The Dying SG Retail Store

I'm betting on a long-suffering ex-husband paying child support to subsidize this "artist". And it's hard to be a "basement bandit" when you live in a double wide.

Don't take this the wrong way, but please check in with us in a couple of years, and let us know if you are still supporting your family with this art. Any second now there will be a boatload of stuff from China for a few pennies each selling at your local Staples.

Excellent point. I agree that the folks with money don't know or care about the state of the economy. Don't get me wrong about my doom & gloom posts. I am doing fine, but my concerns were for the entire industry. Plenty of small shops can't sell high end stuff. I'm shocked to say that I'm getting as much as $250 a sq/ft for commission work, and my work is nothing special. The real money is in the repairs. Almost 100% profit for as little as a few minutes. I'm a veteran and always find a way to get back up and take more abuse in this business. I'm just not doing much retail anymore.

Yeah, you have me there; it was a snide comment, and uncalled-for. I was simply a bit taken aback by the sweeping decree that kilnforming is a "passing fad". Of course it will prove to be cyclical; everything under the sun is cyclical.

I don't have a storefront other than on the web, and I do supplement my beadmaking income by selling supplies (which are indeed stored in my basement). I have one full-time employee who is paid for essentially from my supply line profits. Naturally, I hope that after the initial flush of new lampworkers (and we are still in the initial flush, even after fifteen years or so of this current revival) dies down, there will still be enough buyers around and I will be established enough to continue to make a living at this; I may, and I may not. There are already cheap and reasonably good Chinese and Indian lampwork beads available on eBay and at the local stores, but that hasn't put a dent in my business... yet.

I'm not failing to sympathize with the stained glass retailer (as I hope my earlier post made clear) I was simply expressing my bemusement at the relegation of warm glass to "flash in the pan" status.

Forgot to take your meds again?

My ex pays me $82/month in child support, which I usually decline to collect because he's broke all the time. I purchased one house when single and kept it as a rental when I remarried and we bought this bungalow... with my cash for a down payment, as my sweetie wasn't very liquid. Although my business expenses run about $40,000/yr, I still net above median income for my area... that's on the beads alone, the supply line is not profitable, it just pays for my employee, & is picking up just enough that I need to hire another.

The stuff from China is already here; it's everywhere, at every bead show, craft show, hobby shop. Who knows how it will effect my business over the long haul... hopefully I will be able to stay different enough to be competetive.

Didn't mean to sound so flippant, but I was a bit taken aback by the classification of kilnforming as "the latest fad". I'm not much of a kilnformer myself, but it's an art form that's just barely emerged, and I think has yet to even come into its own. It will eventually take a downturn, as all things do, but I think it's inaccurate to call it a fad.

The only person making "flash in the pan" comments is YOU.

The topic was the retailer, as JK has a storefront operation, that is what concerns him and where all this started. All I said was what I perceive, from talking to people that had/have been in the business, stained glass supply business, for more years than I.

Due to things like the internet, whose storefront does not involve the type of rents, insurance,taxes, etc that a physical building does, the cycle can not be addressed the same as it had in the past.

What you "hope for" after the initial push, is what we all hope for. A niche in the business we enjoy so we can hang around a bit longer and still pay our bills. The other end of this topic is demographic, Kalera is in the northwest, Portland to be specific. Rents average what there? JK is in Lynbrook,on Long Island, NY darn close to NYC. HUGE difference in rents, and therefore expenses. Glass is a big business in Portland, like Settle, people go there looking for glass, not so at the other end of the country, in the midwest people come looking for ....cows...

The whole point is that because "it" isn't what you are experiencing right now doesn't mean "it" is not happening elsewhere. In a great many stained glass stores, glass rods were introduced by their wholesalers as another medium, in glass, to add to their bottom line. Same with fused glass, it just goes further back. As fused glass was introduced it didn't gain in popularity until the last several years,but the class sizes are already changing . Not saying it will die, just numbers will reduce below which it may be difficult for the same businesses to stay around.

Look up "Higgins Glass" did incredible work, I am proud to own a piece in my collection.

No, this is what I was responding to:

Kalera Stratton wrote: If the stained-glass retailer doesn't want to stick his neck out he

If that's the case then why don't you leave the retail sales of rods and such up to the retailer and do what you do...make beads. It's competition like you (rods and such you are selling on your site) that make the competition tough for retailers...big or small. Everybody wants a slice of the pie but the pie is only so big.

