Shopping With Integrity
It may seem a bit odd for one business to be sad about a "competitor" closing but the recent closures of Canny Crafts, Cotswold Keepsakes, Scraptastic and several others are sad times for most of us with scrapping businesses.
No store can stock everything and as most scrapbook retaillers are also scrappers ourselves we tend to shop around at other sites for the items we don't carry. Clare has a very interesting article on her blog today about how as scrappers we are responsible for how we choose to shop.
This is always a very difficult area for shop owners to comment on, it is difficult to make a comment without being seen as being afraid of or disliking competition.
My personal view is that in order for scrapbooking to continue to grow we NEED a good range of shops both online and bricks and mortar. We also need big stores and little stores, what is damaging is stores set up as a hobby to "make a bit of pin money" or simply to allow the owner to access wholesale prices for their own use.
These stores where the store owner has no intention of running them as effective businesses are then able to turn over stock at nearly wholesale prices i.e with very little profit whatsoever. In the short term this is great for the customer seeking a bargain but in the long term it leads to what we are already beginning to see; closure of larger stores which have overheads and large investments to protect and who cannot afford to run a shop making hardly any profit. The end result is that many of the shops which are run as a business and by people who work at it as a full time job will be gone and what remains will be a marketplace where a very small range of stock will be available relatively cheaply but the diversity that we see when looking at many of the shops we have now will be gone and the UK Scrapping market will be back to square one.
Once again I feel I need to say that we are happy to have competition - it is good for the customer to have choices and it leads to great customer service as everyone wants to provide a good service to attract customers, however when I shop for personal stash for items we don't carry I will certainly be bearing in mind the words of Clare and Sally R and many others and aim to shop with integrity.
No store can stock everything and as most scrapbook retaillers are also scrappers ourselves we tend to shop around at other sites for the items we don't carry. Clare has a very interesting article on her blog today about how as scrappers we are responsible for how we choose to shop.
This is always a very difficult area for shop owners to comment on, it is difficult to make a comment without being seen as being afraid of or disliking competition.
My personal view is that in order for scrapbooking to continue to grow we NEED a good range of shops both online and bricks and mortar. We also need big stores and little stores, what is damaging is stores set up as a hobby to "make a bit of pin money" or simply to allow the owner to access wholesale prices for their own use.
These stores where the store owner has no intention of running them as effective businesses are then able to turn over stock at nearly wholesale prices i.e with very little profit whatsoever. In the short term this is great for the customer seeking a bargain but in the long term it leads to what we are already beginning to see; closure of larger stores which have overheads and large investments to protect and who cannot afford to run a shop making hardly any profit. The end result is that many of the shops which are run as a business and by people who work at it as a full time job will be gone and what remains will be a marketplace where a very small range of stock will be available relatively cheaply but the diversity that we see when looking at many of the shops we have now will be gone and the UK Scrapping market will be back to square one.
Once again I feel I need to say that we are happy to have competition - it is good for the customer to have choices and it leads to great customer service as everyone wants to provide a good service to attract customers, however when I shop for personal stash for items we don't carry I will certainly be bearing in mind the words of Clare and Sally R and many others and aim to shop with integrity.
posted by Mel at 12:48 pm
7 Comments:
*round of applause*
Thank you, today has been an eye opener in many ways and an echo of many of my own opinions. Even as a newish scrapper, I have paid lots of attention to how I and others shop, I hope this discussion across blogs and UKS helps in some small way.
Grateful Stash Shopper,
Heather
i totally agree with everything that you and clare have said..
i am an online business.i only sell ribbons.I decided to diversify so that i was no threat to other sponsers and i hopefully filled a niche. But i am saddened daily when i see people undercutting each other in an already cut price worldd. Unfortunately the customers are pushing the prices down and down and most stores cant cope with that and are closing. When i first started selling and scrapbooking. There was one scrapbook shop and one online store..then scrapmagic opened..We suddenly had choice.
i have seen the market place become so saturated with shops that it actually turns me off buying..I buy from various sponsers when they have something thta i want or need..i dont compare prices i trust that i am getting a good deal and go for it.
i have seen so many sponsers come onto uk scrappers and at birmingham show heard so many saying that they wanted this or that for several friends and that they could sell the rest and that would pay for their bag...or whatever it is..they are buying.
.the scrapohoilic girls can buy at wholesale prices for their clubs..but i know that they sell behind the closed doors of pm to their friends and others...
its a sad old day when good quality, respectable stores go...
madcarole
i would like to edit the above comment that i made but i do no know how so i will add another comment here if i may.
in the last paragraph i posted that 'the scrapoholics girls can buy at wholesale pricesw...etc etc' well sarah and karen were very upset by my comments abnd felt that it was a malicious slander about them and their company..now i have known sarah for a few years now and i have always found her to be efficent proffessional and fair..my comment was not about the owners of the company just that i have had personally received several pms from girls pertaining to hold scrapoholic crops who have tried to sell me things through the back door so to speak. Sarah and Karen have nothing to do with this and i apologise if anyone else felt i was bad mouthing this company..
here here Mel
I agree with everything you and Ckare have said Mel. I commented on Clare's blog, that the fact the supermarkets are now stocking craft items does not help matters, also ebay craft shops which undercut and the bigger craft stores. The for 'pin money' on-line stores give a bad name for those of us who have invested a lot of time and money into making an on-line store work.
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