Like the old grandpappy saying, "You catch more bees with sugar than with vinegar." She was definitely in a vinegar mood.I, too, think it's important to be nice to the sales/cutting/cashier help. They probably get barked at more than wagged at during a day.

I have two JoAnns to use, one is 15 minutes away the other 30. I go to the further one bacause of rudeness in the first store. sent email to corperate. she is still there. no surprise. The one In Bellingham is much bigger, cleaner and the ladies are super helpful when you have a question. The cutters are great too. And lots and lots of material along with the crafts.

That is how I found this info trying to find any link between Walmart and Joann's I couldn't find anything about it. I don't think there is a link or I should have been able to find something.

I work at a JoAnns and I do have to say that we don't have enough help. I'm in a small format store with 2 people working together. One is always a manager and then the peon "me". The manager has so much to do that most of the work is put on the other person. I've been in the Super Stores and see people standing around. We never have that luxury. I try to be nice to the guests, they do help make my paycheck. I get customers that come back only on the days that I work. I'm a quilter and can help with their choices of fabric and layouts of their quilts. We do have workers that have never sewn a day in their life and that's where a lot of the problem lies. Not enough help is probably the bigest problem though. Small wages and lots of work that makes it hard to get everything done.

about 15-20 years ago, all girls too home arts. That cooking, sewing, home health care etc. Today they do not teach girls how to do anything but maybe a little cooking in a microwave oven. They get 6 weeks of mixed bag sewing,
cooking and every thing else thrown at them and then its on to plastic class, mechanical class, wood shop, etc. Only 9th graders get this and when your done you still don't know what end of the needle to thread or what can be cooked but pizza. LOL! Thank God for 4-H. Angeline

I just live about 25 miles from the big store advertized in alot of quilt books called. FABRIC SHACK, it is a nice store but the owner (well lets say i cant print what i think of him). His daughter used to have a small fabric shack store in our town. She even quit working for her dad many years ago.
He finally updated the store. It has very small windows. you have to go clear thru the store to the front to see the real color. He finally painted the walls white. It helps alot. His store is in a small antique town called Waynesville, ohio. He also has a store with nothing but drapery fabric and etc.
If I can't find anywhere else i usually can find it there. There is only one draw back, most don't cost less than $8.00 a yard. The last project I made was a round table cloth and it cost me over $100. for the fabric alone.

I visited Joannes in Knoxville yesterday. It has just been "updated." There is definitely less fabric but on the up side they had put all of the cutting tables in one spot instead of spread around the dept. and now you take a number for service. A lot of new faces but they were friendly and I was asked if I needed help instead of having to hunt someone. I did have to stand in line quite a while as they only had 1 cashier open.

Ay our new Joann's, only about 1/4 of the store is fabric and the fabric for the most part is not as good either.

I think this goes in spurts like anything else.

In a couple of weeks, if that, it will be back to fabric.

I remember ClothWorld and they were terrific. I miss them. I buy most of my fabric online these days.

When you open your store you have to let all of us know.

The one bad experience I had with a lady cutting fabric was when there was a long line...it must have been a big sale or around Christmas time....and when she finished the customer she was waiting I went to her to cut the fabric and she told me to get back in line. She was working on remnants and not waiting on people even though there was a long line. I was sooo upset I told the manager and I have not seen her since.

I agree that the service and selection is not what it used to be and, for that matter, neither are the sales or coupons. Many times I have gone there to use a 40% off coupon hoping to find something I just had to have now but I usually walk out with nothing.

I can usually find the same fabric online for a lot less.

Yes, it is a trend, just as decoupage, macrame, etc. was way back in the seventies. And I'm sure you people can name many more. Most of us have all jumped on a craft band wagon at one time or another. And the stores have supplied us with what we needed for our crafts. But the sewing has remained a constant, even though the focus has changed from time to time. Let's hope that they hang on and don't give up completely on the fabric.

I AGREE...100%

A little conversation can go a long way...but then there is always that sales person who is a grump from the word go....
ignore her and get on with your purchase.

I do try to watch for the happier cutter when I approach the counter..
sometimes I'm lucky and then there are the other times..

need I say more?

Yes I have noticed for quite a while that crafts seem to be the main focus of the store. Who knows maybe that is what is keeping them afloat. I noticed that none of the craft stores seem to be closing so If this keeps joann's in business it is ok with me as there are no other fabric stores near me. Maybe this way we will have more things to use our coupons for as they cann't be used on sale items and sometimes it is hard to find something to use the coupons for as everything seems to be on sale.

