People who are cost-conscious buy unframed prints and then source a cheaper frame online. People who are time-poor but not as cost sensitive buy the framed print from you. And the premiums people are willing to pay for that convenience are actually very high, when it comes to framed vs unframed art. So it’s better to give people the choice.
Some people might be put off buying a print if they have to then go and get it framed, particularly if they’re gifting it to someone or sending it directly to someone else. No one wants to ask someone else to put effort into a gift or give a gift that costs the recipient money (i.e. to frame). That’s how most people think. So when it comes to gifting, for example, people want to buy framed prints.
The other thing is that people want to buy the framing option of the artist. Decisions of framing are more difficult than we think. So they’ll go to the framers and think what would the artist do? Would it be oak? Would it be black? You can get it wrong and ruin the look of an image. So it’s important to offer one framed option to remove their cognitive load of choosing or buying a frame. Pick the one (black, oak, white) that goes with the image really nicely and say that’s the artist’s choice. That’s a real incentive to buy.
People want to buy complete products so definitely offer framing. We tend to find that at least 20% of the sales we do are framed on average. Would those 20% have bought if it was just print only? Some of them would not have so you will lose sales if you don’t offer frames.
