Originally Posted by jaciqltznok
Originally Posted by crafterrn1
Support your local quilt shops or be prepared to shop on-line all the time! Just my Humble Opinion on the matter! Thanks for listening! Luann in CT were 3 quilt shops closed in in past 6 months!
Luann..it takes way more than a few small purchases to keep a shop open. I know, all I had was those small purchases. THe average 1K sq ft shop needs to make about $1,000.00 day in sales just to break even!
Many small shops are closing due to over population of shops...lack of control on their spending, mismanagement, and a vast array of other reasons. It is just always easiest to blame the economy, walmart, or online shops!
For the record, many of us here do not live anywhere close to a LQS,(let alone 3 of them) so if we do not like the big box chain stores, we rely on the online shops. AND many of the online shops that I use are either B&M shops, or used to be B&M shops!
As she said though, it takes MANY small purchases but we can keep shops afloat that are well-managed and struggling. How many people in this thread alone are complaining that they'll never go back to a particular retailer because they are selling at higher prices than they were before? As I've said before, they HAVE to raise prices on old stock in order to buy NEW stock once we've cleaned them out of the old stuff!
LQS can't win in this economy, no matter what they do. All WE can do as consumers is either sacrifice a little each to support them through this, or let them go entirely -- and not pretend we weren't the reason when they're gone.