Hobby Lobby Shrinking?

[storewanderer]

Noted, but I doubt there will be one near me within a 5 mile radius anytime in the near future.

And with traffic I don't see me traveling farther out to "take a chance" on one singular store being acceptable.

They're a fun place to shop. A couple poorly run ones are unpleasant in my area but still interesting to go see what they have even at those. The well run ones are an all around excellent experience; well staffed with active employees, stuffed with items, staffed front ends including baggers. Really good.

[ClownLoach]

Not to turn this into a political discussion, but I know a few people in California who said they would not shop at Hobby Lobby after the Supreme Court case. I wonder if that plays a factor in this. I'm sure it resulted in a boost in business in the south and more religious areas, but it may have harmed their sales in urban areas.

I know people who said that too and the quit shopping there for six months then forgot about it and went back and have never talked about it again.

I don't think the case in itself has impacted their business. Not any more than how they do business already would have impacted their business.

I think other things such as religious elements built into their product assortment, and not being open Sunday, may turn off some customers.

Make no mistake, this was a PR stunt. This entire "religious company" thing was invented in 2000, there wasn't anything religious about them from their founding in the 70s and they were open Sundays until 2000. They got more free PR with that lawsuit than they would have with a national ad campaign for a year. Even if they lost some customers, they gained far more because most people had never heard of them before the suit.

[ClownLoach]

Hobby Lobby is not very popular in the San Francisco Bay Area. You often see very few customers. The Dublin, California store was always empty of customers. I don't know how it managed to stay open all of these years.

I found the store to be very mediocre. There was a ton of stuff, but it just seemed like a big garage sale of kitschy junk. It was very disorganized. Most of these items aren't very appealing. The atmosphere of the store was very stuffy. It is sort of a store where mostly senior citizen ladies would shop.

Michaels absolutely dominates Northern California. My understanding is thats their most successful market outside of their North Texas home. They continue to add stores up there; they just acquired the Capitola BB&B from the bankruptcy Court for a new store. Michaels outnumbers Hobby Lobby at least 5 to 1 in Norcal.

Aside from this Hayward situation it seems Hobby Lobby has stopped adding stores in California, at one point they were opening a new store every month in the state.

To be specific about the disorganized clutter of their store, they think this is a good idea. They have no navigation signage at all, and deliberately break up categories. No two stores have the same layout. Key areas like glue and paint are hard to find and at the back of the store. They suffer from the delusion that customers like to shop for hours, and their entire business plan is based on the idea that you will go in for one item and get lost finding it, filling an entire cart on the way. I would just walk out and find a store that respects their customers time.

[storewanderer]

Hobby Lobby is not very popular in the San Francisco Bay Area. You often see very few customers. The Dublin, California store was always empty of customers. I don't know how it managed to stay open all of these years.

I found the store to be very mediocre. There was a ton of stuff, but it just seemed like a big garage sale of kitschy junk. It was very disorganized. Most of these items aren't very appealing. The atmosphere of the store was very stuffy. It is sort of a store where mostly senior citizen ladies would shop.

Michaels absolutely dominates Northern California. My understanding is thats their most successful market outside of their North Texas home. They continue to add stores up there; they just acquired the Capitola BB&B from the bankruptcy Court for a new store. Michaels outnumbers Hobby Lobby at least 5 to 1 in Norcal.

Aside from this Hayward situation it seems Hobby Lobby has stopped adding stores in California, at one point they were opening a new store every month in the state.

To be specific about the disorganized clutter of their store, they think this is a good idea. They have no navigation signage at all, and deliberately break up categories. No two stores have the same layout. Key areas like glue and paint are hard to find and at the back of the store. They suffer from the delusion that customers like to shop for hours, and their entire business plan is based on the idea that you will go in for one item and get lost finding it, filling an entire cart on the way. I would just walk out and find a store that respects their customers time.

I think Hobby Lobby probably has 85% female shoppers but I see them in all ages from teen to senior citizen. Not as many 30somethings shopping there but plenty of teens and 20somethings to make up for it. Maybe fewer senior citizens in Reno due to the oversized store and due to the location of the store.

Today when I was in some other store which was at least an hour from a Hobby Lobby I overheard a customer phone call discussing buying fabric and mentioned "let's just drive to Hobby Lobby (it would be over an hour away) tomorrow instead of go to (some local fabric store in that town) because Hobby Lobby is way cheaper and probably has better quality." The customer I was was a 50something year old woman, not sure who she was talking to. Without seeing the local store I was somewhat floored by this comment, unless the local store has a fabric department that is even more limited than Wal Mart, it is hard for me to believe those comments.

