Tales Of A Fourth Generation Textile Executive: The Fabric Yenta Is Here!
The fabric yenta? Yenta is a Jewish/Yiddish word for a person who is a gossiper. Speaking of Jewish though, I would be remiss if I didn’t say my piece about how disgusting it is that there are cowards making robo-calls to JCCs (Jewish Community Centers) throughout the US. They are trying to instill fear upon these amazing establishments and all the people that enjoy them (both Jewish and non-Jewish) on a daily basis. Not only that, but loads of other Jewish organizations are being bombarded with antisemitic threats too. Without going in to too much more detail on my fabric blog, my parting words to these cowardly haters, and all haters for that matter is, shame on you and get a life you disrespectful freaking losers! Finally, in case you were wondering what you could do to support a JCC, please check out this link as it contains some good ideas.
Before going any further, I am going to take a quick little victory lap around my little office and pat myself on the back too. Ewww…that feels kind of nice. The victory lap is not for the victory, but more for predicting what I saw coming in the quilting industry. Anyway, it is not a victory because I am not happy to see this happen to our industry, nor am I am happy that this is happening to some of my friends. But, that all being said, I think this will be healthy for the industry. What’s going on in the industry Scott? For a while now, I have been predicting, on my blogs, a contraction in our industry where the number of suppliers and resellers of fabric would be reduced. In other words, it’s like Darwin’s survival of the fittest.
So the fabric yenta is here to tell you what’s going on. The truth is that what I am going to tell you are facts so I don’t know if spreading facts is considered gossip or not, but that is what I am going to call it. Ok, ok…I know you can’t take the suspense. The contraction or shrinkage of our industry has begun. For starters, we not too long ago lost Hancock Fabrics to bankruptcy and there are now only about 3 real major big box chains selling fabric. Number two, Kona Bay just shut its doors after over 26 years in business. Number three, just last week Red Rooster shut its doors and the owners are just sticking with their P&B brand. Number four, I hear on a weekly basis that more and more quilt shops are closing their doors too. This is probably just the beginning.
There is more though. Big shots in our industry i.e. the heavy hitters who we all know so well are losing their jobs. There are many stories like this, but I am not going to name all the names. I will speculate that companies can’t continue to pay high earners what they are used to making because sales no longer justify it. It is as simple as that.
I am going to mention specifically what is going on at Fabric-Quilt, Inc. John & Sue, who I am sure you all know and thought owned Fabric-Quilt, Inc. (they didn’t) were let go, fired, quit, separated, retired or something like that. You can classify it how you want, but long story short is that they are no longer with Fabric-Quilt, Inc. I have to tell you that the timing of that separation was flat out bad in my humble opinion. This is not the time to let go the people that are considered to be the faces of the company and the backbone too. I guess we will have to wait and see how that decision pans out….my guess is not so well.
There is still more though. Rumors of companies not able to pay their bills and bouncing checks. Sales reps not getting paid on time or not getting paid at all. Suppliers cutting their work weeks down to 3 or 4 days. Companies are cutting travel and the expenses that go with it. And of course, people are going to be shrinking their quilt market footprint or they are not going to attend at all. As for smaller regional shows, those too are struggling. The list goes on and on and the carnage continues to grow. People, our industry is in a mini-crisis and the dominoes are starting to fall. Please be careful and try not to be part of the bloodshed. With that, I would say it is time to take a gut check and evaluate if your business can survive what is clearly before us…the contraction.
To wrap this up, I wanted to let you know that you can rest assured that Jaftex and all its companies (Studioe Fabrics, Henry Glass Fabrics, The Blank Quilting Corp., A.E. Nathan Co., Inc. & Fabric Editions) are in a strong financial position and you can certainly rely on us as a loyal supplier and friend for many more years to come. Finally, for our competitors that are struggling, you know that you can always come and talk to us about joining our organization as we would welcome the opportunity to add more strong brands to our arsenal as well as your experienced employees.
Until Next Week,
This is Scott Fortunoff the fabric yenta signing off.
PEACE!
3 Comments
Regina
Scott, I have been following your blog for a few months now and I must say that your posts are always VERY interesting. I completely agree that change is afoot in the quilt industry/world. Your blog posts have been very informative. I am a quilter in S.E. Wisconsin. I have been a quilter for 22 years, I am 46 years old. I am a traditional quilter and a member of a large quilt guild and am active in many other quilt groups, local and online. I spend about $3-4,000 a year on this hobby. I give you all of the above information for perspective. I find that I can’t keep up with what the industry is releasing, there is just too much. Half the bloggers I follow have fabric lines, a book, or a new and fabulous tool. BUT, this is what I have noticed, I fall in love with a fabric line and am quite disappointed to find that the following year the “new” line is the same colorway I already own but different shapes printed on it! That new and fabulous tool is the exact same ruler as 4 others on the market. So I state all of this to say I completely agree with you, the industry is indeed constricting, the market is righting itself. Everyone that is creative will not be able to make a living selling quilt patterns, designing/selling fabric, or teaching classes. Everyone says that if we pull in young quilters they will save the industry. I find that younger quilters tend to be satisfied with buying a few fat quarters while I won’t be pleased without 3 yards of a fabric that catches my eye. I am nervously observing what is taking place and hoping that after the dust settles, there will still be enough choice in the market to fuel my creativity and variety to keep me happy and creating.
Jamie Bourgeois
This post feels a little bit like a really smarmy sales pitch: “Hey, look at all these failing losers (that we could buy out, BTW) but WE are still strong! You can still buy from us!”
Perhaps there are changes that affect the careers of some in the fabric industry. But I wonder how much of it is that the fabric buyer/quilter’s tastes have changed. I imagine that there are plenty of fabric houses doing quite well as they are putting out new fabric collections often. Were these struggling companies listening to their customer base and what they wanted? Were they were going to their buyers instead of waiting for their customers to show up? Of course it is never one thing that causes a company to struggle but I think there are plenty of people who are buying fabric.
Joanne Hubbard
Sometimes it really stinks to be right! You’ve been telling us for some time what we can expect and now we can no longer bury our heads in the sand. Your suggestion to take a good hard look at yourself is a good one. We might not be happy with what we see, but at least we’ll have an opportunity to make changes we want to, rather than have someone else make them for us.