no yarn at wal-mart

[PBLKNP]

That's horrible! I don't know about the rest of you, but when my significant other is perusing the power tools and the garden implements, I go over the the craft section to visit the skeins...

[The_Virginia_Hooker]

That's horrible! I don't know about the rest of you, but when my significant other is perusing the power tools and the garden implements, I go over the the craft section to visit the skeins...

 

 

Same here, only he's in the DVD section.

[Maryk]

From what I was told from the Dept Manager at one of our local Wal-Marts if the department shows a profit the store gets to keep it. If it doesn't it's gone. Our one store is working really hard to keep theirs but with a Hobby Lobby and a Michaels so close to one of them it maybe a hard thing to do. I know from personal experience (I work there) that Hobby Lobby has a larger selection of yarn and fabric then one of our Wal Marts. Actually except for some collegiate and pro team logo fabrics we have a better selection of yard etc than either of our stores. Do you all remember when you could buy yarn at K-Mart?

[CrochettingMama]

Do you all remember when you could buy yarn at K-Mart?

I remember.

How about when Target sold yarn too. I used to buy a lot of yarn at Target too.

[Blondie]

If our Wal-Mart closes their craft section, I don't know what I will do we have no other craft store in town. When I first moved here our original Wal-Mart that was about a 1/4 the size of the super center that is here now, and had triple the amount of yarn than is there now. I remember the back wall being full from top to bottom of nothing but yarn and thread. Granted it was mostly red Heart back then, but they had so many colors to choose from. Now we have one aisle on one side and about 1/3 of an aisle across from it and that is it!!

 

Helen Walton was big into crafts, now that all the older Waltons are gone, and non-family members are running the company, it is just not the same at all.

 

I will not use their self-checkouts, if I am going to pay the same price for my items, I want live checker, now if they want to discount my purchases because I checked them out myself then we can talk about it. Besides I can't help but think everytime I see a self check out it represents a job lost that someone really needed.

 

Don't even get me started on the lack of customer service Yestereday when I was in the store looking for the RH Fall Multi, the dept. manager walked all around me rearranging a shelf. Did she even take 5 seconds to ask if she could help me? Nope!! Did she even as much as smile? Nope!! Why bother with stocking the shelves in a store if you are not going to even attempt to help a customer who is in there to buy:(

 

Okay I am finished ranting now

[stillwjo]

After reading through this thread, I got a big scare yesterday when I went to WM to find some yarn. They had added several more types of yarn to the clearance section. Then, when I got to the yarn aisle, there were 4 or 5 carts full of yarn, the shelves were missing quite a few colors of Red Heart, etc. and the RH SS was marked down to $1.98. I've only been crocheting a couple months and I thought my cheap, readily available supply was going away before my eyes. I called my wife to get permission to stock up. Then, the WM yarn lady came back and started re-stocking the shelves. I asked her if the yarn was going away and she said no, they were just rearranging and adding new stuff. I was so relieved! She did say that they had discontinued floss. Just minutes before we talked, there was a lady in a wheelchair with her husband looking for floss. She was very disappointed. WM Lady went on a rant that since they stopped re-stocking the floss, they've had over 300 inquiries about it. She said that the higher-ups don't realise the draw that the yarn aisle is even though it's not that profitable itself. She said that while the ladies are in shopping for yarn, the men are off looking at the bigger ticket items. She told me to call 1-800-WAL-MART and tell them that I wanted to keep/improve the yarn section. She also said that our WM is going to keep the yarn/sewing section for the foreseeable future.

 

Sorry about the long paragraph...

[Debbi-a1]

Don't worry about the long paragraph. I hope they don't take away the yarn in our WM. I do have a Micheals, but it doesn't have a big selection of RH, my choice for yarn. When I was doing some HP items, I went to Micheals (had a sale) but not all colors, so I went to WM and they had more colors and even more choices. Our floss is gone. Most of the crochet books are on "clearance" (not really but they label it as such). Plastic hooks were on "clearance" and some other hooks had EOS, which I'm assuming means End of Sale so they won't be restocked. 3 baskets of "clearance" yarn.

