I have to admit I've pretty much switched to shopping at Mood online even though we have a location here in LA. Two reasons. Price. One fabric was $35/yard in store and $14 online. Now to have a price discrepancy that large within your own retail outlets is unacceptable. The second. Location. It's in West LA and I'm a South Bay/Beach Cities girl. I miss Florence Fabrics in Torrance. The building still has the original facade and the chandelier. If I had my little way I'd just rent that location and reopen under the same name. Anyways downtown is closer than Mood.
Well today I did make the trip to their new location on La Brea and Wilshire which for me is even further away but they have a new 20,000 location with parking in the back. Looks like an old furniture store. I was looking for knit ponte or double knit to make a knit blazer but they didn't have anything so that makes me think all of the stock hasn't arrived since the fabrics fill up only 1/3 of the building.
Now for once you could actually see they had a decent leather selection so I thought to pick up some up for my new adventure shoe making. Now they had a price list taped to the racks which was pretty simple to understand. Regular leather $5sq foot Metallic $8 and so forth. So I picked up a nice lime green hide of what I assumed was lambskin from the size. There was no label so I only used my experience to figure that out.
We went back and forth trying to figure out that we needed a cutting slip and that the sq footage was printed on the back of the hide. But not all of them. There weren't any pricing tags so I assumed the list applied which sounded about right compared to the retail pricing from Hide House. Well actually the prices were still much higher but I figured retail location and all.
So I trotted my leather up the register thinking I didn't need a slip because the first girl said I didn't but the manager very helpfully took me back to get a cutting slip. Well the clerk rung it up as $9 a foot which surprised me and I asked him why and he said the price was based on his assessment of the quality of the leather. I was polite and said no thanks I can get it at Hide House for waay less. I pay $3.50 wholesale pricing but their retail price for the same hide would be $45 not the $70 they were going to charge me.
But my husband was with me and was like lets go look for the tag which wasn't there and then we showed the clerk the price list and he honored the price. The nice man at the front rang me up and I used my 20% coupon which was the only reason I was there and insistant on picking up SOMETHING. So with the discount I paid $30 for the small hide or $4 a foot.
It IS lovely but I wish shopping was less rife with price misunderstanding it makes me feel stupid. Mood if your listening hello? I sent a message via facebook. It's easier to make purchasing decisions when the pricing is clear to both the customer and the clerk. It always makes me feel like a cheapo when I misunderstand the pricing but I have a lot of options as to where to get my fabric and leather from and I'm really good at remember all the price points. I DID not like the fact that the clerk was going to charge whatever. Not cool.
Yes, we ARE listening! I want to discuss this incident with our NYC leather manager. Please email me at meg [at] moodfabrics do com so I can more easily correspond with you that way. Thanks!
Is there a right way or wrong way to do something? Not necessarily but there is a way that logical, gives good result and less headaches and this is what this blog is truly about.
1 comments:
Yes, we ARE listening! I want to discuss this incident with our NYC leather manager. Please email me at meg [at] moodfabrics do com so I can more easily correspond with you that way. Thanks!
Post a Comment