Email from Amy Butler’s studio
I’m so upset this morning. Last week I had an email from Amy Butler (pattern maker and fabric designer, read more here), with some bad news for me. My company has been ordering patterns from her company for over 3 years and in the email she says she will no longer accept orders direct from my company, and that I have to order through an Australian business. I sent her an email saying that I really want to continue our relationship but I received an email from her this morning saying basically sorry, the decision had been made.
Unfortunatley for me, ordering through the Australian company means that I will be paying $500 to $1,000 extra a year to have Amy Butler patterns stocked in my store. For other businesses this may not sound very much money to worry about but with the economic situation the way it is around the world, but my one business goal this year is to cut costs. Removing $500 to $1,000 from my annual profit does not seem to be in line with this goal(!) I guess my options are: If I still want to have Amy Butler patterns available in my business (1) Just order from the Australian business and take the brunt of the price increase; (2) Contact the Australian business and negotiate a better price with them; (3) Sell out of the current stock of patterns and don’t re-order. Oh my god this is one thing that I don’t need to have to think about right now. What an absolute kick in the pants this is. *sigh* Actually I don’t want to think about it right now because it’s the Australia Day long weekend from tomorrow and I’m going to our nation’s capital for two nights to not think about my business!
Anyway, there are other pattern companies out there that are very similar to Amy Butler’s style and I think my customers would be intersted in those as well.
Ones I am thinking of include: Anna Maria Horner (looks like she has some commercial patterns coming out soon-ish), and Heather Bailey (not a large range of patterns, but hopefully this year she will be working on some more patterns).
Oh and by the way I am loving Anna Maria Horner’s rugs!
