Comments on: Discussion: Is Scrapbooking Fading…Or Not?

By: Roberta

Roberta — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 11:06:51 +0000

I think the industry is just downsizing. To much stuff. The reasons for scrapbooking are still. Preserving photos for the future. It can be done without all the hoopla. But, there are many many people like me out there who, as a child, loved colouring, paper dolls, construction paper and just making stuff with our hands. Scrapbooking has successfully incorporated just about all of the known crafts into one space. I don’t think it will ever go away. The face will change, but the need for paper, embellishemnts, and a place to put it all will still be there. Maybe just not as prolific. I for one would be very sad if it died completely. But, crafters are resilient people and we will find a way or place to get what we need. Digital is nice, and lovely, and cheap too, but nothing beats the hands on crafting so many of us crave.

By: Kayla

Kayla — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 02:11:39 +0000

Randy, Thanks for chiming in for the digital scrapbookers. I second your opinion and would like to add my own. Digital is becoming more in demand than ever. It is profitable when run like a business. The reason the industry is promoting it is due to the fact that the surveys show that customers are interested – especially in these tough economic times when they can buy the same amount of product digitally for $8.00 that would cost $30 traditionally and use it over and over again.

For years the industry tried to ignore digital until it grew on its own to become a market segment so large that the industry HAD to take notice. If only scrapbook stores would have embraced digital and learned how to implement it into their stores, I think things would be quite different now.

I truly believe there is a place for digital and traditional and hybrid – even in a local scrapbook store. The answer to LSS woes is not to bury their collective heads in the sand and ignore digital – but to realize that they have customers and brick and mortar and they can profit from digital – education, partnerships with product, and consumables that go along with digital.

If you want to understand why we all should be taking digital seriously, I highly recommend the book, Who Moved My Cheese by Spencer Johnson. Like any industry, the cheese in the scrapbooking world is moving – people can deny it or embrace it and profit.

By: Addie

Addie — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 12:39:06 +0000

I started paper crafting (mostly cardmaking, some scrapbooking) while the field was at the tail end of its unique origin –artists and companies dominated by women marketing to women in similar lifestyles. This was the first time I’d seen anything like it –companies actually run and marketed by women like me! The designers, marketers, people in charge of advertising understood their market completely. As the hobby burgeoned, these smaller companies started getting eaten up by larger ones run by corporate executives, need I say it? — not in similar lifestyles. You saw designs coming out determined by large marketing studies, as papers from different companies began to look more and more alike. While design individuality became rarer, larger ticket items flooded the market. Little independent stores went out of business, not because the market was dwindling, but because big box stores knew a good thing when they saw one and because the little guys couldn’t offer such good deals, especially on the big ticket machines.

Crafters began wanting their cards and scrapbooks to look more and more like manufactured products and flocked to these new machines. The idea of a card actually looking handmade shifted back to committed artists, away from the mass market. Scrapbooks with machine made die cuts and other elements became more popular, many of these looking more like corporate annual reports than personal documents. To me these trends diminished crafting consciousness. I’m more likely now to make my own paper designs from stamps, embossing and paper I already have than to buy new papers, although I haven’t stopped purchasing new products altogether. I still appreciate design originality, of which there still is plenty –just not as much. I’m also making my own embellishments from scratch much more than before so I’m more likely to buy individual elements, from the jewelry making section, or from hardware stores.

By: What’s HOT…. What’s NOT…. « Scrapbook Insight

What’s HOT…. What’s NOT…. « Scrapbook Insight — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 07:41:49 +0000

[...] up your stash – like so many of our OS counterparts are doing at the moment (see an interesting discussion over at Scrabpook Update) because of the economic crisis. It hasn’t seemed to hit as hard [...]

By: Marye Anne

Marye Anne — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 18:08:54 +0000

As a long time small LSS owner I see so many factors going into the decline in scrapbooking. We see so few new scrappers coming into our stores these days. And so many customers have mounds of products that they admit that they are buying less and hording less.
A huge impact on our store has been both the staturation in the market and the impact of technology. Walmart, Micheal’s carry a ton of supplies now as do so many chains.
These work hand in hand. The Cricut machine has taken away so much higher prices sales from us. People no longer buy the embellishments or stickers like they used to. They use their Circut. And we can not compete with Micheals or HSN on price no matter what we do. And that includes the machine, cartridges and supplies related. People will buy cardstock to use with it but you have to sell alot of cardstock to pay the bills. And now there are more choices. When Quickutz brought out the Silhouette we saw sales drop. We had loyal QK customers so they bought the Silhouette. There was little profit margin and customers could buy designs directly from QK online and by pass us. They did want free advice as to how to use their machines though. Now there is the Slice and other machines. Again we can’t compete with all the sales from M’s and HSN and other large sales venues. The Gypsy was released to Micheals and HSN before the indepedents could get them and that hurts also.
Soon only large companies like Provo Craft and Making Memories will be left and you will only be able to buy scrapbook supplies in chains till the next fad comes along and the big stores drop the lines. And you can’t get supplies anywhere.