1. Prioritize customer care and product quality: Mark emphasizes that success comes from consistently delivering good service and a high-quality product, which builds trust and lasting customer relationships.
2. Solve real market gaps: Mark's success stemmed from identifying a clear market need (13x19 frames) and addressing it. This is crucial for standing out in a competitive landscape.
3. Leverage technology for customization: Offering customization through innovative tech, like Frame Destination’s web app, enhances customer experience and helps businesses stay competitive.
4. Plan for growth and cash flow: Mark stresses the importance of forecasting, warning that rapid growth can lead to negative cash flow. Proper planning helps prevent financial strain.
5. Hire empathetic, team-oriented people: Mark believes empathy and teamwork are essential traits for a strong team, as individuals who care about others are more likely to contribute to a positive work culture.
Meet Mark Rogers, Founder of Frame Destination!
Frame Destination® is an online source of picture frames and framing supplies for hobby and professional photographers, artists, and DIY framers. Besides our large selection of wood picture frames and metal picture frames in standard and custom sizes, we carry temporary and archival mat board, several types of glass and acrylic, mounting board and frame backing, photo storage products and mounting supplies.
Working as a telecom engineer during the Internet bubble, Mark was starting to feel “peaked out.” He remembers, “I came across one of the ‘Rich Dad Poor Dad’ books, which led me to do some personal development.” He was also starting to get serious about photography, was eventually hired for projects, and began selling his work. Around this time, Epson released the first archival inkjet printer, making the lives of amateur photographers, who, like Mark, didn’t have dark rooms, much easier. “The printer’s maximum paper size, 13 x 19 inches, was great for 35 mm cameras because it didn’t crop off the image. It became popular overnight” Mark notes. Back then when you tried to Google 13 x 19 picture frames, nothing came up in the search results.
Identifying a gap in the market and seeing a clear way to solve a problem, Mark set up a picture frame production shop in his garage and started a business, bootstrapping it entirely himself. Within a year, he had a working business model and was able to quit his job to focus fully on selling specialty sized frames. While his timing was perfect for starting this business - neighbors in his condominium building weren’t happy about the enterprise, which was in violation of city code and the HOA ordinance. Moving to a larger space and securing a storage unit was the next step to scaling his business.
Building a Company with Good Customer Service and a Quality Product
When Mark founded Frame Destination in 2004, he faced competition. “People were already selling picture frames; they just weren’t focused on that market. This allowed me to come up number one on the page when people Googled 13 x 19 picture frames.” Eventually, frame manufacturers in China followed Mark’s suit. Today, the company sells even more standard size frames than uniquely sized rectangle that first caught the attention of photographers. Mark reveals the key factor to Frame Destination’s enduring success, “I moved into a longer-term niche, which is good customer service and a quality product. We’re not relying on a big, fancy idea. We’re relying on taking good care of our customers.”
From the very beginning, Mark’s business philosophy has centered on taking care of people. This means taking care of not just his customers, but also his vendors and employees, which is critical because they are the point of contact in all company interactions. Taking a holistic view of CX, he describes Frame Destination’s strategies with a “what goes around, comes around’ mindset.” “I find that if I follow this approach, I tend to be taken care of as well,” he says adding, “So, I want to put out as much good as I possibly can.”
Going the Extra Mile Is the Rule, Not the Exception
At Frame Destination, ‘going the extra mile’ in customer service is always the rule, never the exception. Unfortunately, damage can occur in the process of shipping frames. Leaving finding a resolution up to the customer is out of the question, Mark stresses. “We immediately take care of the issue and will ship out a replacement. We packed it and chose the shipping company – it’s all on us,” he says. “So, we just take care of the customer as quickly as we possibly can.”
Leveraging New Technology in E-Commerce
Asked what excites him most about E-Commerce, Mark begins by discussing how easy it is now for small businesses to get up and running. Technology is a major part of this – Mark confides that he coded the company’s first website. “Now people can have an online store going in just a day – it’s empowering,” he says.
Leveraging the latest in E-Commerce technology, Frame Destination offers customization features for its products. “Our website is a progressive web app, which downloads to your browser. It allows customers to fully build and customize their frames – dimensions, color, matte type, glass type, borders, and offsets,” Mark reveals. “Prices and shipping costs are then calculated in real time.”
Preparing for Peak Season
Manufacturing to order means that Frame Destination doesn’t have to stock actual products, just materials. And because the company sources domestically, it doesn’t have long lead times for materials. Crediting these factors to supporting operations during peak season, Mark goes on to note that they stage promotions to pull in orders ahead of busy periods. “There is still a bit of a crunch around Black Friday,” he adds. “But people are looking more for a good deal than a rush order. They can tag for rush, but in general, everyone is understanding that it may take a few days longer for an order to get shipped out.”
Balancing Expansion and Cash Flow
Mark’s primary goal for Frame Destination is to improve the company’s cash flow and cash reserves. While he advises against it, Mark was able to make bootstrapping a business work in the beginning because Frame Destination was a small operation. A big bump in sales during COVID pushed the company to move to a bigger facility. With people returning to post-pandemic life and less preoccupied with changing their home interiors, sales have since fallen off a bit. Now, the business is a much larger entity, Mark says, and looking ahead, he aims to balance overall growth and expansion.
Advice for Aspiring E-Commerce Entrepreneurs
Mark’s clear-cut advice for aspiring E-Commerce entrepreneurs is “go look at the top reasons businesses fail and don’t do those” explaining that countless studies have been made and turned into books on the topic. Many businesses don’t do a forecast, and in the early days, are often just making up projections and numbers. “Fortunately, I did that. And what you can see is that when you have excessive growth during those early days, even though you are growing, your cash flow can be negative, which sounds counterintuitive. For example, you have a 50 margin, but you have 4x growth, you are only making enough money to fund 2x growth. So, you need to plan on that and make sure you have a source for that cash.” Lastly, he stresses the importance of educating yourself to prepare for any surprises without getting overwhelmed.
Can’t-Live-Without-Tool? Meditation. You basically control everything in your reality with your mind. And if you don’t have your mind under control, you don’t have your reality under control.
Key Hiring Trait? I look for people who want to work at the company, be part of the team, and have empathy for others. People who are not aware or concerned about the people around them are not useful for our team.
Influential E-Commerce Leader or Brand? I saw that Zappos used to give employees a bonus to quit. I really loved that idea and did it with my own company. I want my team to feel like they are in a win-win situation. They want to work at the company, and not just looking for a paycheck. It’s a way of putting my money where my mouth is. The only person who took me up on the offer was a senior level employee , but we were able to hire someone ready to take us to the next step. The business grows, the person grows – sometimes you grow together, sometimes you don’t. It’s critical to recognize that and have a separation when it’s no longer win-win.
#1 Challenge as an E-Commerce Leader? Remembering to look at myself and hold myself accountable. Because when stuff flows downhill, it’s flowing from me. It’s important to remember that anytime I look at the business and see something I don’t care for, I need to look at myself first and ask how I am contributing.
We're elevating customer experiences at 500 top E-Commerce brands (and counting). Let's see what we can do for you!
Learn MoreBook a call with one of our specialists today to see how TalentPop can assist you with putting together a solution for your customer service needs.
Learn More
.png)