Debbi

[Bizzyboppers]

I'm going to WM tonight...I'm gonna look...

[KellyA]

I too noticed that the WM near work picked up additional colors in the RHSS and in the Caron Simply Soft. some of the novelty yarns were dissappearing - thank goodness for the end of fun fur!!

The pricing on the RHSS and Simpy soft also dropped

[Debbi-a1]

I too noticed that the WM near work picked up additional colors in the RHSS and in the Caron Simply Soft. some of the novelty yarns were dissappearing - thank goodness for the end of fun fur!!

The pricing on the RHSS and Simpy soft also dropped

I hope this is the case in mine! I didn't notice the drop in price, but more colors and keeping it is fine. I don't mind the novelty yarn going, it's not my favorite. I kind of like fun fur for some things (like my scarf).

Debbi

[Bizzyboppers]

I know this is a little off subject, but while at WM last week DD and I picked out some yarn for a project and she chose Disco by Bernat.

 

If you haven't tried it...yuck. It's like working with Christmas tree tinsel.

[Hazlecreek]

I went back to WM today and they were putting out all of the new yarns!! They had even expaned the yarn shelves like the lady told me they would. She said that she guessed enought people called 1-800-WM and complained. I walked out with some great new colors.

[Nan-Nan]

I live in Waco, Tx. We have 3 WalMarts in our area. one of them no longer carries fabrics & only a tiny amt. of yarn. The others still carry it. If everyone would call 1-800-WalMart & tell them your opinion, it might make a difference. At least it's worth a try.

[stillwjo]

Here's an email reply I got from Wal-Mart. Seems to be pretty much what people have been saying...

 

******************************************

 

Thank you for your message.

 

Dear Joh,

 

Thank you for your recent inquiry regarding the fabric department in your local store. As with any merchandise decision that we make, we have based our decision to reduce the stitching and fabric departments on customer demand, which does not appear to be as high today for a full stitching and fabric offering in some markets as it may have been at Wal-Mart in the past.

 

In keeping with our emphasis on being a store of the community, Wal-Mart is converting the fabrics and crafts department in some stores to a newly expanded assortment of merchandise that focuses on life's celebrations. We are thrilled to offer our customers this exciting new crafts and celebrations center that makes available craft and party planning needs along with information on current trends and new ideas in the area of life's celebrations, such as holidays, weddings and birthdays.

 

In those stores where the new crafts and celebrations center is placed, merchandise commonly referred to as 'notions' will be included in the product offerings - such as sewing machines, yarn, needles, thread, etc. As a part of this conversion, most of our new and remodeled stores that opened earlier this year, as well as a small number of existing stores, will feature the new crafts and celebrations center in place of cut fabrics. Wal-Mart will continue to carry cut fabric in most of our stores. Due to the continued evaluation of our stores, we are unable to share a list of existing stores scheduled to receive the new crafts and celebrations center at this time.

 

Thank you,

Wal-Mart Customer Relations

 

 

 

For further correspondence regarding this issue, please reply to this email.

 

 

----Your Original Comments Were----

 

I recently started crocheting and just joined a crochet forum online. A lot of the ladies are upset because they've heard that Wal-Mart is doing away with yarn or the craft dept, etc.

 

Is there any truth to this? Can you give me some "official" info on this that I could pass along? Or, maybe you could contact the administrator of the http://www.crochetville.org forum and let her post something "official".

 

I think most of the ladies really like getting yarn, etc. at Wal-Mart but have seen then selection shrink and now they're hearing things like I've mentioned.

 

I'd appreciate any info you could give me.

 

thanks

[Debbi-a1]

I went to walmart last night worried that there wouldn't be any yarn and there wasn't much...

 

Okay that was because they lowered RH to $1.98 and so they were low on that yarn. But they had rearranged the hooks and stocked up on some that were out and they redid the books (took out a lot and "clearanced" the rest (by only .50 cent to $1). But it looked like the yarn is to stay in mine.

 

Of course this could be a problem... I also shopped for other things besides yarn... skirt, treats, etc...

