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Old 01-28-2013, 06:18 AM
  #38  
quiltstringz
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Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: The Colony, TX
Posts: 3,364
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Sounds great but I am not sure you could make it doing all you are asking for. Samples come out of profit, in addition to the fabric do you have someone who is willing to sew for minimum wage? Do you have someone with the time to do it right now while the fabric is still there?

As for classes, I am not sure how other stores do it but in my area the teacher is paid by the student - in addition to that they pay for the supplies (yes there is a discount on those) and labor for the class sample. If you had put in $50 - $60 for your class sample and were getting paid $6/per student per hr would you be willing to give up 4-5 hrs (travel time included) plus $3 - $6 dollars in gas for the $18 (3 hr class) you would make if you only had 1 student.

Would you be willing to make $0 profit to move fabric out of your store so that you could buy newer fabric (and where is that money coming from) that may or may not sell.

Personally as long as the staff are friendly and helpful in my LQS I am shopping there. They may not always have what I want fabric wise, but if they do I will normally (unless I get a smoking deal) buy there. Pattern and notion wise, the stores have minimums that they have to purchase. If I have to buy 6 of a costly item that I know that only 1 person will purchase is that a good use of my funds.

Don't get me wrong, I would love to have all of the things you mentioned but I honestly don't think that we have the big picture on how hard it is to make it as a LQS.
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