[ClownLoach]

Hobby Lobby is not very popular in the San Francisco Bay Area. You often see very few customers. The Dublin, California store was always empty of customers. I don't know how it managed to stay open all of these years.

I found the store to be very mediocre. There was a ton of stuff, but it just seemed like a big garage sale of kitschy junk. It was very disorganized. Most of these items aren't very appealing. The atmosphere of the store was very stuffy. It is sort of a store where mostly senior citizen ladies would shop.

Michaels absolutely dominates Northern California. My understanding is thats their most successful market outside of their North Texas home. They continue to add stores up there; they just acquired the Capitola BB&B from the bankruptcy Court for a new store. Michaels outnumbers Hobby Lobby at least 5 to 1 in Norcal.

Aside from this Hayward situation it seems Hobby Lobby has stopped adding stores in California, at one point they were opening a new store every month in the state.

To be specific about the disorganized clutter of their store, they think this is a good idea. They have no navigation signage at all, and deliberately break up categories. No two stores have the same layout. Key areas like glue and paint are hard to find and at the back of the store. They suffer from the delusion that customers like to shop for hours, and their entire business plan is based on the idea that you will go in for one item and get lost finding it, filling an entire cart on the way. I would just walk out and find a store that respects their customers time.

I think Hobby Lobby probably has 85% female shoppers but I see them in all ages from teen to senior citizen. Not as many 30somethings shopping there but plenty of teens and 20somethings to make up for it. Maybe fewer senior citizens in Reno due to the oversized store and due to the location of the store.

Today when I was in some other store which was at least an hour from a Hobby Lobby I overheard a customer phone call discussing buying fabric and mentioned "let's just drive to Hobby Lobby (it would be over an hour away) tomorrow instead of go to (some local fabric store in that town) because Hobby Lobby is way cheaper and probably has better quality." The customer I was was a 50something year old woman, not sure who she was talking to. Without seeing the local store I was somewhat floored by this comment, unless the local store has a fabric department that is even more limited than Wal Mart, it is hard for me to believe those comments.

Have you ever looked at the fabric at Hobby Lobby? I'm certainly no expert, but the quality looks horrible. Dated, stale color schemes. Very rough looking material that would not be comfortable for any clothes. It looks like the cheap material used in low end Walmart or Big Lots bed sheets. Yes it's a big department, but I have never seen anyone actually buying fabric from them. Meanwhile Joann has people waiting an hour for the one person who cuts fabric at the counter now.

[storewanderer]

Have you ever looked at the fabric at Hobby Lobby? I'm certainly no expert, but the quality looks horrible. Dated, stale color schemes. Very rough looking material that would not be comfortable for any clothes. It looks like the cheap material used in low end Walmart or Big Lots bed sheets. Yes it's a big department, but I have never seen anyone actually buying fabric from them. Meanwhile Joann has people waiting an hour for the one person who cuts fabric at the counter now.

I decided to go spend lunch in Hobby Lobby. On this day I saw a total of 3 other male customers in the entire store and 1 male employee. There were about 60 customer groups/single female customers of various ages including a surprising number of teens. There were 4 registers open with steady lines of 2-3 customers, they are very slow. They installed new pinpads but still do not accept Tap.

I went to the fabric department also which had 1 employee and 6 customer groups present. The cutting table had steady traffic but I did not see any line up. The fabric looks worse than Wal Mart fabric (which I have purchased before) to me but the department was having a sale of 40% off all fabric. Their prices seem inflated so about the only percentage off I take seriously at Hobby Lobby is 90% off.

Also your comment about glue, I found the glue on a display near the front doors, but not in an area that gets traffic flow. You'd see it if you went to artificial flowers or framing then walked toward the exit (probably two of the lowest traffic departments- that entire 1/4 of the store was almost deserted).

Also their greeting cards which appear to be from an outside vendor in some state other than OK (maybe it was Arkansas) have some slogan about faith on the back of every single card right below with the card company's name. Even cards with nothing to do with faith like a happy birthday card with a picture of a dog.

[SamSpade]

I don't wish to pull this thread too much off topic, but I have enjoyed wandering through our growing regional crafting chain. When I grew up, we always had a (strong) regional chain out of Utah, too (that has since liquidated).

JoAnn was a small store that opened with the mall in 1985 and only contained fabric and patterns until relocating in 1997 near a newly opened Fred Meyer.
Craft Warehouse
They seemed to be using some sort of imports company that must work out of that same "Payless" warehouse area of Wilsonville, Ore. for their stock / supplies.

[ClownLoach]

I don't wish to pull this thread too much off topic, but I have enjoyed wandering through our growing regional crafting chain. When I grew up, we always had a (strong) regional chain out of Utah, too (that has since liquidated).

