online quilt store questions
 

I just spent, lost, an hour searching at one particular online quilt store that makes me think something doesn't seem right. I am looking for something my local shop doesn't have. When I put in a search for a bundle of this fabric, it came up under all the web searches for this store, at a ridiculously cheap price, from 94.00 to 24.00. Then when I went to their website, all of the sale items, were "out of stock", and it was impossible to "search for things on their website. so I wasted a lot of time.
When I called, that fabric bundle was on their site 5 years ago. When I checked for more, many more bundles did the same, but yet were not available.
On their website, they show a picture of the fabric, and then a great price, but when you read further, its actually for 1/2 yard of the fabric, so not so great a price.
Then I spent so much time in their sale section, and everything is out of stock.
Ive noticed a lot of hard to find fabrics pop up on a search under this stores name, and when you get to them, they are from years and years ago. When I mentioned it to the store owner, she sounded very nervous and hung up.

Many on line quilt shops price in half yard increments. A few even price in quarter yard increments. This is not because the fabric store is trying to be sneaky, it is because most shopping cart programs only accommodate "whole units". Fabric is one of the few items marketed in fractional units. If on line quilt shops won't cut less than one yard (like thousands of bolts) they usually price in the increments they are willing to cut.

It is the purchasers responsibility to pay attention to what they are ordering on line and that the price is for the quantity they intend to purchase.

As far as google searches are concerned, the algorithm that drives the search looks for key words, then for most current date. So if the most current date of the key word brings back an old hit there really isn't anything that can be done. Again this is not the store trying to bait and switch, it is just the way the net works. I have many times searched for an older line of fabric and gotten useless hits.

No one seems to bother to clean up the old posts off the internet. I have had the same problem that you had. What fabric bundle are you looking for? I usually go to Quiltshops.com to see if I can find a line of fabric. Have you tried eBay?? Hang in there. Just remember you are not alone in experience these difficulties with the internet.

I agree with felinefanatic. You just have to be very observant and maybe make yourself notes as to what online stores have good prices and fabric that you like . Good luck in the future sweetie. I totally get your frustration on wasting time looking for something. Gina

I hate that 1/2 yd price myself. Now i know to look closely.

I think there are a lot of smaller quilt shops set up web sites because the feel like they need to but don't actually have the skills or resources to properly maintain them...and updating sites is time consuming and very expensive to do. These are the shops that should limit their sites for promotional purposes rather than sales.

YES! This is a pet peeve of mine. It is a LOT of work to have a good, current sales website, it's not a "set it and forget it" proposition! I agree with you completely - better to have a rather "spare" site that only lists hours, location, and maybe a few general pictures of the shop than a huge overblown site with lots of features that either don't work right or are terribly out of date.

If I'm visiting a site in August and they're promoting stuff from last Valentine's day it makes me wonder what ELSE is being allowed to let slide. It does not inspire confidence in me at all.

What they others said - they are not maintaining their sites. It sounds like that instead of removing a page when a fabric is no longer available, they probably just remove the link from their site. Then the page is still technically on their site for the search engines to find and list, but it doesn't actually exist in their navigation, so as far as the store is concerned, they have removed it. Very poor website practice, but it just comes from them not knowing what they are doing.

It keeps coming up on searches for really hard to find out of print fabrics, and then they list yards down to 2.00 and bundles down to 24.00 and I know they never sold them at those prices . Some of these go back 5 to 7 years. Also, on their own site, they have sections for mark downs but none of them are available. So they make it look like really great deals, but they are always out of stock.. plus if another store is selling the same line or a bundle for a certain price, and then people see this search, but don't realize the fabric is impossible to get, they think its too expensive elsewhere. Its very confusing, Ive never seen another store do this sort of thing.

what store was it?