Post by Berry McPaper-cuts on Oct 27, 2023 7:48:18 GMT
There is an article in today's DM claiming her craft business is in the red. Her products are everywhere on Craft TV - she has regular crafting spots on QVC and HobbyMaker plus her own channel and American shopping TV. If she crashes and burns it won’t be good for the crafting industry.
I’d have thought that the crafting industry would have benefited during the Covid lockdowns because people were stuck indoors. I know that I started working in earnest with resin and bought other craft things online. Maybe the cost of living crisis has also had a knock on effect as well because people prefer to “eat and heat” rather than make cards. My local craft warehouse, which sold virtually anything that a crafter would need, also closed down after Covid because people weren’t going out and you couldn’t order online. I hope that crafting doesn’t suffer, but I guess that it will have an impact if large companies are suffering.
When visiting U.K., I would head for the craft stores. There were 4 excellent ones in and around Newcastle, all have now closed down - not even gone online. Hobbycraft is stupidly expensive with limited papercraft items but I was forced to patronise them as I needed cello bags urgently to take back. Fortunately, I have a huge stash of papers and card which I am using up so I needed little this time. The Works had a few pretty Autumn /Christmas embellishments which I also bought.They also had cello bage but none in the sizes I needed. Here in Greece, the one (o.k. very expensive but an occasional life-saver)craft store in the whole Athens area has closed and Flying Tiger has severely limited it's craft stocks. Like others, I thought crafting would become more popular during lockdown but it seems not to be the case.
It's a great pity the right of free speech isn't based on the obligation to say something sensible.
They have cut it right back, I often would shop there but have been into 3 of their biggest stores last week, and hardly anything. The manager of one store said there were np plans to restock.
It's a great pity the right of free speech isn't based on the obligation to say something sensible.
Post by Berry McPaper-cuts on Oct 27, 2023 11:54:23 GMT
You can get occasional buys in Aldi & Lidl and garden centres used to stock crafty stuff but I haven’t been to the local garden centre recently. I think quite a few suppliers got ‘burned’ when Create & Craft went bust last year and were taken over by Hochanda and then used the Create & Craft name on the old Hochanda channel.Dawn Bibby is struggling with her business too, especially as she has been laid up in hospital recently. While there are consumables that you need to replace you don’t need to get lots of new dies and stamps.The Craft shop in Rammy is still open but I don’t know how, unless people coming on the train visit ( it’s opposite the station). There will always be a need for craft products in schools so that’s something suppliers can rely on.