The Entire Fabric Industry Wins With The Jaftex Video Challenge Part 7

As I hope you know by now, for the entire month of August, my company and I are hosting the Jaftex Video Challenge. This is where we challenge our valued fabric reseller customers to videotape a tour of their shop or to create some other sort of creative video that will be posted on their business Facebook page. I then share that same video on my @jaftexpresident – Facebook page. The winner typically is the one whose video receives the most views at the end of August. This year, we mixed it up with various other categories for customers to win.

Today, I wanted to take a moment to tell you why I think this contest is so important for our industry. For the first time in my fabric career (about 18 years), fabric has been getting a lot of invaluable attention due to the aftermath of Covid. This was much-needed attention that our industry had been clamoring to get for years as our overall hobbyist numbers have unfortunately been dwindling. As I have said before, we are glad to have all the interest in fabrics, we just would have preferred that it not happen as the result of a pandemic. That being said, we will take it however we can get it.

With a lot of attention on fabrics still and a lot of people being at home on their mobile devices during the summer, what better time than now to put our Jaftex customers front and center? The iron is hot right now. It is the perfect time for fabric resellers to capitalize on this new interest and expand their customer bases by participating in the challenge. Who doesn’t want new customers? Who doesn’t want great exposure for their business? Those are rhetorical questions as I am pretty sure I know the answers.

It is also a great time for guilds to grow, to get new members and to get fresh perspectives. It’s also a great time to have more people join the business side of the fabric industry too. These would all be beautiful things for our wonderful industry!

These videos are helping to fuel the flame for fabric and are drawing people to quilt shops and fabric websites they probably didn’t know existed before. Hopefully, the quilt shop owners can continue to do their part in converting new beginner sewists into long-term ones. In there lies the potential win for the industry and a potential windfall at that. With that, if you are a shop owner, you need to be thinking about how to make these customers stick around for the long term.

Many have tried to put a number on the amount of people who quilt in the US. The last I heard, it stood at around 7-10 million. Wouldn’t it be great for our industry if that number went to 12-15 million or 15-20 million? That would be another win for our industry and a hobby that was dying a slow death before Covid hit.

We of course know about all the benefits of quilting as I have discussed them here in length on many occasions. It is great for your mind. It uses math skills. It helps reduce stress. It’s a great distraction. It’s challenging. The list goes on.

With that, I want to urge everyone reading this to help the cause and do their part in spreading the love of quilting and fabric in order to help revitalize our industry. As such, if you are a Jaftex customer, please consider creating a video for the challenge. Excuses are no longer permitted. It’s time to figure out how to pivot so you can overcome any hurdles that are keeping you from participating. If you are a consumer, please encourage your favorite local fabric businesses to get involved with the contest too. All the cheerleaders we can recruit are welcome! Thank you all in advance.

In the end, if we all chipped in a little bit, it could go a long way in drawing some much-needed attention to the industry and hobby that we all love. How cool would it be if we could make fabric mainstream and part of everyone’s daily life? Very very cool! Amen to that!

Until then, have a great week!