Well I called and cancelled my order today. After a week they haven't even begun to cut the fabric and I was told they were shipping it yesterday. Lessoned learned.

I have bought fabric and other items from online from smaller quilt shops and have had fabulous results - I will just stick to them from now on.

In this bad economy, you would think everyone would be working harder at good cutomer service.

I used to buy a lot from Hancocks, but now with so many other resources, I don't. Hope that someday these stores wake up and realize the business they've lost due to bad management.

Hm. Interesting. Did they even bother to ask why you were cancelling your order?

I agree, you think they would wake up.

Good for you. I live fairly close and don't go there mainly because they are snippy and arrogant. I also have seen the way the management treats their employees and that made me boil. That is just my opinion. I really dislike the stores where they are filled with their own importance and treat their customers like they don't know anything.

I had a similar horror experience with them on my first and only order. Will never order from them again.

I received an email confirming the cancellation stating that their shipping terms are 5 to 10 business days. I sent them the following email

Your shipping terms are unfortunate, I have bought fabric online from several companies and normally within two days the order is cut and shipped. The last company I purchased from shipped the same day and I had my order that week.

Respectfully
Suzy M

The difference is those small online shops probably don't have several hundred orders a day. When you go into Hancocks of Paducah you see all these women with shopping carts shopping. There are probably 15 to 20 women in there "shopping." Then you take a closer look and realize they're "shopping" with someone's order in their hand.

Gee, I have always had quick and great service from them. Going to make me think twice now.

This close to the quilt show, they are overwhelmed but you'd think they would have the quilt show explosion down by now. I overheard one of the managers talking last year that they couldn't find any any temp workers to work the month of the show and the temps they did have didn't know anything about fabric or notions and wasted time asking what to do and having to have someone check their work. Most of the workers were older ladies and not that speedy. The workers that did know what was going on were so busy they were exhausted from day to day.

I guess my problem is that on Monday I was told my order was ready to cut, on Tuesday I was told that it shipped, and today I was told that they hadn't even started it.

I bet you got a temp that answered your call. :lol: :-P :lol:

I read an article recently that said fast food has made us an impatient society. I can remember when the norm for "mail order" was 4 to 6 weeks and I'm not that old.

My problem with them wasn't delivery time, but a shockingly poor customer service experience. With so many other choices available for fabric shopping online, having to deal with this kind of junk from any retailer is a thing of the past. They simply won't get any of my money in the future.

I've never had anything but a good experience with them.

yep.

The year I went, they had teen age boys cutting fabric in the back room. I thought that was funny. I ordered a catalog from them over a month ago...still not here. Bummer for them; I've since ordered from Fabric.com & Fabricdepot.com

I don't order from them but I do buy in the store during the Paducah quilt show. I take fabric samples of fabric I would like to have more of and I usually find it in the back room sale tables. I have found some good sales on Moda jelly rolls and batik fabric scrap bags. I think their patterns/notions are a little pricey. Just being there during the quilt show week is something to experience.
The first year I went the back room fabric was $2 a yard. Last year I think it was $5 a yard. That's too much for it to be considered bargain table fabric.

And I bet their "bargain" fabric will be $6 a yard this year!! Our group usually goes there when we're in Paducah but I usually spend any money I have left at the Hobby Lobby down the road....they have some wonderful deals going during quilt week :D

i wrote a note on a fabric order tablet.to the people that worked at hancocks. i handed it to the manager and walked out and ask if they had to go to school to learn to be rude to customers before they could work there

I ordered from them for the first time about two weeks ago - two items. I thought they were pretty slow but the package finally arrived. Only one of the items was in the package and the other was backordered. I was really annoyed since they didn't tell me that when I ordered. They gave me no idea when to expect the second item. I sent them a note and asked about the timeline, and also asked why they didn't offer me an easy way to cancel the rest of the order. The reply was that they didn't know when I would get it and that I couldn't cancel by computer - I would have to call.

I replied and told them that I was dissatisfied by the response and by the expectation that I should have to make a special call to cancel when they can take the order and my money by computer. Then I canceled (by email) and don't plan to order from them again.

I haven't ordered from them in probably 15 years, I was happy with them then. Back then their prices beat any quilt shop around, but now they are as expensive as my local shops, and the shipping has to be added on. I like to do scrappy quilts so I use 1/4 yard cuts a lot, and they won't cut 1/4's. I understand that it is more cuts for not a lot of money, but last week I ordered $75.00 worth of batiks, in 1/4 yd. cuts from somewhere else.

I used to work for a catalog company (not a fabric company!) but the standard for mail order is to process the orders and get the merchandise out as quickly as possible.

Managers from catalog companies meet yearly (like conventions) and love to brag about how quickly they can fulfill orders.

Companies that can't ship within a day or two are doing something wrong. Try another company!

