Article #8: How Much Can You Save Ordering Matboard On Line?

There is an argument that goes, mat board and foam board should be purchased locally and not through the mail. The reason? Mat board is difficult to ship and is easily damaged unless shipped in large quantities, stacked on a pallet. Retail stores buy mat board in large quantities so it ends up on their shelves in pristine condition - no dings, dents or dog-ears. Makes sense. After all, who wants a sheet of mat board that is dinged or dented?

But there is another factor. Most mat board in the U.S. is made by two major manufacturers. One is located in New England and the other is located in the Mid-West. This means that shipping costs vary dramatically from state to state with the Northeast and the Upper Midwest getting the best deals, and the Northwest and the Southwest taking it on the chin. This shipping cost is figured into the cost of the mat board at the retail level, so the cost of a sheet of regular mat board can vary from $5.50 to $8.50 depending on the part of the country you live in.

Consequently, plenty of self framers in Arizona, Washington and other places are attracted to mat board offered through Framing4Yourself priced between $3.75 and $5.50. But what about those nasty dings, dents and dog-ears? And after you pay the shipping charges from whereever the mat board is coming from, aren’t you going to be right back to $8.50 again?

Well, you might be. But only if you buy a few sheets at a time. If you are able to put together an order for at least 12 sheets, which is what we at Framing4Yourself.com require anyway, than the cost of shipping is absorbed over a larger number of items and the price per board comes down.

For example, 12 sheets of mat board bought from Framing4Yourself.com at $4.90 per sheet when shipped to Seattle will cost about $19.00 for shipping, a total charge of $77.80 -- or $6.50 per sheet -- about $2.00 less per sheet than the $8.50 average cost for mat board bought in a retail store there. Mat board at $5.50 per sheet comes to a total with shipping of about $7.00 per sheet -- a savings of about $1.50 per sheet.

And the savings are even greater when bigger quantities are purchased and more of the $3.75 mat board is mixed in. For example, 25 sheets of mat board, where 10 sheets cost $3.75 and 15 sheets cost $4.90, when shipped to Atlanta, GA from our location in the Midwest, would total, including shipping, about $125.20, -- or just $5.00 per sheet.

Yeah, okay. But what about those dings, dents and dog-ears?

Well, consider: most dings, dents and dog-ears occur along the perimeter edges of the board and don’t penetrate further than an inch. So even if the board was dented on all four edges, after trimming away the bad edges you’d still have a sheet of mat board 30"x38". Can you get what you want out of that?

It depends on what size frame you intend to use, but just looking at some common sizes and what a 30"x38" sheet will yield as opposed to a full size sheet of 32"x40". If you get the maximum yield per size per sheet, you will get the same yield using a 30"x38" as a 32"x40" when yielding 5"x7", 9"x12", 11"x14", 12"x16", 14"x18", 18"x24" and 24"x36". You lose four out of sixteen mats when sizing 8"x10", and two out of four mats when sizing 16"x20", the worst case scenario.

Bottom line: on most sizes you lose no yield after trimming off dented edges.

So does receiving mat board through the mail cost more? Or less? In most cases, it costs less, even when you take into account shipping costs, as well as dings and dog ears.

So if you haven't tried it, give it a try. After all, you don't want all those rural matboard buyers far from art and framing stores to get the jump on you.

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