Do you like the fabric pricing trend?
01-25-2011, 08:37 AM
#41
Super Member
Join Date: Apr 2010
Location: In Hiding
Posts: 1,210
Most online shops will price by the half yard if you look at their place where you are to type in the quanity you desire. This has been done for a number of years now. Even on ebay you have to watch because some people charge by the half yard but you are also able to purchase full yards obviously by multiplying times two when you type in the quanity you want. Course many times the yard price is way over what you might want to pay.
The point is read, read, read on any site you order from. They all seem to have developed different methods in how you put in the exact amount you want. Also many quilters have wanted quarter yards and many businesses have developed their amounts/prices to reflect the many choices quilters desire. Just as many people have said on this board they go to a box store and request as little as a few inches of many different fabrics. So maybe in some way we have shot ourselves in our on feet for this situation.
We all have the responsibility to read and understand what any particular shop states in their purchasing area. We do a dis-service to ourselves when we don't throughly read everything on websites that clarifies their particular methods of doing business including shipping. Then it is our choice to to business with them or not.
Regarding food prices, cosmetics, perfume and whatever else one might purchase it's all gone up and the amounts are lower in the product. Seems to be the way anymore. So we just have to be savy shoppers and educate ourselves as to getting the best deal for our money as we possibly can.
The point is read, read, read on any site you order from. They all seem to have developed different methods in how you put in the exact amount you want. Also many quilters have wanted quarter yards and many businesses have developed their amounts/prices to reflect the many choices quilters desire. Just as many people have said on this board they go to a box store and request as little as a few inches of many different fabrics. So maybe in some way we have shot ourselves in our on feet for this situation.
We all have the responsibility to read and understand what any particular shop states in their purchasing area. We do a dis-service to ourselves when we don't throughly read everything on websites that clarifies their particular methods of doing business including shipping. Then it is our choice to to business with them or not.
Regarding food prices, cosmetics, perfume and whatever else one might purchase it's all gone up and the amounts are lower in the product. Seems to be the way anymore. So we just have to be savy shoppers and educate ourselves as to getting the best deal for our money as we possibly can.
01-25-2011, 09:11 AM
#42
Senior Member
Join Date: May 2010
Location: Montana
Posts: 913
I haven't seen this yet with fabrics but I do think it is more of those mind games that are going on. I hate the fact that we are not only getting less when we purchase something but also paying more. Too bad we just sit and take this sort of thing as another "we can't do anything about it"
01-25-2011, 09:23 AM
#43
Super Member
Join Date: Jun 2010
Location: Western Nevada
Posts: 2,520
Lots of conspiracy theories flying around on this one too, I see. :mrgreen:
Hey, they're not out to get you, they're not trying to fool you, they're not trying to downsize you or make you spend more...
The real reason a lot of online shops, like ours, price by the unit rather than by the yard is pretty simple;
It's a limitation of most shopping cart software systems. Since almost all products sold on the web are sold by the "each" rather than by fractions of an "each," most of the best, most reasonably priced, easy to maintain and use shopping cart systems are oriented toward selling by units.
And since, in fabrics, the most useful unit of sale if you're limited to selling by the unit, the one that is the most useful for the buyer and the seller is 1/2 yard, a lot of stores tend to sell by the half-yard, with a half-yard minimum and 1/2 yard increments.
Even stores that sell in any fraction often have a 1/2 yard minimum order. This is because the labor taken to cut a quarter yard or eighth yard of fabric is the same as a 1/2 yard, and a cut smaller than a half-yard doesn't produce enough profit to pay for the labor involved. Additionally, a smaller cut is more prone to requiring trimming to straighten the pattern once you get it home and adding the half-inch to the cut needed to allow trimming room, on a smaller fractional cut, is very unprofitable.
There are only a couple of cart systems that allow fractional sales, and they tend to be oriented toward fabrics and are either severely limited in their other features, quite expensive, or "cookie-cutter" in their appearance and functionality.
