Tales Of A Fourth Generation Textile Executive: More Baby Steps For Quilts, Inc.

January 16, 2017 /

Dear Readers,

I hope you had a nice weekend.  Also, I wanted to wish everyone a Happy Martin Luther King Jr. day.  Our offices are open today if you need anything.  I will only be in the office until noon as I have the pleasure of attending the Knicks basketball game with my sons, my brother and my nephews as the kids don’t have school today.  In any case, for lack of something better to write about this week, I am back on to the Quilt Market.

This time around, I wanted to acknowledge the baby steps made by the people at Quilts Inc. to try to make the market better for everyone. Recently, all vendors received an appreciation and suggestion email from Quilts Inc. a copy of which is below.  This is yet another step in the right direction, but what concerns me is that they are relying on the vendors to solve their problems.  By asking for ideas, my feeling is that they are going to get bogged down with a lot of the smaller picture issues because I imagine each person that replies will be suggesting something that will most likely just help a few and not the masses.  We really need the big picture ideas to make Quilt Market great again, but I am doubtful those are going to surface as they really never surfaced when I was making my own efforts to improve market.  I hate to be a pessimist, but I truly think I am being a realist here.

In the end of the email from Quilts Inc., they say, “I promise we’ll read them.”  The problem is that reading them and taking action are two totally different things.  I know that I am being literal, but based on my interactions with the big shots at Quilts Inc., I don’t see any worthwhile change coming soon.  They are like deer in the headlights right now which is very concerning for me and should be concerning to you too.  Once again, I urge the people of Quilts Inc. to take some meaningful actions fast because the Quilt Market numbers continue to fade for attendees and vendors.  Time is running short and as each market passes, more and more vendors are dropping out.  For the Jaftex Companies, this will be a critical year for us to determine our future with Quilt Markets.

To our Quilt Market Exhibitors,
As we prepare for another exciting year in the quilting industry, we want to thank you for making International Quilt Market an important part of your business plan. Whether you exhibited at our Spring show in Salt Lake City and/or our Fall show in Houston, your participation and support are very important. Without your taking your valuable time and money to exhibit, we wouldn’t have a Market to support the retailers from around the world who come to do their buying and see what’s new. We know there are many options for you to market your products, and we very much appreciate your making Quilt Market a part of your plans. Thank you from all of the Market team! We look forward to welcoming you back to St Louis this May and/or Houston this October.
In the meantime, if you have any ideas or comments to make Market even better, please do send them to ideas@quilts.com
and I promise we’ll read them!

Have a great week.  And by the way, if you read this far and plan on attending the St. Louis Quilt Market (this applies to customers that did business with any of the Jaftex Companies in 2016), I would like you to email me (scott@jaftex.com) if you are interested in attending the Studioe/Blank Quilting Corp. quilt market dinner with management, in-house designers, licensed designers, sales reps and other customers.  In the email, tell me in a very brief paragraph why you would be interested in attending the dinner aside from wanting to hang out with me (LOL).  I don’t have a date yet, but this will be on a first come, first served basis. Space is limited.  Good luck.

Regards,

Scott

 

One Comment

  • Joanne Hubbard

    January 16, 2017 at 9:12 pm

    I hope you had fun at the game. 🙂 I agree that the note from Quilts, Inc. may be small and may not result in looking at all of the big issues; but in my attempt to be positive, I hope that this opens discussion from a larger group, thus resulting in much-needed discussion and changes. I’d love to see Quilts, Inc. be honest with themselves and the industry. To do this, they should make public the communication they receive (positive and negative) and how they tend to address the issues, including a time frame in which to make those changes. Doing that would show sincerely interest and the accountability that I feel is now lacking.

    Have a great week!