JoAnn was a small store that opened with the mall in 1985 and only contained fabric and patterns until relocating in 1997 near a newly opened Fred Meyer.
Craft Warehouse
They seemed to be using some sort of imports company that must work out of that same "Payless" warehouse area of Wilsonville, Ore. for their stock / supplies.

I don't think you're pulling it off topic. Craft Warehouse is interesting as it appears to be a resurrected late 1990s/early 2000s Michaels type store back when they hadn't lost their way. They seem to be very successful. Oregon/Washington area has borne small regional craft and fabric chains before, but I'm pretty sure they all were devoured by Michaels (H&H, Oregon Crafts). I think that the stumbling Michaels will continue to create opportunities for regional operators to come back. From what I can tell, they are great at churning through their people so lots of folks who have learned the business and have a chip on their shoulder can start up stores like these easily thanks to the low cost/high margin nature of craft business.

[storewanderer]

I don't wish to pull this thread too much off topic, but I have enjoyed wandering through our growing regional crafting chain. When I grew up, we always had a (strong) regional chain out of Utah, too (that has since liquidated).

JoAnn was a small store that opened with the mall in 1985 and only contained fabric and patterns until relocating in 1997 near a newly opened Fred Meyer.
Craft Warehouse
They seemed to be using some sort of imports company that must work out of that same "Payless" warehouse area of Wilsonville, Ore. for their stock / supplies.

I don't think you're pulling it off topic. Craft Warehouse is interesting as it appears to be a resurrected late 1990s/early 2000s Michaels type store back when they hadn't lost their way. They seem to be very successful. Oregon/Washington area has borne small regional craft and fabric chains before, but I'm pretty sure they all were devoured by Michaels (H&H, Oregon Crafts). I think that the stumbling Michaels will continue to create opportunities for regional operators to come back. From what I can tell, they are great at churning through their people so lots of folks who have learned the business and have a chip on their shoulder can start up stores like these easily thanks to the low cost/high margin nature of craft business.

There are also some Ben Franklin Crafts units left. I'm not sure how they are supplied/overseen anymore. We used to have a few in Reno area; one in Carson City debranded into "Craft Market" (yet the same owners kept using Ben Franklin on a Reno store) then eventually they "retired." I think it was right around when Hobby Lobby came to Reno. One in Sparks stayed open for a while after those owners "retired," the shopping center it is in is owned by a church, and the church was trying to run the Ben Franklin. They had weird hours and little inventory and weren't open long. The church tried to run a bowling alley for a while after the owner died and his family members tried to keep it going for a while but wanted to move on, also, same story on the church bowling alley operation.

There were also units in Bishop (very small downtown store) and Grass Valley. All different owners.

[ClownLoach]

I don't wish to pull this thread too much off topic, but I have enjoyed wandering through our growing regional crafting chain. When I grew up, we always had a (strong) regional chain out of Utah, too (that has since liquidated).

JoAnn was a small store that opened with the mall in 1985 and only contained fabric and patterns until relocating in 1997 near a newly opened Fred Meyer.
Craft Warehouse
They seemed to be using some sort of imports company that must work out of that same "Payless" warehouse area of Wilsonville, Ore. for their stock / supplies.

I don't think you're pulling it off topic. Craft Warehouse is interesting as it appears to be a resurrected late 1990s/early 2000s Michaels type store back when they hadn't lost their way. They seem to be very successful. Oregon/Washington area has borne small regional craft and fabric chains before, but I'm pretty sure they all were devoured by Michaels (H&H, Oregon Crafts). I think that the stumbling Michaels will continue to create opportunities for regional operators to come back. From what I can tell, they are great at churning through their people so lots of folks who have learned the business and have a chip on their shoulder can start up stores like these easily thanks to the low cost/high margin nature of craft business.

There are also some Ben Franklin Crafts units left. I'm not sure how they are supplied/overseen anymore. We used to have a few in Reno area; one in Carson City debranded into "Craft Market" (yet the same owners kept using Ben Franklin on a Reno store) then eventually they "retired." I think it was right around when Hobby Lobby came to Reno. One in Sparks stayed open for a while after those owners "retired," the shopping center it is in is owned by a church, and the church was trying to run the Ben Franklin. They had weird hours and little inventory and weren't open long. The church tried to run a bowling alley for a while after the owner died and his family members tried to keep it going for a while but wanted to move on, also, same story on the church bowling alley operation.

There were also units in Bishop (very small downtown store) and Grass Valley. All different owners.

If I recall correctly there are also Ben Franklin craft stores on Hawaii.

Also Michaels started as a Ben Franklin franchise then fell out of the chain and changed their name... The rest is history.