We have an abandoned (for about 15 yrs) A &P store that is owned by Wall Mart and sits directly opposite the WM super center that was built at the same time the A&P went out; even though there is a FOR LEASE sign in the building they won't lease it because of the competition of all the different products that they sell. Maybe they'll put a Joann's in there when they take the fabric out of the Super Center. LOL.

JoAnns is not owned by Walmart. JoAnns is listed on the stock exchange and you can look up the corporate filings. Whats interesting is that the President, VP, and Treasurer are all male and the previous jobs were at Fred Meyers Stores, so they don't know about fabrics.....

I cannot count the number of hours I was on the sales floor ALONE at my JoAnn's, nor the number of missed meals due to cuts in staff hours. I did love my customers (most of them LOL) but the stress was brutal.

YES! There used to be so many nice stores of all types. Now there is almost no choice.

If I remember correctly, Rag Shop was one of Zimmerman's that he bought out.
In Ohio, when he first started out, he would buy up fabric shops as they came on the market.
At my first manager meeting at Fabri-Center, I remember looking at old black & white photos and newspaper clippings.
When he started out, everything was flat-fold goods, nothing on bolts.
I personally have never liked flat-fold.
There was another fabric business that got started at the same time in Midland. She would buy up rolls of knitted goods from tricot to sweater knits. Sometimes matching ribbing, sometimes not.
Classes on sewing knits were really hot, along with sergers.
Anybody remember making your own lingerie??

P.S. That store is now one of the top quilting shops in the Tri-Cities. The Material Mart

Worked at Joann's for years - the highest-profit departments are home decor fabrics, notions, and paper-crafting (in that order). They've yet to expand their selection of notions of late but Home Dec fabric is exploding. Yeah, we're bottom on the totem pole. Then again, maybe it's because we buy only half-yards at a time, of a bazillion different fabrics. lol

Probably the reason home dec is doing so well is because Joann's has such great prices. My mom has a custom drapery business and sells her own fabrics and middle of the road priced fabrics are like $40 a yard!!! I remember when we first started the business those same fabrics were under $5 a yard

Yes!!! I did! I would still if I could find all the wonderful laces and elastics that were available then. One store here has a few tricots but nothing like there used to be.

Another thing I've noticed fabric stores doing away with is bridal fabrics. The fabric store my mom worked at had the most fabulous bridal dept and it did really well. Now it is all gone.

I can answer that one!! The company that bought Cloth World was Fabric Centers of America. They had several different (usually regional) chains of stores. They actually bought Cloth World a few years before changing the names of the stores. When Fabric Centers of America bought out So-Fro/House of Fabrics the company went through a major reorganization, changed the names of all its stores to JoAnn Fabrics and Crafts. And changed the corporate name too. It was still a "family" owned company, but stock was/is traded on the New York Stock Exchange.
I was assistant manager at House of Fabrics here in the Valley and went through the whole transition and remodel and all. (And we were open every day of that remodel.)

As for staffing at the stores.... every store is assigned a certain number of "payroll hours", plus management hours. That is what you have to staff the store with. So how many people are on the floor at one time can vary from store to store. And how it affects the bottom line. Our store was a large traditional store (not one of the ETC. stores). We were open the standard hours (set by the company.) Had to always have 2 people in the store "on the clock". And do everything with an average of 225 hours per week of payroll. (9-9 Monday -Saturday, 12-6 on Sunday is 78 hours, plus about and hour before opening and after closing and you are well on the way to 100 hours. Times 2 employees leaves about 25 hours for shift overlaps, lunch breaks and so on. Not a lot of coverage. )

Pati, in Phx who is not sorry to be out of that job. <G>

Scrap booking seams to be there new thing along with the painting. God bless.

When I lived in Wisconsin, there was a JoAnn's about 3 miles away. Now that I'm back in Alabama, I just wish there was one here, anywhere! The closest Hancock's is about 10 miles away, and there is nowhere any closer to buy thread or anything! Even our Wal-Mart closed their fabrics and notions out. (Well, they've got a FEW things left, when you search for them! but not fabrics)

THE RAG SHOP!!!!!
I live in the town where the original flagship store was. My girlfriend and I called it our "HOME AWAY FROM HOME"!
It took Mr B years to build it up. It took only a couple of years for the people who bought it to run it into the ground. I miss it so much. Now there is a second hand store in the original Rag Shop store.
Linda

I have 3 Joannes within a 15 mile radius of me and lately I have noticed that none of them have any of the older long term employees who knew their products. I strongly suspect the new owners have found a way to get rid of the higher paid employees (phoney bad performance reviews?) and now have newbie minium wage workers who are just happy to have a job but know nothing about what they are selling,especially fabric.