frames and picture framing. It is published with the goal to share information, knowledge, tips, ideas and opinions about this industry. All posts are grouped in the sections listed below. For help with orders, visit our Help and FAQs or use the Contact page.
About our News Blog
We have been picture framing for a long time, since the late 1970's. Back then, Malcom Fraser was our Prime Minister and 200,000 or more Asian migrants and boat people were settling here, helping to make Australia multiracial and multicultural. This was a long time ago. In those days, the picture framing industry was adolescent, fit, strong, healthy and growing all the time. Now, around half a century later, the once youthful industry is sadly decrepit.
It is moribund, impotent and almost infirm but the infirmity is not due to ageing or industrial decrepitude. Rather, it slowly became so because of global, technological, economic and political events and circumstances beyond its ken and control. By and large, the competitiveness engendered by the internet, the dismantling of import duties and tariffs, and our high domestic wages, disproportionate to those of our leaner, meaner and hungrier competitors, have all contributed to the slow strangulation and destruction of our local industry.
Sure, there are still isolated, scattered, tenacious survivors, like ourselves, but your local street, or shopping centre picture framer has pretty much disappeared. This is because, and in the main, our Customers find our locally-made products and services too expensive. Alas, we have outsmarted ourselves. We kept awarding ourselves such high wages for so long that now, most Customers cannot afford our picture frames and our framing factories have all closed down. Vale, Australia Picture Framers!
Nevertheless, and during all these years, experiences were gathered and lessons learnt, about picture frames, picture framing and our industry, such as it once was. Rather than forsake these rich legacies of small business and suburban manufacturing histories to become unremembered and be forgotten, we have retrieved and curated these here, under the mantle of this News Blog of posts, or blogs. Enjoy!
So you want a “gallery frame” ? What’s that?
Posted on Categories: Custom Picture Framing, Ready-Made FramesSo you want a gallery frame? Once more it was a Customer's inquiry that germinated the composition of this post. A city Customer rang us up and asked us for a price quotation for a "A0 size gallery frame". 
We asked what she meant by "gallery frame" she replied that she didn't know but she thought we would know, hence this post. Well, the short and sweet is this: it's not a particular or specific size, colour, finish or framing style that makes a picture frame a gallery frame, but rather, how and where it's going to be used. If it's going to be stood on its easel on a desk or table, or hung on a wall its own, or just with another or couple of other frames, then it's not really a gallery frame.
Apropos Change-of-Mind Returns
Posted on Category: Picture Framing IndustryApropos change-of-mind returns - it happened to us again last week! A Customer brought back an 18"x24" black wood poster frame he'd bought earlier in the week claiming that "My husband doesn't like it" , and 
adding" Can I please have my money back". We checked the poster frame for dents, dints, damages and breakages, and, on finding none, we refunded her money, and that was that. Nothing extraordinary, one might say, so, what's the big deal ? Nothing remarkable, we will segue, except to say that the refund that the Customer asked for called is called a "change-of-mind" ( CHOM) refund, and one which, legally speaking, Customers are not entitled to. To quote the Australian Consumer Law, Customers, or consumers, are not entitled to obtain refunds "when they got what they asked for but simply changed their mind".
Broken expectations ..
Posted on Category: Custom Picture FramingIn this post we will write about unmet, failed, or broken expectations. Not about big life expectations, but smaller ones, 
like the obvious one you would naturally experience when you fit a steel wire to the back of a picture frame, and rightfully expect it to hold, only that it doesn't, and you end up with a broken glass, frame, or both. From time to time we have discussions with Customers as to which material, steel wire, or rope, is the strongest, safest and most durable to hang a picture with. Invariably, Customers asks or suggest the former, and are surprised when we tell them that, in our experience, cord is the gold standard. Our experience in observing and repairing frames that ...
Refunds, The Good, The Bad and The Ugly
Posted on Category: Picture Framing IndustryWe venture to say that our refunds policy is not only progressive and fair-minded, but that it's also quite generous 
and at the forefront of the picture framing industry. We propose this commendation because the Australian Consumer Law legislation, in specific cases, restricts the payment of refunds ( inter alia ) by excluding this entitlement to certain Customers where and when " .. Customers just changed their mind about buying a product, or found the same product cheaper elsewhere , or simply decided they didn't like the products or could not use it ... ". Felicitously for all Customers, our Terms and Conditions of Sale page advises that they can return most goods ( Conditions and Limitations ...
“Can I put the poster in the frame while I’m here here?”
Posted on Category: Picture Frames FAQs"Can I put the poster in the frame while I'm here?" is a question regularly asked by some Customers who have just 
bought one or more of popular and inexpensive, ready-made poster frames. Now, we understand why they may be asking this, sometimes they even tell us. They are anxious to frame their art quickly and want to hang it as soon as they get home. They would like to frame it up at our store because it is full of spare poster frames as well as being large and spacious. Unfortunately, when this is asked, we always have to decline the request. The reason for this answer involves the evolving ...
“Do you supply custom window mats”?
Posted on Category: D.Y.O. photos and frames"Do you supply or cut custom window mats"? We get asked this question, either by phone, email or in person, about once a week. Invariably, we have
to respond in the negative, no, we don't. But rather than leave it at that, while we're here, we thought we'd expand on it with a fuller reply. Whether or not a framing store elects to provide this service is worth exploring. Window mats are almost exclusively made to be used with picture frames which have a long history of being associated with human settlements and dwellings. The manufacture and supply of picture frames, frameworks, icons, paintings and other kindred images with which adorn human ...
Artists, and the Tyranny of Distance
Posted on Category: The Art World Ah, "The Tyranny of Distance". While many are the readers who are likely to have read, 
or at least heard of, Geoffrey Blainey's eponymous 1966 history book, just as many may not be familiar with the book title's subjective, relative meanings, or its nuances and varied, variable contexts. And these can be many. Yet the fulcrum upon which all these tyrannical propositions operate is the sum of the difficulties and disadvantages posed by Australia's, geographical, long distances. We could, for instance, in today's discussions about energy, posit that neither the Northern Territory, nor Western Australia, will ever able to cooperate and economically participate in Australia's ...
When oils ain’t oils …
Posted on Category: The Art WorldWe will begin this blog post on stretching acrylic paintings by reminiscing with the older cohort of us who might recall the eponymous, mid 1980's Castrol oil company's advertisements featuring Sol, the Mafia Don, and his mafiosi confederates. 
We were darkly warned that not all engine oils were the same, even though they may have smelled and looked the same. To same extent, the same applies to many paintings on canvas that we see coming through our picture framing workship. The catalyst for the creation of this post, once again was sparked by one of our Customers. The gentleman in question had just brought back from Indonesia a large, colourful, expensive "oil" painting which he wanted stretched on a stretcher frame and float framed. On inspecting the painting on our framing counter during the custom ...
Unshippable A0 picture frames? Why, what does that mean?
Posted on Category: Picture Frames FAQs"Unshippable A0 picture frames? Why, what does that mean?". That was the question we were asked in disbelief and incredulity while fielding a telephone inquiry from a young 
mum in Northcote. She said she was confused as to why our website said that we could not "post" a huge A0 black glass frame which she wanted. She just had had a baby, she explained, and couldn't possibly come down and pick up the frame, so she just wanted it shipped to her address. We did tell her that large glass frames cannot be shipped because most of the times these break or get damaged in transit, but she seemed to find it difficult to accept the explanation and kept suggesting and insisting on various shipping methods that ...