We've been after the developers of our cart system for years to implement fractional sales, but it's a significant piece of programming and doesn't benefit most online stores (since most online stores sell things that are based on units,) so they haven't done it. On the other end, we like a lot of the other ease-of-use features our cart system offers, so it's a tradeoff. We could have a modification custom-made to our cart system, but it's very expensive.
I don't know if other stores do it, but we take the time to clearly mark all our yardage fabrics, in bold print, on every fabric, what the increment and sale unit is, so this helps people not make the mistake of thinking they're ordering a yard when they're actually ordering a half-yard.
If you think about it, a little bell should go off in your head if you see a first-run, high-end fabric priced at $4.49 when the same thing is marked 10.95 or 11.95 in local Brick and Mortar stores, shouldn't you? And if you do the math, you should also figure out that 2 x say $4.49 = $8.98 is still a really good price for fabrics selling for up to three dollars more per yard in B&M stores.
Hey, they're not out to get you, they're not trying to fool you, they're not trying to downsize you or make you spend more...
The real reason a lot of online shops, like ours, price by the unit rather than by the yard is pretty simple;
It's a limitation of most shopping cart software systems. Since almost all products sold on the web are sold by the "each" rather than by fractions of an "each," most of the best, most reasonably priced, easy to maintain and use shopping cart systems are oriented toward selling by units.
And since, in fabrics, the most useful unit of sale if you're limited to selling by the unit, the one that is the most useful for the buyer and the seller is 1/2 yard, a lot of stores tend to sell by the half-yard, with a half-yard minimum and 1/2 yard increments.
Even stores that sell in any fraction often have a 1/2 yard minimum order. This is because the labor taken to cut a quarter yard or eighth yard of fabric is the same as a 1/2 yard, and a cut smaller than a half-yard doesn't produce enough profit to pay for the labor involved. Additionally, a smaller cut is more prone to requiring trimming to straighten the pattern once you get it home and adding the half-inch to the cut needed to allow trimming room, on a smaller fractional cut, is very unprofitable.
There are only a couple of cart systems that allow fractional sales, and they tend to be oriented toward fabrics and are either severely limited in their other features, quite expensive, or "cookie-cutter" in their appearance and functionality.
We've been after the developers of our cart system for years to implement fractional sales, but it's a significant piece of programming and doesn't benefit most online stores (since most online stores sell things that are based on units,) so they haven't done it. On the other end, we like a lot of the other ease-of-use features our cart system offers, so it's a tradeoff. We could have a modification custom-made to our cart system, but it's very expensive.
I don't know if other stores do it, but we take the time to clearly mark all our yardage fabrics, in bold print, on every fabric, what the increment and sale unit is, so this helps people not make the mistake of thinking they're ordering a yard when they're actually ordering a half-yard.
If you think about it, a little bell should go off in your head if you see a first-run, high-end fabric priced at $4.49 when the same thing is marked 10.95 or 11.95 in local Brick and Mortar stores, shouldn't you? And if you do the math, you should also figure out that 2 x say $4.49 = $8.98 is still a really good price for fabrics selling for up to three dollars more per yard in B&M stores.
01-25-2011, 10:49 AM
#44
Senior Member
Join Date: May 2010
Location: Montana
Posts: 913
What you say is interesting, but like most people who buy yardage we would rather stay with it being by the yard. I do understand that we are in a time of changes but the customers usually aren't the ones who want these changes. We are comfortabnle with buying our fabrics by the yard because that is what we are used to and find the easiest way to figure our costs. It used to be that what customers wanted was what was given, but it appears that doesn't count in the decisions of those who are changing things.
Originally Posted by quiltmaker
Most online shops will price by the half yard if you look at their place where you are to type in the quanity you desire. This has been done for a number of years now. Even on ebay you have to watch because some people charge by the half yard but you are also able to purchase full yards obviously by multiplying times two when you type in the quanity you want. Course many times the yard price is way over what you might want to pay.
