Warehouse Update 2.0

September 19, 2022 /

There will be some changes going into effect later this year with respect to the Jaftex Warehouses. With that, I figured that I would let you in on what’s going to transpire as you know I love to keep you all in the loop. Before I do that though, let me give you a little back history.

As you probably know by now, when we purchased FreeSpirit Fabrics in 2018, there were a bunch of changes that occurred with the warehouses that we were using. First, the gentleman who we were contracting all of our cutting and shipping with at SNS South in Seneca, SC decided to retire. That in effect caused us to have to find a new warehouse for packing and shipping. As such, we were fortunate to have been able to rent and move into the building right next story and also move all of the FreeSpirit fabrics into the warehouse too. It was time-consuming, yet things went pretty seamlessly. Does anyone remember all those videos when my brother and the team moved everything from one warehouse to the other while I was hanging around making videos?

That new warehouse next to SNS was named G&S Warehouse for Greg (my brother) & Scott and was also a little play-off of the SNS name. Check out this video of the warehouse to refresh your memory of it of what it looks like and what goes on there.

Secondly, and around the same time that we moved to G&S, we were warehousing all of our Blank Quilting Fabrics at the other SNS Warehouse in Clifton, New Jersey called SNS North. The owner of that warehouse was the same owner of SNS South and SNS West in California (we hadn’t used that facility in a long time). He was getting out of the business completely and it was time to wrap things up and tie up all the loose ends and liquidate. Therefore, we had to move all the Blank Quilting Fabric to the G&S Warehouse as well. Long story short, all of the Jaftex fabrics were going to be shipping like one happy family from our new G&S Warehouse. This of course has positives and negatives, but that is another blog for another day.

Third of all, over the last year or so, the gentleman who was contracting our precut labor and shipping in Burlington, NC decided he wanted to retire too. As such, we were really in a pinch and didn’t have any other good options other than to buy that building and take over the entire cutting and packing operation. The issue was that there was no way we could pick up and find someone who could handle all of the Jaftex precut productivity without us missing a beat. Long story short, this was our only good option.

In general, we prefer not to own these facilities or have to run them as it is a lot less pressure if you could just pay someone the going rate to manage all the business for you. This is also especially tricky because the owners of the Jaftex Companies are in New York and the warehouses are in North & South Carolina. It isn’t easy being an absentee owner so to speak. Another advantage of not having to own the a facility is that you don’t have to tie up so much money in the warehouses, insurance, electricity, water, heating, salaries, etc. But again, we had no choice. The future of our business will now be in 2 warehouses and we are perfectly happy with how things are going and looking.

So I am sure you are wondering what we have up our sleeves now and that is what I am going to tell you. After we get some new equipment needed to ship double and rolled goos from the facility in Burlington, NC called Oxford Cutting & Packing, we plan to move The Blank Quilting Corp. & The Stof of Denmark Fabrics from G&S to Oxford. Greg and I feel that this will help us to ship much faster as it will spread the volume over more shipping and two facilities. We anticipate that this will help us to ship the FreeSpirit & Henry Glass basics and reorder fabrics a lot faster which will help us to grow our sales for those companies. It will also make more space in each of the facilities so we can better manage what we have and keep each location clean.
That’s the plan as of right now. The last I heard, the machines we were waiting for were to be in around September. Then it was October. Now it is November. I hope to be able to tell you how the story ends before we close out 2022. Stay tuned for the details.

20 Comments

    • Scott Fortunoff

      September 22, 2022 at 11:50 am

      That’s such a tricky question as we have so many customers. On each of the company websites, we have many of our customers listed there. I would say we are pretty well represented in most all shops.

  • Barbara Patterson

    September 22, 2022 at 9:18 am

    Looks like you and your team have handled lots of changes as seemlessly as possible. I’m sorry I’m going to miss the facebook event on 9/25. I will be on the Interstate who know where on the way to indiana.

  • Pamela Meyers Arbour

    September 22, 2022 at 6:19 am

    Thanks for the tour and the inside info. It helps me better understand the cost of fabric. I always wondered what the process looked like getting the big roll onto folded bolts. Now, I know! I also can see why some of them might be just a little off. Sometimes there is a little more selvage on one side (like a 1/4″).
    Thanks for sharing with your “end users”.

  • Joseph F. Dolloff

    September 21, 2022 at 8:06 pm

    Looks Great Scott. Thank you for the company updates. Looking forward to seeing You , Gregg and Dad, next week. Don’t forget, we have a double end roller. 🙂

  • Debbie Roseman

    September 21, 2022 at 6:50 pm

    It is amazing what details go into different aspects of being a business owner! Great job and looking forward to hearing more updates. I hope you get your equipment in 2022 also!

  • Sherri Huff

    September 21, 2022 at 11:20 am

    Scott,
    Thanks for the updates on life in the Jaftex world. Sounds crazy complicated to me, glad you and your family are running things so smoothly in the Carolinas!
    I think that if employees know you genuinely care about them and not just the bottom line it is a win, win for all! Keep doing what you are doing, keeping everyone in the quilting world happy!

  • Mary

    September 20, 2022 at 11:42 pm

    Interesting how things turn out! Not what you had planned, but it’s working out, and it’s working out well. I love the picture, with all the exciting and bright bolts of fabric. I need a fix! I need fabric!

  • Katie Wyatt

    September 20, 2022 at 5:15 pm

    Thanks for keeping us ‘tuned in’ to the behinds the scene’s events of what it’s like to own a fabric company. If I was closer I would have volunteered to help in the transistion of the move but [as usual] you had everything under control.