cricket_iscute

This is a great thread. I especially like the points made about samples. It seems that shop owners should plan samples around a fabric line, and order maybe three bolts of each fabric to be used in samples, and keep the samples and the fabric together. Someone has to make the sample as soon as the fabric arrives.

I would make it a point to go to a fabric shop that has a tying table(s) for customer use. Being able to rent a long-arm machine (with lessons) would also keep me coming back, and while I was there, I would buy.

Customer service matters a lot! We have only one shop here. It is under new management now, but I got out of the habit of shopping there because most of the six workers were "too busy" to help and there was one full-time counter person who treated everyone rudely; many people either told her off or didn't go back. She was a legend in this town and nobody liked her, but she was a friend of the shop owner, who lost a lot of business because of her. When they put about 60 bolts on clearance, I asked her to cut one to 4 yards of fabric from about 25 different bolts. I was starting my stash then. I told her I was there for an all-day class so she had 8 hours, or I could have picked it up the next week. She made a face when I asked her and by late afternoon, she hadn't even started cutting. I bought no fabric that day. Not being greeted at that shop didn't help, either. Being made to wait 15-20 minutes to check out and having nobody notice didn't help. Having prices 50 percent higher than on the internet didn't help. When I do go in there now, I am looking for something specific, a particular type of thread or fabric. I often do not find it.

One other shop I went to, 90 minutes from here, was a nice shop in many regards. They had a good selection, good classes, good bathrooms, nice people, and I bought a lot from them. But one thing drove me crazy and eventually I stopped making the trip there, and that was that every time - each and every time - someone was waiting to be rung out, the owner or another employee ALWAYS decided at that moment to start a conversation with another staff member, leaving the person just hanging there waiting. The last time I was there, I was fourth in line, others in front of me had one or two items, and I waited 45 minutes. Ringing out four items, with her conversation, took 15 minutes beyond that. The shop owner kept making mistakes with the first customer but did not stop her conversation to concentrate on what she was doing. When the owner finished one conversation, she started another. Very rude. Wake up! The customer wants to pay, and that is what keeps the shop going. When I tried to buy a machine from them, the demonstrator, also co-owner and husband of the owner, was "busy" and after waiting an hour, I left and bought a machine elsewhere. On a previous visit, I had wanted to be shown that machine, but he only wanted to discuss my disability -- not something I wanted to discuss but he went on and on, and did not show me the machine in the time I had available. I told him I was interested in buying it at the beginning. So I would say good customer service, figuring out what the customer wants and delivering it, and focusing on the customer, matters a whole lot.