Jois

Once I ordered fabric from Hancocks of Paducah. First of all the pieces of fabric arrived spreaded over several months. What do you do when you planned to make a quilt from this fabric ? I doesn't work. Second most of the colors looked very different to the pictures in the catalog.
The fabric is still sitting in my stash. And the lesson I learned : Never ever Hancock again ! :-( :thumbdown:
I prefer to visit my local quiltshop. I can pick from five shops in my area , the furthest only 11 mi.

Well, you are very lucky. Where I am we have a Joann's and a lovely but way too small real quilt shop. I shop on line for almost all fabrics for quilts and pick up what I can for other things at Joann's.

I had high hopes when Joann's pulled out all of their fat quarters but they later returned the same quality and often the same fabrics for a higher price. Sorry guys, but I don't think women run Joann's.

Jois

Actually, shopping one of their stores is a nightmare. I appreciate the fact that they carry so many fabrics due to people making cothes, etc. Even wedding gown fabrics, etc. BUT, half the store is dedicated to misc. furiture, part towards three brands of sewing machines, loads of threads and buttons, loads of patterns for clothes making, and one small corner for quilters. The store has no more then 2, possibly 3 people working in any given time and there is always a back up at the cutting table and the cash register.

To what chain store are you referring?

Hancocks of Paducah chain, the store in the area of Pasadena, MD is one and a friend of mine shopped another one a fair distance away and she had the same problems..

Hancocks of Paducah is not a chain. It's a single store in Paducah Kentucky.

Hancock Fabrics is a chain owned by different people.

I had an item that was backordered, no estimate on delivery date. But in my searching, several places had discontinued the item I ordered. I didn't expect to ever see it. Three or four months later it showed up...no email, just happened to see the debit in my bank account. I didn't have very good experience with their customer service either. Ask a question and the answer didn't go with the question. Love their catalogs, but haven't shopped there since.

Like others have said, many places will ship so quickly I'll have my order in 2-3 days.

thank you... I really thought these were a chain of stores. So if I were to write and comment politely, it would seem now that it would be a waste of writing snce the manager of the store is the one that would get it and she's not really the most pleasant of people to be around.

Ahhh the delight of finding quilting fabric within a decent distance. But there's always the interest and there are online stores that have the very same first fabrics that sell for $9.50 in some of the sites and $7.45 in others. But thank you for bringing that to my attention. Never to old to learn something new.

It's not all bad out there. I ordered a cutting mat, kaleidoscope ruler, a ruler and some rotary cutter blades. I was horrified when I realized I had ordered two kaleidoscope rulers. I sent Hancock fabrics an E mail and they fixed it in one day. I wasn't charged for the second ruler and got my order in four days. It's not all bad.

It's too bad they can't be more consistent with the customer service and processing their orders. They do have quite a selection of fabrics.

I have never ordered from Hancocks of Paducah, but did go online and request a catalog. A couple of months went by and still had not received a catalog. I sent an e-mail and got a response apologizing and finally received a catalog. I was glad they responded, but thought that odd that it took so long to get one. Now I read all the reviews and it makes sense. Probably will not order from them. It is a shame because they really have a lot of wonderful fabrics.

I agree. They have a great selection and good prices. I was looking for Kona cotton last night and kept going back to Hancock's because they have lots of it, but I didn't want to deal with the hassle of ordering from them and went elsewhere.

Catalogs are expensive to mail out one at a time so most companies have to wait until they have enough requests to be able to mail the catalogs with some postal discounts. The post office doesn't want 100 catalogs (tiny example), they want 100 into one state, 100 going into one city, some large number going into one zip code, might be another discount if the first three number of zip code match - really fussy stuff. And the post office only gives those kinds of discounts if the catalogs arrive sorted and stuck together by elastic bands.

Sometimes you catch a company in between catalogs - they don't want to send you a left over old one and you might not get a catalog until the next one is printed.

They might have all their catalogs in some other building, in another city, at a special company that just gets catalogs into the mail, or even stored at the original printer's facility so Hancocks of Paducah might have to send a tape of names to that other company and that company prints out the names and addresses and postal codes and on and on and on.

Sending out a catalog only LOOKS easy: Here's my name and address, write it on the back of a catalog and put it in the mail!

Since I've purchased from them I get a catalog automatically (and it is a heavy catalog). I like having it because it shows more of what's in a line of fabric than most stores carry, even the ones online. Their sales prices are good and I can find some fabric there I can't find anyplace else. I haven't had a problem so far.

If they are messing things up they have to take their lumps like everybody else. If they keep messing up people will stop doing business with them. I like to think everyone can have a bad day now and then but sometimes enough is enough, and I understand that feeling, too.

Jois

Good for you! I have never ordered from Hancock but do purchase most of my fabric on line. I have good luck with the Virginia Quilter and equilter just to mention two. You might want to try a smaller place than Hancock. Hopefully you'll get bedtter service. Good luck.

Thank you, Scissor Queen, for clearing this up.

I'm still waiting! I guess I need to email them too.