Originally Posted by QKO
Not only have fabric prices increased dramatically in the last two years, it also costs a lot more to get them shipped in to the store. Most shops have seen their shipping prices increase at the same rate as their fabric prices.
We've quit buying from east coast distributors and are focusing on west coast distributed products just because of the shipping costs, except for specific items that we want that have to be shipped in from overseas.
And we're on the east coast, so it's exactly the same situation but in reverse. The west coast brands we can't live without are RJR, Hoffman, South Sea Imports & Wilmington, and Robert Kaufman.
With RJR, we have a choice of buying directly from them and incurring shipping costs of about 35 cents / yard, or we can order their products through an east-coast distributor and less than half as much in shipping. (With the savings, we can re-stock the office candy jar!)
But for South Seas and Kaufman, the east-coast distributors charge more for the fabrics than what I would pay buying it directly. Guess what? The difference in price is just about what the shipping cost would be. So it's a wash. No bargain to be had.
Wilmington only sells direct; you can't get their product through distributors so we have no other options.