Debbi

[Happy_Hooker]

It is kind of hitting us here too... Quite a few of my local Walmarts have skimmed somewhat. Same thing; middle of the store... one aisle of yarn.

I don't care much about the fabric... and I do have other places to buy yarn as well... but it is convenient to have it right there when you are shopping for other things.

[Chiscrochetcrazy]

We have 3 walmart here in town & they all still have yarn & fabric. We're moving soon & I sure hope the walmart there has it.

[mythunderbird]

i was at the walmart they are in the proceses of upgrading this to a super walmart, i was sadly shocked to see no more craft section except for a small area that had basicly red heart yarn. no more fabric no more suprises for momma to pick up. BUT they did have once heck of a clearence wall in the back,pretty much everything they had there (and there was a lot) was at least 75% off. course since i tried too behave

myself i was doing pretty good until i saw it, yes they had a whole darn wall stuffed full with 75% yarn, wellllllllllllllllllllllllll , i was bad, veery bad i bought some simple soft for my friend jacqui who can't get it down in australia and for myself, i bought some of the bernat with the alpaca in it, can't remember the name of it though all i know is it is nice and soft, i was sooooooooo tempted, but then thought to myself WHAT ARE YOU NUTS???!!! remember you just gave a booko lot of yar away??? that brought me back to my senses:clap :clap but i sure had fun, although now am really sad since i will have to either drive to puyallup or tacoma to get any fresh yarn unless i splurge and buy online. oh and not forgetting yorkshire yarns clearence sale 70%all the clearence yarn. i recieved from the owner a 20 % off discount for my bday which is monday she knew darn her just what i was looking for too, was some yummmmmmy alpaca she has in, while it is expensive, i saved 14.00 from buying both hanks, and they wound them for me free., which was awesome cause i don't have aswift. this yarn is the softest yarn i have ever felt, oh by the way if anyone wants to see if there is any yarn left check the spanaway store, there was alot when i left but who knows, i didn]t go to that one today on purpose, i went to puyallup, while is farther away, their yarn is full price as is material :P anyways i think its a crying shame that these stores are closing out their stock and only have a minute amount of yarn on hand and no material is sad' sad sad.

[dewbaby00]

I was just in my walmart yesterday and there was a bunch of new rh colors it went from being bare last sat. to almost full thursday. It looked to me like they were getting rid of most of the novelty yarn. rh was 1.98 and caron simply soft 2.09. I have also been paying attention to other ppl in the yarn isle on saterday I saw a young lady about 8 or 9 buying yarn, I helped her reach stuff on the top shelf she was making scarves, I also saw a gentleman wearing a cool crocheted hat and picking out some cool yarn.

[teapot]

Oh ladies:

 

I just heard the terrible news about walmarts here in Canada. The lady in Michaels told me that By 2008 or the end of it walmarts are closing out their yarn, fabric and sewing centres!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! GASP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Teapot

[Debbi-a1]

Oh ladies:

 

I just heard the terrible news about walmarts here in Canada. The lady in Michaels told me that By 2008 or the end of it walmarts are closing out their yarn, fabric and sewing centres!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! GASP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Teapot

The lady at "Micheals" told you that? I would check with walmart. Of course she may be right. And maybe it's like the USA, just certain areas, if it sells well, they'll keep it. That's why I think the fabric department is still in ours and still pretty big, last time I bought yarn the fabric area was busy and when I went the other night for lining for a purse, it was busy too.

Debbi

[texasredhead]

Don't be fooled!! I was told by a Walmart manager that every store gets a remodel every 10 years, and when it is your store's turn, they will get the new craft department that does not include fabrics, only a few crafts that hang on the pegboard and some yarn. It will be a definate downgrade. The stores that I have seen have taken away the prime large edge section from the crafts and put the craft section isles in the interior part of the store with only a couple of rows. You can tell that they will not be keeping up on trends, and only carrying core stock. It's a good thing that we have the internet to order from, so those of you who are in rural areas will still have acess to what you need. I am lucky, I have JoAnns huge yarn department at the new Super JoAnns store, and Michaels who have added a lot on to their department and Hobby Lobby.