The point is read, read, read on any site you order from. They all seem to have developed different methods in how you put in the exact amount you want. Also many quilters have wanted quarter yards and many businesses have developed their amounts/prices to reflect the many choices quilters desire. Just as many people have said on this board they go to a box store and request as little as a few inches of many different fabrics. So maybe in some way we have shot ourselves in our on feet for this situation.
We all have the responsibility to read and understand what any particular shop states in their purchasing area. We do a dis-service to ourselves when we don't throughly read everything on websites that clarifies their particular methods of doing business including shipping. Then it is our choice to to business with them or not.
Regarding food prices, cosmetics, perfume and whatever else one might purchase it's all gone up and the amounts are lower in the product. Seems to be the way anymore. So we just have to be savy shoppers and educate ourselves as to getting the best deal for our money as we possibly can.
The point is read, read, read on any site you order from. They all seem to have developed different methods in how you put in the exact amount you want. Also many quilters have wanted quarter yards and many businesses have developed their amounts/prices to reflect the many choices quilters desire. Just as many people have said on this board they go to a box store and request as little as a few inches of many different fabrics. So maybe in some way we have shot ourselves in our on feet for this situation.
We all have the responsibility to read and understand what any particular shop states in their purchasing area. We do a dis-service to ourselves when we don't throughly read everything on websites that clarifies their particular methods of doing business including shipping. Then it is our choice to to business with them or not.
Regarding food prices, cosmetics, perfume and whatever else one might purchase it's all gone up and the amounts are lower in the product. Seems to be the way anymore. So we just have to be savy shoppers and educate ourselves as to getting the best deal for our money as we possibly can.
01-25-2011, 11:22 AM
#45
Super Member
Join Date: Jan 2011
Location: 25 yrs in TN; now back home in MI
Posts: 1,871
I believe shop owners are trying the hide the actual cost per yard. That's where math comes in handy! I've been to some sites where the actual unit is hard to discern. I have to scout the site to find the unit. Some don't show up until you're in purchase mode.
What can we do? Write an email and tell the shop owner what you were willing spend. Explain to the shop owner you will not purchase from them unless they are upfront with costs. A chorus of voices will initate change.
------------------------------------------------
I received an email from a shop owner. Here is an exerpt.
"You’ve probably heard by now that the price of quilt shop quality fabric is going up. The first reason for the increase is because the price of cotton has gone up. The second reason, according to a discussion I had recently with one of my salesmen, is that China controls the majority of the greige goods on which quilt shop fabric is printed.
We tend to want the newest fabrics that come out, but those newest fabrics will soon be hitting your local quilt shops at no less than $10 per yard. This same salesman told me that by the end of the year our fabric will be $12 per yard. I’m telling you this for several reasons. 1) Being armed with this information ahead of time will keep you from thinking that we shop owners think highly of our fabric and are charging accordingly. 2) If you have holes in your stash you might want to fill them as soon as possible. While I do not raise the price of older fabrics I’ve been told some shops do. 3) You can begin now to decide how many cups of that expensive coffee you really need each week and whether or not you could do without a couple so you can spend that money on fabric instead. Fabric won’t harm your health, but coffee raises the level of cortisol and insulin in your body. These hormones accelerate the aging process and store body fat. Who needs that!? Yes, fabric is much safer and much better for you.
What’s a quilter to do? If you like a certain quilt shop, or several certain quilt shops, support them wholeheartedly. Don’t bankrupt yourself trying to do it single handedly, enlist the aid of all your fellow quilters or quilter wanna-be’s. Take a road trip or two each month to your favorite shop(s). Tell anyone who will listen to you whose shop(s) you like and why. Generating business for your favorite shop will help that shop stay in business. If the shops have to have sales all the time to get you to darken their doors it won’t be long before they either quit buying new fabric or they close all together. No retail shop can stay afloat by just covering their costs, if they’re lucky, and not making a little profit with which to purchase new goods.