Andy

I'm not a stained glass seller, so the specific risks I'm referring to (investing a lot in merchandise your current customer base doesn't use) aren't applicable unless I decide to add a product likne that targets a different market. I am a retailer, and I sell at retail prices, not wholesale prices. I sell a specialty product not widely available at retail stores; if it was, my customer base would dry up.

What you seem to be suggesting is that the would-be entrepreneur should never go into business in the first place, because it would compete with existing businesses. I don't agree with that viewpoint. Perhaps you simply think that web-based retailers are unethical because they compete with storefront retailers... I can't agree with that point of view, either. How do you feel about catalog retailers like Frantz and Arrow Springs? What about catalog software, garden supplies, clothing and housewares?

How do you feel about the fact that many successful manufacturing and/or catalog businesses (such as Bullseye, as an example) started in someone's basement or garage? Do you think that's something to be discouraged in general, or is there something about my particular situation that you find offensive?

When I started selling glass, I saw an opportunity; no one else had Uroboros rods in stock yet; they were a new product. I took my monthly mortgage payment and put it all into rods, bargaining that I would be able to sell enough in the next two weeks to make my house payment back. I did, and more; I put it back into the business and it's grown from there. It's expanded enough that it has become a full-fledged business of its own, and now has its own name and a new website which the developer is almost through with, and I may (or may not, depending on how things go) open a retail location. It will either continue to thrive or it will be pressured out of the marketplace; that's how it works. If you think there's something wrong with that, then don't do it.

There are only a few reasons I can think of to support a national sales tax, and one of them is to clamp down on the basement bandits. Maybe these internet low-lifes wouldn't be so anxious to be cutting prices and services if they had to compete on a level playing field, one where they actually had to report their sales and pay income taxes like the rest of us.

At least with a national sales tax, whenever they spent the profits in a retail store, they'd actually be paying some taxes, for a change.

First you say you are a retailer, then you say you don't have a retail location. And you sell (at retail), products that retail stores don't carry. You almost have a website, too. And this ethereal business has it's own name, too. Wowzer. I'm sure real businesses tremble at the very mention of your name.

There's a bill in congress that will prevent the "Department of Homeland Security" from buying materials and/or equipment from outside the United States. Unfortunately, this means that they may no longer buy cell phones or computers.

I have a retail website currently, not a retail storefront. Is that really that hard of a concept to grasp? I sell at retail, not wholesale. I clarified that originally because I am not one of the wholesale-to-the-public websites that people were complaining about. I sell Bullseye and Uroboros, which are not currently easy to find in retail storefronts (walk-in storefronts, in case I'm confusing you). The supply line is growing enough that I have split it into a seperate business with its own name and website rather than continuing to sell it on my current website. I don't care if other businesses register me on their radar; I'm not looking to put anyone out of business, I'm looking to make a living.

Why are you so unpleasant to people who don't do windows? Did you know that there's a stained glass newsgroup, where you wouldn't have to dealw ith us awful beadmakers?

I pay income and self-employement taxes, you vile little spooge. Every penny of my income is reported.

Uhhh..I'm only unpleasant to folks that have it coming. Like cross-posting whiners like yerself.

If you check above, you will see that my comments were to Andy. Not to you. So f*ck off.

Kinda funny story - I once went into a Corvallis OR retail glasss shop. They had some nice pieces, but the glass selection sucked eggs, and the prices weren't that great either. Going to Portland was really the only option if I wanted nice glass and decently-priced supplies. I bought from these folks a couple of times, but then stopped.

The service was certainly OK, but not stellar, not good enough to go back time and again.

Now I get all my supplies on the 'net, and get my glass in Seattle or Portland, because it's hard to buy glass without seeing the piece you're buying, unless it's a sort of uniform glass (glue-chip, hammered, etc.) Those kinds of glass I'll buy on the 'net as well. I don't have to deal with snotty or know-it-all sales folks, I can shop in my underwear at 11:35PM, and I don't have to walk any further than my door to pick it up. Convenience. Price is a close second.

If store-front retail wants to succeed, complaining about e-tail doesn't get them any closer to success.

E.P. (Flat-panel foil-n-solder type guy.)