Part 2 - Prices Rising: Ways our Customers are helping to keep prices low
We have been working super hard to keep our pricing low. We know that we’re having to raise a few prices here and there, but we think that we’re still a bargain, over all! A bargain that is, for awesome fabric!
After all, we do have oodles and oodles of beautiful lines of fabric for just $4.99 per yard. We also have thousands of bolts of name brand fabric for just $5.99 per yard. Then, we have current lines and “trendy” fabrics that just came out for $9.99 to $11.50/yard. Most of those would sell in your regular shops for $11.50 to $15/yard.
We need to give credit where credit is due.
Without our customers’ help, we would never be able to maintain this shop at these prices.
Obviously, the number one way that our customers help is by cooperating with our goofy hours.
We are only open 3 days per week. The reason is not so that we can sit home with our feet up, eating those proverbial bon-bons, but so that we can maintain a single staff and keep them relatively busy. Keeping labor costs low is one of the biggest keys to keeping our prices lower than your standard quilt shop.
When we’re open, we’re dedicated to servicing the customers. We’re able to look things up for people, help you pick out colors, if need be, and we’re not too busy, cut your fabric and check you out. However, on the other three days of the week, we’re filling online orders and taking them to the post office. We’re organizing the store and creating packs.
Just think of it like this: If we had to keep our doors open all the time to walk-ins and no one was in the store, I’d be unable to make packs. My staff couldn’t take off the “walk in” customer service hat and concentrate on the online orders.
Whether you’re helping 1 person or 50 people, if there’s someone in front of you, you can’t leave the room to deal with other issues. So, if someone comes in the door, and spends hours just browsing, you’ve been unable to go and create beautiful packs, cut fabrics or send emails, if you’ve been helping that person.
2. Our customers bring in their recyclable bags. They are amazing like that. I haven’t had to purchase shopping bags yet this year. It creates some fun for us when opening those bags to be able to use them, but the thought of recycling bags “one more time” is fun for us.
3. Some customers bring in their own re-useable bags. This is always an awesome choice. Your bag. Your fabric. Your fun!
4. Sometimes customers bring back their small plastic bags that once held pieces or panels. They bring them back, complete with labels. That way we can re-use them. We do have to remove the labels, because it’s more work to hunt up that particular panel to use on that bag, but when you do that, you’re saving us money.
5. Occasionally, we’ve had customers drop off books and magazines that they simply don’t want any more at no charge. This is awesome!
Anytime we can sell something that we haven’t invested a lot of money into, it helps to keep the prices lower than they would be otherwise.
(I still have labor costs into getting things like these up on the website, but it’s far less than I have if I have to buy the books/magazines first)
6. Our walk-in customers embrace the warehouse look, feel and layout of our store.
We’ve had some people simply say that they can’t stand it, and they walk out and never come back. That makes me feel bad. We did lay out the shelves and the design before we ever decided to open up to walk-ins, but we did design the store for our internet part of the business.
We realize that having the fabrics horizontal instead of vertical makes it harder for you to see some of the fabrics, but by accommodating our system, and you making the in-store efforts to see the fabrics, you’re keeping our costs low. It takes about half the floor space to house 12,000 bolts as it would if we had to display them the traditional way.
So, you see, you, the walk-ins, are also working to keep our prices low! And obviously, the internet customer is what keeps us going! We originally built our business for you! Now, we service about half and half. About half of our business is internet and half in store!
And now you know! Thanks in part to our customers and their wonderful “we are flexible spirit”, we are working hard to keep our prices as low as possible!
Have a great day wherever you are reading this! Stay safe!
Be sure to check out what my sis has for you in the store here!
Here’s one of the beauties we have!