I understand about budgets…boy do I understand! While you’re adjusting your budget shops have to adjust their budgets as well. While you buy one marking pen at a time we buy six. You buy one pack of needles, we buy twelve. While you buy a quarter yard of one print at a time we buy fifteen yards of one print at a time. I’ve seen two salesmen in the past couple of weeks and it was very hard to say no to the fabrics that they were showing me, but when I added up what each bolt would cost, making myself just a bit queasy in the process, it got easier and easier. We’ll be getting new fabrics in soon but not as much as I’d like to see coming through the door and definitely not as much as I feel we need in order to fill your needs and wants. "
I don’t mean to be preaching at you, I really don’t, so please don’t take it that way. But I think you need to understand why the fabric portion of the quilting world is about to change, possibly on a bigger scale than we can imagine. Manufacturers are already showing us goods that won’t ship for six to nine months whereas it used to be four to six at most. That’s because they have to know how much fabric to print so they can find and purchase the amount of quality greige goods they need to fulfill their customer’s orders. The days of their having lots of fabric left over that shops can keep purchasing even after a group is several months old are probably gone, maybe forever. They cannot afford to have fabric sitting around in their warehouse and from what I’ve been told they’re trying to keep the excess fabric down to a minimum. That means that the shop owner is going to have to buy all they need of a group when given the opportunity because obtaining it, or more of it, at a later date will probably not be an option. The days of, “Oh, I’ll get that the next time I come in,” are soon coming to an end if you happen to be referring to a new group. I found that to be true this past May when a Christmas group came in and I tried to get more of a couple of the pieces within a day or two of its arrival. It didn’t happen because only so much had been printed and since it was a Christmas print they were not going to print any more. Staples in the lineup of a specific manufacturer can be repurchased for the most part, but even these are having some of the colors cut and we might not know that until we go to reorder. Bottom line, buy enough when you get the opportunity to cover what your pattern says you need and a bit more, just in case."
end of excerpt
What can we do? Write an email and tell the shop owner what you were willing spend. Explain to the shop owner you will not purchase from them unless they are upfront with costs. A chorus of voices will initate change.
------------------------------------------------
I received an email from a shop owner. Here is an exerpt.
"You’ve probably heard by now that the price of quilt shop quality fabric is going up. The first reason for the increase is because the price of cotton has gone up. The second reason, according to a discussion I had recently with one of my salesmen, is that China controls the majority of the greige goods on which quilt shop fabric is printed.
We tend to want the newest fabrics that come out, but those newest fabrics will soon be hitting your local quilt shops at no less than $10 per yard. This same salesman told me that by the end of the year our fabric will be $12 per yard. I’m telling you this for several reasons. 1) Being armed with this information ahead of time will keep you from thinking that we shop owners think highly of our fabric and are charging accordingly. 2) If you have holes in your stash you might want to fill them as soon as possible. While I do not raise the price of older fabrics I’ve been told some shops do. 3) You can begin now to decide how many cups of that expensive coffee you really need each week and whether or not you could do without a couple so you can spend that money on fabric instead. Fabric won’t harm your health, but coffee raises the level of cortisol and insulin in your body. These hormones accelerate the aging process and store body fat. Who needs that!? Yes, fabric is much safer and much better for you.
What’s a quilter to do? If you like a certain quilt shop, or several certain quilt shops, support them wholeheartedly. Don’t bankrupt yourself trying to do it single handedly, enlist the aid of all your fellow quilters or quilter wanna-be’s. Take a road trip or two each month to your favorite shop(s). Tell anyone who will listen to you whose shop(s) you like and why. Generating business for your favorite shop will help that shop stay in business. If the shops have to have sales all the time to get you to darken their doors it won’t be long before they either quit buying new fabric or they close all together. No retail shop can stay afloat by just covering their costs, if they’re lucky, and not making a little profit with which to purchase new goods.
