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It's been a year since Vanessa Burgis and her husband, Benjamin, opened up FastFrame USA in Dunwoody.
And as far as they're concerned, business is just fine. FastFrame is in the business of providing expensive frames for pictures.
"September was horrible, of course. October to mid-October was mediocre," Vanessa Burgis said. "But since then, it's doing wonderful."
But Burgis' store could be an exception among independent frame shops. Business has grown tougher for independents because of the economic doldrums and competition from consumer-attractive chain stores such as Michaels Stores Inc. (Nasdaq: MIKE), said William Parker, a board member with the Professional Picture Framers Association.
Ninety percent of the nation's 20,000-plus frame shops are independently owned. But that dominance is waning.
A coming shakeout could wipe out some 10,000 independent frame shops countrywide, cutting the 19,000 to 22,000 operating in the United States today to just 10,000 to 12,000 in five years, Parker said. Chain art supply stores that now offer custom framing jobs would fill that void, be said.
"Independents are going to have the hardest time in this [economy]," Parker said. "Especially if they haven't changed to respond to this early on."
The lower-priced frame shops, whose customers tend to have less spending money, will be hit hardest by the recession, Parker said. Frame shops that cater to the upper middle class and...