Did you know that 95 percent of fabric shoppers make their purchases at chain stores? That’s right, only 5 percent shop independents. Let’s change that.
Lauren Venell of Sweet Meats recently turned me on to this great project called Project 95: Fabric Shoppers Unite—Shop Independents is a worldwide network of independent quilt and fabric shops, that have joined forces to promote shopping independents.
I occasionally shop at chain crafts stores like Joann’s and Michael’s but mostly prefer the smaller local shops, they have a higher quality of product, more knowledgeable staff and best of all it helps people in my community.
Project 95 and your local craft shops need your help!
The first thing you can do is to help Project 95 keep their database up to date. ( I have to say that the techie in me is cringing a bit at how they are going about this. But I’m not judging!) Email their tech person at [email protected] with a list of the name of all your local shops.
Second, tell all your crafty friends to do the same.
Third, check out their database to find a local shop! Shop local!
Glad the link is around. I just discovered 2 great stores in my local area!
Thank you for helping spread the word about Project 95. We certainly appreciate it!
I am not the “techie” person, however, I am managing the outreach about Project 95. However, any technical concerns you may have will certainly be passed along; however, all comments are send to me, so that each one is responded to and then sent on to our technology person.
In guessing what you’re “cringing” about, technology-wise, I’d love to address a couple of issues. We are manually managing all of the data to prevent frustrating duplications on the consumer end. It’s a lot more work on our end than an automated system would have been, but we are committed to this eventually being as accurate and robust as possible (and with several thousand names just in the US already, and international just down the pike, we feel like we are headed in that direction). Also, since the database contains thousands and thousands of names, addresses and phone numbers, we feel a responsibility to protect the integrity of that data on behalf of the stores, while still connecting fabric shoppers to the quality products and service they need, which is why folks can’t simply generate a long list of shops.