Fantastic Framing is celebrating the opening of its art gallery style boutique store at Hampton in Melbourne’s south, offering limited edition prints with a designer focus.
The new store adds to other Fantastic Framing locations around Sydney, Brisbane and Perth, including a recently opened store at Kew in Melbourne’s east, dedicated to production, which has been operating since March 2021, and the business plans to open another store in Brisbane.
Fantastic Framing also provides mobile picture framing solutions, bringing their equipment and expertise to customers’ homes to help save time and any risk of damage. This includes professional canvas stretching, mirrors and jersey framing, oil paintings and custom photo framing.
Despite recent success, Edi Radko from Fantastic Framing Melbourne admits that retail has been tough, particularly with the various lockdowns in Victoria in 2021.
“We were fortunate that we secured clients prior to Covid, and we shifted to contactless deliveries to maintain our staff headcount during disruptions,” he told Retailbiz in a recent interview.
“Prices have skyrocketed – for example, the cost of glass has grown by 100% – which has forced us to raise our prices. However, our customer base who buy and sell art are traditionally older and more upper class, therefore, are not as impacted by rising costs.”
Fantastic Framing has also shifted its sole focus on framing towards selling art through online galleries with works from Australian artists. “More people are buying art for their home and these purchases now account for almost one-third of our revenue.”