Originally Posted by feline fanatic
Yeah. You're right about that!
I imagine that what it looks like from the manufacturers perspective is that you look around and watch all the competition... and hope that they all raise their prices first. That drives more business to those makers who have NOT yet raised prices. However... they can't absorb the loss, not for long, without damaging themselves significantly. So then they go and raise prices too.
I hate to say this... but it looks like nearly all of the major brands are going to have wholesale prices at or above the $5 / yard level by early 2011. Which, of course, means that retail prices will be crossing that awful $10 / yard level in most shops.
Yes, there are stores (Thousands of Bolts, Marshalls etc) that buy the closeouts, but there will be more competition for those limited amounts of goods... and even there, the manufacters are not going to be able to sell off the closeouts as inexpensively as before.