Between the stack of handwritten work orders piling up on your desk and the cost of museum-grade matboard, growing your business can feel secondary to just keeping up.
Framers are artists first, but craftsmanship alone isn’t enough to fend off your online competition and the rising overhead of your storefront.
To grow your sales, you have to find solutions for the tasks that slow you down. Whether it’s reclaiming hours spent on manual price calculations or keeping margins from being eaten by material waste, the path to higher revenue starts with actionable strategies and a system to help you work smarter.
In this blog, you’ll learn eight ways to increase your framing sales by improving your workflow and customer experience.
Modern Framing Sales Challenges
Before you can increase your sales, you have to identify the bottlenecks holding you back. You’re facing four distinct challenges that have gotten harder to ignore:
- Online competition: Customers expect instant pricing and fast turnarounds. When your shop takes three days to provide a quote because you’re manually checking moulding availability, you risk losing the job to an online competitor.
- The paper trap: Relying on paper work orders is a profit leak. Misplaced notes, illegible handwriting, and manual measurement errors lead to expensive redos that come straight out of your pocket.
- Margin erosion: With the cost of wood, acrylic, and conservation materials rising, guessing at your prices is dangerous. Without a system that accounts for moulding waste or current glass rates, you may be selling your most complex jobs at a loss.
- Decision paralysis: Custom framing offers infinite possibilities, but too many choices can overwhelm a customer. If a consultation runs over an hour because a client can’t visualize a double mat, you’re losing valuable production time on every sale.
The right tools address each of these challenges directly — protecting your time, your margins, and your customer experience.
8 Ways To Increase Your Framing Sales
Whether you’re looking to attract new customers or turn one-time buyers into loyal regulars, these strategies can make a meaningful difference for your frame sales and give your business a competitive edge.
1. Attract Customers With Customization Options
Most frame shop revenue comes from custom orders, not off-the-shelf frame sales. That’s why simplifying your custom order process is one of the most effective ways to differentiate your shop from online competitors.
Customers want to personalize their frames, whether through custom matting, specialty finishes, or materials that complement a specific piece of art or memorabilia. The challenge is that most customers struggle to visualize the finished result — and uncertainty leads to hesitation.
How your POS system helps:
FrameVue by LifeSaver is a tool that visualizes your custom projects. It shows customers exactly how their artwork or photos will look in different frame styles and finishes before committing to a purchase. This interactive experience makes the decision process easier and gives customers more confidence.
For example, you may have a customer who wants a custom frame for a family portrait or a vacation photo. Using FrameVue, they can see which frames match their home’s decor. The next time they need a custom frame, they’ll remember their experience and shop with you again.
Related Read: 4 Best Picture Frame Visualizer Tools
2. Run Limited-Time Discounts With Confidence
When you need to move excess frame stock, a well-timed promotion does more to create urgency than almost anything else. Seasonal campaigns, holiday specials, and flash sales all give customers a concrete reason to act now rather than later.
Get the word out through email campaigns highlighting discounts on custom matting, social media posts featuring new moulding arrivals, and in-store signage that clearly communicates what customers will save and when the offer expires.
How your POS system helps:
Using a point of sale (POS) system with built-in tools helps you see which promotions are working best. Adjusting your marketing efforts based on that data brings in more customers and keeps your sales moving.
3. Boost Foot Traffic by Partnering With Local Artists and Photographers
Local artists and photographers already have an engaged following — and that audience includes the kind of customers who invest in custom framing. A well-structured partnership brings this group into your shop and gives them a reason to stay.
Displaying local artwork in your store does two things at once: It supports the artists and gives customers a firsthand look at what quality custom framing actually looks like in context. That in-store showcase is more persuasive than any advertisement.
To make the partnership work for both sides, consider bundled deals where customers receive a discount on framing when they purchase the artwork. For example, a “buy a print, get 50% off the frame” offer creates immediate incentive and increases average order value.
