ghostrider

There are two separate discussions going on here...the original one about unit pricing fabric at a half yard instead of a full yard, and the offshoot one about how things, mostly grocery items, are being sold in smaller quantities in order to keep costs down for consumers. I speak to the first (please correct me if I am wrong, QKO).

QKO has made it perfectly clear that it is the shopping cart software on fabric sites that forces the merchants to make a decision about what to use as the smallest unit of pricing. The software is simply not capable of handling 'partial unit' sales.

Look at it this way, if the merchant were to decide to use full yards as their pricing unit, as most of you say you want, you would be forced to buy ONLY full yards of fabric from that site. It would be impossible for you to buy 2½ yards of anything. You couldn't do it because the merchants software wouldn't know how to make it happen.

So, the merchant has to decide whether he will lose more sales to people who won't accept half yard pricing or to those who are looking to buy something other than full yards. My guess is that, checking his sales records, the merchant has determined that a great many people buy fabric in quantities that end in a half yard so that is what he chose as the unit...the half yard. It gives the customer much more flexibility in the quantity they are able to buy.

Would you really prefer to only be able to buy in full yard units just so you don't have to multiply by 2 to figure out the price per yard?

Scissor Queen

There are two separate discussions going on here...the original one about unit pricing fabric at a half yard instead of a full yard, and the offshoot one about how things, mostly grocery items, are being sold in smaller quantities in order to keep costs down for consumers. I speak to the first (please correct me if I am wrong, QKO).

QKO has made it perfectly clear that it is the shopping cart software on fabric sites that forces the merchants to make a decision about what to use as the smallest unit of pricing. The software is simply not capable of handling 'partial unit' sales.

Look at it this way, if the merchant were to decide to use full yards as their pricing unit, as most of you say you want, you would be forced to buy ONLY full yards of fabric from that site. It would be impossible for you to buy 2½ yards of anything. You couldn't do it because the merchants software wouldn't know how to make it happen.

So, the merchant has to decide whether he will lose more sales to people who won't accept half yard pricing or to those who are looking to buy something other than full yards. My guess is that, checking his sales records, the merchant has determined that a great many people buy fabric in quantities that end in a half yard so that is what he chose as the unit...the half yard. It gives the customer much more flexibility in the quantity they are able to buy.

Would you really prefer to only be able to buy in full yard units just so you don't have to multiply by 2 to figure out the price per yard?[/quote]

No matter what a merchant does people are going to complain about it. Most merchants don't sell quarter yards. If they did then the smallest unit would be a quarter yard and then everybody would have to multiply by 4.

Sometimes I think people just want something to complain about on here since complaint topics seem to get more responses.

Texasjunebug

No, actually complaining is my least favorite thing to do - and I do little of it, because my patience level is not very high. If a store advertises a print for $4.38 - I expect it to be for one yard. If I find out they got my attention with a price I can afford, and I wasted my time to visit their site, and find out the price is for 1/4 yard (anything other than 1 yard) - it is false advertising. One Ebay store advertises $1.00 - when you get to their store, the $1.00 is for a 4x4 sample piece. That is false advertising cloaked in the overall theme of bidding. That is deceptive - people will state the unreasonable of it - and the market makers need to listen. Plain and simple. Price the fabric per yard, and state your policy on less than one yard. If a store has an obsolete pricing software - they need to upgrade it. Does anyone think fabric inventory is run on 1/4 yard? When more than a few consumers complain - think maybe there could be a real issue? I do.

Baloonatic

I finally got to go to Olive Garden again with some friends last week. Yay! We had been longarming hard all morning and decided to treat ourselves for Work Well Done! I haven't been there in 2 years. My meal was called Chicken Toscani or something, there were only three tiny pieces of chicken in the entire dish (each 1 x 2 inches)! AND I think it was $12; the price had gone up by at least $2. I don't know if I'll return there anytime soon! :(

patdesign

IMHO it is a way to catch the unwarry off guard and sell them more fabric because the purchaser thinks it is a great buy. I personally will not purchase from a seller who does this. If they are really serious about not being deceptive, they can always include the price per yard in the description. I have a web site that does not allow me to price my shipping amounts separately, so I include the shipping amount within the description so as to avoid unhappy customers.

Scissor Queen

I just ordered from Hancocks of Paducah. Those big red letters that say HALF YARD are sure designed to catch people off guard.

ghostrider

[img]http://www.pic4ever.com/images/25r30wi.gif[/img]My thoughts exactly!

patchy-at-best

gidday from oz!..

i'm hearing you girls!!..the relatively few quilt shops we have here are horrendously expensive AND dont carry a good range of what is actually available out there..

so i buy quite a lot of my fabric on ebay, from both here in oz and from the states..including postage this is usually a slightly cheaper option and i can find exactly what i'm after in pretty much the right quantity..ie. 4 fatties = i yard/metre, meaning no waste if i want 1 1/4yds, 5 fatties (yes i check first that their fabric is off the bolt and uncut)..

BUT..recently i have noticed more and more sellers selling by the half yard or worse still, by the full yard only, meaning i end up with between 1/4 and 3/4yd more than i want..this substantially adds to the price especially since i usually buy a number of fabrics from the one seller, and puts the postage thru the roof!..i already have a burgeoning stash, dont need to add to it this way..

so what i'm saying is if sellers, stores and manufacturers are going to sell by units, make the units 1/4 yards or metres, and ALSO spell out the cost per yard/metre straight after..nothing should be sold by only half or full yardage mesasurements...

QKO

I'm sure there is a lot of deceptive advertising out there, but accusing a store of being deceptive when the price is clearly marked in half-yard increments isn't it, plain and simple.

Why not price it in meters? After all, the USA is about the only country left on the old foot system? And the market is world-wide.

As far as "obsolete pricing software" is concerned, since probably 99.9% of the sales on the interweb are done by the unit, developers not spending a lot of time creating specialty pricing software for fabrics being sold according to an obsolete system of measurements isn't surprising.

Apparently not a lot of consumers are complaining, since the two biggest online fabric stores, i.e. fabrics.com and Hancocks both sell in half-yard increments with a half-yard minimum order. Or maybe they both have "obsolete pricing software." Or maybe they're trying to be "deceptive."

Oh, and btw, most stores keep their fabric inventory by the inch, not by the yard.

Uh, ok, I'm done with this subject now...

Texasjunebug

Whatever.