Order to your delivery rate, not your lot count. A 200-vehicle lot does not need 200 frames — it needs enough frames to cover the cars it delivers between now and the next shipment, plus a buffer. Work out your monthly delivery volume, multiply by your reorder cycle in months, add a cushion, and order that.
The trap at both ends is real: order too few and you are handing out unbranded cars while a 2-to-3-week production run finishes; order too many and you have a pallet of frames with last year's domain on them.
How many plate frames does a 200-car lot actually need?
It depends on turn rate, not inventory size. A store holding 200 units that delivers 60 cars a month needs roughly 60 frames a month. A store holding the same 200 units but delivering 25 a month needs fewer than half that. Inventory count tells you how many cars are sitting there; delivery count tells you how many frames leave the building.
Start with the number you already track: units sold last month, or the average of the last three months. That figure, not the lot count, is the input to every calculation below.
What is the formula for a frame order?
Monthly deliveries, times the number of months you want the shipment to cover, plus a buffer for the lead time and for waste. Written out:
Order quantity = (monthly deliveries x months of coverage) + (monthly deliveries x 1 month of lead-time buffer)
The extra month of buffer exists because production and shipping run 2 to 3 weeks from order confirmation. If you reorder the day you run out, you are unbranded for most of a month.
| Monthly deliveries | 3-month coverage | Plus 1-month buffer | Order roughly |
|---|---|---|---|
| 25 | 75 | 25 | 100 |
| 40 | 120 | 40 | 160 |
| 60 | 180 | 60 | 240 |
| 100 | 300 | 100 | 400 |
These are arithmetic examples, not benchmarks. Substitute your own delivery number and the math holds.
How do I work out my real frame usage rate?
- Pull three months of delivery counts from your DMS. New and used, both, if both get frames.
- Average them. One month is noise; three months is a rate.
- Subtract the deliveries that do not get a frame. Wholesale units, auction cars, and some fleet deliveries usually do not.
- Add non-delivery uses. Service loaners, courtesy vehicles, employee cars, damaged frames, and the ones that walk off.
- Add a waste allowance. Frames get bent during install, dropped, or mismatched. A small allowance is realistic; zero is not.
- Round to the next volume tier if the tier break is close. More on that below.
How do volume price tiers change the right order size?
Pricing is volume-based and shown live in the builder, so the per-frame cost falls as the quantity rises. That creates a genuine decision point: if your calculated quantity lands just under a tier break, the next tier up can cost less in total than the smaller order.
Change the quantity in the builder and watch both numbers — price per frame and order total. When a higher quantity produces a lower total, take it. When it only produces a lower per-unit price on a much larger total, that is a cash-flow decision, not a savings.
The honest limit on this logic: a cheaper per-frame price on frames you will not use for three years is not a saving. Which brings up the real risk.
What is the actual cost of over-ordering?
Obsolescence, not storage. Frames are small and cheap to keep. What kills a large stockpile is a change to the information printed on it — and dealerships change that information more often than they expect.
- The store is sold or rebranded. Every frame with the old name is scrap.
- The phone number or area code changes.
- The website domain changes after a new site vendor.
- The franchise adds or drops a brand.
- Corporate updates the logo and your frames are now off-standard.
- The address changes after a move or a second rooftop opens.
This is the argument for ordering three to six months of coverage rather than three years of it. The volume discount on a two-year supply is real. So is the chance that something on the frame changes inside two years.
Should I order once a year or several times a year?
| Approach | Advantage | Risk |
|---|---|---|
| One large annual order | Best per-frame price, one purchase order | Obsolescence, cash tied up, running out mid-year |
| Quarterly orders | Balances price and flexibility | Requires someone to remember to reorder |
| Recurring subscription | Never runs out, no one has to remember | Needs a usage rate you trust |
| Reactive reordering | Nothing sits on a shelf | Gaps during the 2-3 week lead time |
For most single-rooftop stores, quarterly coverage on a recurring schedule is the practical middle. Frontline Frames offers subscriptions on monthly, bimonthly, quarterly, and semiannual cycles, which removes the failure mode where the frames run out because the person who used to reorder them left.
How do I split an order across new, used, and service?
Decide whether those departments get the same frame or different ones before you calculate quantities. Same frame is simpler and hits volume tiers faster. Different frames — for example, plastic for used inventory and metal for new-car deliveries — means two designs and two quantity calculations.
If you split, run each design's math separately, then check the tier pricing on each. Two 100-unit orders may price differently than one 200-unit order, and the builder shows you that difference immediately.
What should I do before placing the first order?
- Confirm every piece of printed information is current and expected to stay current: name, domain, phone, logo.
- Get sign-off on the design from whoever will object later.
- Calculate the quantity from delivery rate, not lot count.
- Check the tier break just above your number.
- Decide where the frames will live and who controls them.
- Set the reorder trigger — a date, a shelf count, or a subscription.
Step six is the one most dealers skip, and it is why a lot that ordered plenty of frames still runs out.
Where should the frames be stored once they arrive?
Somewhere controlled, counted, and close to where cars get prepped. The two common setups are a locked cabinet in the porter area with one person holding the key, or an open shelf in the detail bay with a count taped to the wall. Both work. What does not work is a stack in a hallway that nobody owns.
Keep the boxes closed and off the floor. Frames stack well and take almost no space, so storage is rarely the constraint — visibility is. If nobody can tell at a glance whether there are 40 left or 400, the reorder trigger never fires on time.
How do I know when to reorder?
Set a physical trigger rather than a calendar reminder. Count out one month of frames, band them together, and put a note on the bundle that says "reorder now." When someone breaks into that bundle, the order goes in, and the 2-to-3 week lead time is covered by the frames in the bundle.
This works better than a date on a calendar because it self-adjusts. A strong sales month burns through the stock faster and triggers the reorder earlier, which is exactly what you want. A slow month pushes it out. The trigger tracks reality instead of an assumption made last quarter.
What is the simplest way to get this right?
Take your average monthly deliveries, multiply by four, and enter that in the builder. You will see the price for three months of coverage plus a lead-time buffer, and you can nudge the quantity up or down to see where the tier breaks fall. If the number looks right, set it as a recurring quarterly order so the next one arrives before you need it.