I understand about budgets…boy do I understand! While you’re adjusting your budget shops have to adjust their budgets as well. While you buy one marking pen at a time we buy six. You buy one pack of needles, we buy twelve. While you buy a quarter yard of one print at a time we buy fifteen yards of one print at a time. I’ve seen two salesmen in the past couple of weeks and it was very hard to say no to the fabrics that they were showing me, but when I added up what each bolt would cost, making myself just a bit queasy in the process, it got easier and easier. We’ll be getting new fabrics in soon but not as much as I’d like to see coming through the door and definitely not as much as I feel we need in order to fill your needs and wants. "
I don’t mean to be preaching at you, I really don’t, so please don’t take it that way. But I think you need to understand why the fabric portion of the quilting world is about to change, possibly on a bigger scale than we can imagine. Manufacturers are already showing us goods that won’t ship for six to nine months whereas it used to be four to six at most. That’s because they have to know how much fabric to print so they can find and purchase the amount of quality greige goods they need to fulfill their customer’s orders. The days of their having lots of fabric left over that shops can keep purchasing even after a group is several months old are probably gone, maybe forever. They cannot afford to have fabric sitting around in their warehouse and from what I’ve been told they’re trying to keep the excess fabric down to a minimum. That means that the shop owner is going to have to buy all they need of a group when given the opportunity because obtaining it, or more of it, at a later date will probably not be an option. The days of, “Oh, I’ll get that the next time I come in,” are soon coming to an end if you happen to be referring to a new group. I found that to be true this past May when a Christmas group came in and I tried to get more of a couple of the pieces within a day or two of its arrival. It didn’t happen because only so much had been printed and since it was a Christmas print they were not going to print any more. Staples in the lineup of a specific manufacturer can be repurchased for the most part, but even these are having some of the colors cut and we might not know that until we go to reorder. Bottom line, buy enough when you get the opportunity to cover what your pattern says you need and a bit more, just in case."
end of excerpt
01-25-2011, 12:07 PM
#46
Super Member
Join Date: Jun 2010
Location: Western Nevada
Posts: 2,520
No one is trying to hide the true price per yard from you. As I explained in my post above, online shops price goods by the half-yard mostly as a function of the way their shopping carts work. There is no devious reason.
Prices are going up, way up, and shop owners are forced to raise the prices or go out of business, it's as simple as that.
As far as the email you got from your shop owner, the entire thing is true. I might add that when stocks of old overstock fabrics run out, you'll no longer be seeing the big sales you do today all over the place. The fabric industry is undergoing a big shakeout, and in the end, quilting fabric is going to cost a lot more than it does today. We just got a price increase of 50 cents a yard on most fabrics after getting a big one just a couple months ago. The manufacturers/distributors are raising their prices on their current stocks as well, so you will see prices raise on replacement stocks of the same yardage as shop owners are forced to pay more to replace fast-selling and standard items like blenders, etc.
Prices are going up, way up, and shop owners are forced to raise the prices or go out of business, it's as simple as that.
As far as the email you got from your shop owner, the entire thing is true. I might add that when stocks of old overstock fabrics run out, you'll no longer be seeing the big sales you do today all over the place. The fabric industry is undergoing a big shakeout, and in the end, quilting fabric is going to cost a lot more than it does today. We just got a price increase of 50 cents a yard on most fabrics after getting a big one just a couple months ago. The manufacturers/distributors are raising their prices on their current stocks as well, so you will see prices raise on replacement stocks of the same yardage as shop owners are forced to pay more to replace fast-selling and standard items like blenders, etc.
01-25-2011, 02:57 PM
#50
Super Member
Join Date: Jan 2009
Posts: 4,688
Originally Posted by quiltingnana1
Unless I really have to have the fabric, I don't purchase "by the unit." I don't like that form of pricing!
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