How your POS system helps:
Cross-promotions like this are easy to set up in your POS system and benefit both the artist and your business — strengthening relationships with local creatives and adding directly to your bottom line.
4. Add Value With Custom Framing Packages
Bundled service packages are a straightforward way to increase order value without discounting your work. Consider creating packages that combine standard framing with additional services such as art cleaning, restoration, or reframing.
For example, you could offer a preservation package that includes UV-protective glass, acid-free matting, and a consultation on proper artwork care.
How your POS system helps:
Use your POS system to easily create and manage these packages, making it simple for your staff to upsell and for customers to understand the value they’re receiving.
When these bundles are built directly into your POS, your staff can present them clearly and consistently — no manual calculations, no guesswork on savings. Customers understand exactly what they’re getting, and the perceived value makes it easier to say yes.
5. Engage Your Community Through Workshops and Events
If you feel disconnected from your target audience, hosting workshops and events in your shop is a great way to engage your local community and build interest in your framing services.
In-store events are highly popular and effective, with 87% of consumers purchasing a brand’s products after attending one.
A matting and mounting workshop or a “frame your favorite photo” evening, for example, showcases your craftsmanship and creates a memorable experience that encourages attendees to consider your services when they need framing.
How your POS system helps:
Use your POS system to manage event sales and follow up with participants through personalized offers and emails about upcoming promotions. That consistent outreach is what turns a one-time attendee into a returning customer.
6. Expand Your Business by Strengthening Your Online Presence
Since 99% of consumers research a brand online before visiting in person, your website is often the first impression your shop makes. And it needs to reflect the quality of your work.
Your website should include a gallery of completed projects, high-quality images, customer testimonials, and a clear path to requesting a quote or placing an order online.
On social media, platforms like Instagram and Pinterest are well-suited for showcasing finished framing work, while short-form video on TikTok and YouTube gives you a way to share techniques, behind-the-scenes content, and quick framing tips that build credibility with a broader audience.
How your POS system helps:
Use text messaging to send quotes and receipts, collect Google reviews, and keep customers informed with automated order updates — all from one system.
Consistency matters more than volume. Regular engagement keeps your shop visible and top of mind when a customer is ready to frame something.
Related Read: E-Commerce Website for Framing Stores: 5 Tips To Get Started
7. Build Loyalty With Gift Cards
Gift cards are an easy way to increase framing sales, especially around holidays and special occasions. For frame shops specifically, they make a natural gift for art lovers, new homeowners, or anyone looking to refresh their living space.
Without a system to track them, though, gift cards can become a liability — outstanding balances are easy to lose track of and harder to reconcile at year end.
How your POS system helps:
Display gift cards prominently near your checkout area and feature them on your website to drive purchases. Your POS system handles the tracking automatically, so every balance is accounted for and redemptions are processed without friction.
8. Turn Job Tracking Into a Trust Builder
In a custom frame shop, the period between the initial deposit and final pickup is a black box for many customers. When a client leaves a priceless family heirloom or an expensive original painting in your hands, their primary concern is its safety and progress.
If the only time they hear from you is when something goes wrong — or weeks later when the job is complete — you’re missing a significant opportunity to make a professional connection with your customer.
How your POS system helps:
Move from paper tickets to a digital work order system to eliminate your customers’ questions while waiting. Automated text and email updates — from materials arriving to the final text-to-pay notification — keep customers informed at every stage, reduce incoming status calls, and create the kind of transparent, professional experience that earns five-star reviews.
Grow Your Framing Business With LifeSaver
If you’ve been looking for ways to improve your workflow and grow your framing sales, LifeSaver is built to help. From visualization tools that close more custom orders to job tracking that builds customer trust, every feature is designed with frame shops in mind.
LifeSaver handles the operational details — inventory management, customer tracking, and promotions — so you can focus on the craft.
Our all-in-one software also includes:
- Vendor product integrations
- Advanced reporting
- Payment solutions, including text-to-pay
- Marketing tools
Simplify your workflow — book a live demo today to discover how our tailored solution can help your frame shop grow.
