ThayerRags

Hi. Welcome to the Quilt Board.

While I want to compliment you on your attempt to help shops get their name out without expensive advertising, I must say that there are a large number of these free-sign-up “directories” that have come and gone in past years, and all seem (in my opinion) to have two stumbling blocks that are hard to overcome. How do they keep the list current and accurate, and how do they get every shop to participate?

While new shops are usually eager to find any & all free lists and register themselves, shops that close seldom see the need to remove their listing (and probably don’t even think about it), and in some cases, couldn’t remove a listing even if they wanted to on some directories. Most are set up so new listings can be added quickly online, but existing listings can’t be removed without contacting the directory owner. That’s probably not high on the list of things to do when folks have to close their shop.

Ongoing shops that signed up years ago on various directories later discover that many are incomplete or contain errors, some haven’t been maintained or updated for years, and some have disappeared completely. Add to that the growing popularity of blogs, forums, and other social media where shop locations can be inquired about for more up-to-date information, include specific criteria of the shopper’s choice, and can even come with a recommendation from another quilter or quilters.

CD in Oklahoma

dcamarote

Sad but true. We have lost a couple in the past 2-3 years. Just yesterday I went to one of my favorite places and purchased a little less than $150 worth of things for a t shirt quilt I am making. I bought only - at full price - what I absolutely had to have. The rest was all reduced pricing, etc. I love the local shops but when I can get fabric on line for 5-6$/yard and I see the exact same thing at the shop for 10-12$/yard guess which one I am going to buy?

karate lady

I too live in a small town (pop 450) so no shops. The $10. price tags keep me away from a lot of places, but that is why I shop on line with connecting threads and Fabric.com. Good prices and free shipping after a certain amount . (and I have NO problem reaching the amount) Also lots of yard sales and thrift store trips. Also people who know I quilt give me fabric. friend just gave me a basket full of some really nice yardage.

OzarksGma

The $5.00/yard will be quickly be going the same way the #3.00/yard did, as most all of the new fabrics are coming in at $5.50-$6.00/yard and when you add freight of .35-.50/yard depending on where they are shipped from, this means the cost of fabric for the LQS is going to run $5.85-$6.50 per yard. No one likes to lose money so many places will mark at cost just to get some of their money back.
I own a quilt shop and I just closed my large store and built a 1200 sq.ft. warehouse style building. Nothing like what I had, but I am in the midst of re-aligning my pricing structure and will have nothing on 45" bolts over $8.50/yard. It has been a hard thing to do but I recognized that I am not getting any younger, just turned 65, and I just couldn't keep up the 12-14 hour days and 6 days a week.
I had such an outcry from my customers that I decided to be open 3 days a week for them. If they don't support the shop now, I will re-evaluate in a year and it will close and become my studio and I will do some designing and quilting.

ThayerRags

Thanks for posting OzarksGma.

Am I right in guessing that your new warehouse building is also next to your home so you don’t have to commute to a store? Did you offer any services (Longarm, alterations, sewing) at your big store, or will you now in the smaller building? I see you said that if you close the business you may use it as a studio.

We’re set up to do about the same thing if need be, and have talked about it, except we’ll probably look at turning our retail shop into a retail warehouse if the time comes. It’s only 6 blocks from our home, and is an old style brick building in what used to be part of a bustling downtown shopping area. It’s not too much larger than your warehouse building at 1700 sq.ft., but has a 14-ft high ceiling in it, so we can go fairly high if we’re just operating as a warehouse.

We do ironing, alterations, mending, and repairs in our retail shop now, and it’s about 25% of our business. If we get to where we don’t want to do the services, we’ll probably convert to a warehouse-type retail sales operation. We’d have the added cost of an online shopping cart website, but I do all of our website work now anyway and would probably continue to do so. Cutting fabric and filling orders should take a lot less time than the 9+ hrs/day, 5-days/week that we’re working now.

If worse comes to worst, we’ll turn it into our personal fabric stash, and maybe have the biggest one in the area. Everything’s paid for, so we can lock the doors anytime that we want to.

CD in Oklahoma