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Fabric Manufacturers Cheat Stores and the Public

On Sunday, October 8, 2007, we unwrapped two "full" bolts of Elvis Blue Hawaii fabric. The bolts of fabric were from VIP Cranston. One bolt end indicated it was measured at 13 yards and the other bolt indicated 11 yards. Wrong! The larger bolt was seven inches short of the indicated measurement while the other bolt was six inches short. We have found this to be the rule, not the exception, when we measure unopened bolts of fabric. December 2, we unwrapped a bolt of frabric from Fabric Tradtions. It was supposed to be 10 yards of Indianapolis Colts fabric but it was seven inches short. That's a lot. That's not even close. We think both the NFL and the Indianapolis Colts should be really pissed at Fabric Traditions because short bolts reflect badly on their choice of company to manufacture and market a license product. We have found Springs to be the worst offender. One Wal-Mart fabric manager mentioned to us that Wal-Mart had complained to Springs about the shortages. Let's do a little math here, shall we? In round numbers. Let's say Wal-Mart has 5,000 stores and each one, right now, has at least 100 bolts of fabric from Springs (this is not an unreasonable number when you consider the large number of novelty fabrics distributed by Springs). That's 500,000 bolts of fabric. Let's say each bolt is six inches short (from our experience this is an accurate assumption). That's 3 million inches of missing fabric. That's 83,333 yards of missing fabric. That's 6,944 bolts of fabric (at 12 yards a bolt) or 7,042 bolts of fabric if you measure like Springs does. In any event, let's guess that Wal-Mart pays Springs $1.00 a yard for the novelty fabrics. That's $83,333 that Springs is overcharging Wal-Mart for the fabric presently in the stores. Let's guess that there is a 100% turn-over in each store every year, so the amount doubles to $166,666 a year Springs over-charges Wal-Mart. Throw in all of the Hancock Fabrics, JoAnn Fabrics, Hobby Lobbys, quilt stores, Ben Franklins, and so on, and pretty soon you're talking big bucks. Springs could be skimming an additional $1,000,000 a year from the sale of missing fabrics. Try the math this way: the missing six inches is 1.389% of a 12-yard bolt. That's about 1.4 cents on the dollar. That's not very much, is it? Let's say you make $500 a week. If your employer only paid you $493 you would want YOUR missing $7.00. That's $364 a year. It adds up. Since almost EVERY bolt is short, we think we can safely assume that the missing fabric is the result of intentional actions on the part of the fabric manufacturers. Therefore, in our opinion, Springs is stealing from Wal-Mart and everyone else to whom they sell fabric. And so is VIP Cranston. We have also measured short bolts from Sykel. But it's not Wal-Mart and the other stores that are paying for the shortages: it's the buying public who is cheated. The stores just pass the shortage on to the consumer; us. The only bolts we have found to be correctly measured are panels and not many of those. Most bolts of panels have a bad cut causing one or both ends to be bad. The compelling question we have is why do the facric manufacturers feel the need to cheat the stores and the public in this manner? How about it, Springs, VIP Cranston, Sykel, and the rest of you? Why are you shorting the bolts? This problem appears to affect all of the fabric manufacturers.