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.