Yarn Sales

[lovestostitch]

I was thinking we should have a spot where people can tell others about sales/great deals on yarn. If you learn of a great sale, please post it here.

[awilcox]

I don't know if this is a "great sale" but we feature a yarn EVERY week at 10% off, and a constantly changing sale section on our website ;-) !!!
www.satedsheep.com

[wheat]

That sounds like a marketing plan that would certainly fit nicely into a side bar ad - you could have a landing page for "this week's special" and I suspect that the nominal cost for the add would quickly be made up by those wanting to support those sellers who are also supporting FiberKind thru both advertising and participation.

[wheat]

there are at least two places in the forum where notices of sales are already welcomed.
Vendors/Sellers are invited to share notices
https://fiberkind.com/forum/general/vendors

and special member discounts are already shared
https://fiberkind.com/forum/subscribed-member-forum

it may be more useful to share your info in either or both so that more folks can see it.

[lovestostitch]

wheat - I was thinking more of really great deals like Black Friday sales or some online stores feature twice a year sales, etc. There was a forum on R that had that kind of information and I got a couple of good deals from the information. One was an alert that this company that produces knitwear was selling off excess wool on smaller cones. I bought some and used it for some great dog sweaters.

I tried both of your links. The first one worked but the second one didn't. It said I wasn't authorized to see that page.

[wheat]

it is not the concept, and it is a good one - just trying to think how it might get more exposure to the larger community - Perhaps a topic in The General Forum -

and "I Forgot" the subscribed member forum is not open to all - its was meant to be a small benefit for those who have chosen to provide regular monthly financially support - so have to agree that may not be the place.

Do you think a topic in "General" for Sale announcements would be helpful?

[lovestostitch]

wheat - The only issue with a General For Sale thread is that it will be filled with vendors advertising sales and people wanting to sell stash. I think there should be separate threads for them. It would be nice to have a general heading of "Yarn Sales." Then under that heading would be three separate threads - vendor sales, stash sales and Knitter Sale Alerts. Of course, Knitter Sale Alerts are still being sold by vendors but they are not typical sales. Maybe a knitter goes to Joann's and sees a close-out deal on a nice yarn because Joann's isn't going to carry it any more. They could post that. Maybe a yarn store is going out of business and all yarn is 70% off. Can it be organized like that?

[wheat]

I see where you are going, and better understand your logic. Obviously needs more thought - particularly the separation of "DeStash" from regular Suppliers. Perhaps a short term solution is a single "Sale Announcements" - maybe even limited to "commercial supplier" - then adjustments can be made in the future if more targeted sub-channels are needed.
I do agree there needs to be a separation between regular suppliers and destash notices -
and "just for the record" Knitters are not the only users of yarn - FiberKind has those who Crochet, Weave, Braid & more already active in the FiberKind community <G>
If such division (commercial & destash) initially existed, would that fit what you think is needed?

[lovestostitch]

wheat - Oops, of course there are other users. I was trying to think of a term that described sale alerts generated by users. I think to accomplish what I hoped for, there needs to be three threads: vendors who sell on FiberKind, users who want to sell stash and user generated hot deal alerts. I don't think vendors who don't advertise on FiberKind should be allowed to announce sales or there should be a fee for them to be able to post in that thread. It would be great if there was a place for vendors to post sales alerts so they could be asked to not post them in social threads.

[wheat]

I hope others will chime in with how they think this could work well for the entire community.

[knitterlady13]

lovestostitch I don't think the general for sale thread is the place for destashing. There is a "swap meet" thread in the main forums for that sort of thing. Additionally, there is a group for destashing: ISO, Detash, or Trade - https://fiberkind.com/sguncategorize...stash-or-trade Note that you have to join a group to post in it.

I personally think the fiber forum (where you posted) is the right place for this type of thread. It would most likely get more viewership if there was a separate category for sales, but then that would depend on if Admin wants to continue to add categories. That said, I think we all need to recognize that the site is a work in progress and the forums/groups setup may change. (I am personally hoping that the organization of the discussion areas will be updated to a grid format at some point....so that we can see categories and groups on the same page and see the most recent threads underneath (kind of like you-know-where). That said, there is a lot to do and I think many of us are also hoping the stash and project areas will be developed first.

[lovestostitch]

knitterlady13 - My only goal is to have a spot to hear about great deals. I definitely agree that destashing should not be in the same thread as general for sale. I addressed that in a previous comment.

Black Friday sales are not that far away and I love hearing about great deals. A few years back on Black Friday I found packages of 5 skeins of Paton's Classic Wool Worsted for $10. I bought multiple packages. That was a great deal. I just finished using up that stash on hats for the Warmth for Warriors charity. I need to find another great deal this year to resupply. I was just hoping we could have a thread somewhere that we, as users, could alert others to great deals. It can be put in any location that makes sense. I was just brainstorming with wheat on what I thought made sense.

I totally understand your thoughts that there might be better uses of Admin's time. I look forward to having stash and project pages too.

[knitterlady13]

lovestostitch I agree! I like hearing about great sales as well and we definitely need a place to post them that isn't incorporating the sales with people advertising their own businesses. I think having separate threads for those things will make both topics easier to find and follow.

ETA: Also, to add some sale info that not everyone might be aware of....Jimmy Bean's Wool has a perpetual sale area where you can get some great deals - mostly yarn, but sometimes a related item. It's called the "Wool Watcher". Yarn is available for an hour or until it sells out, whichever comes first (though if it doesn't sell out you can still get it for the sale price). https://www.jimmybeanswool.com/secur...oolWatcher.asp

[wheat]

parsing I know, BUT - yes I agree a "general advert" for an individual business would not be desirable in this type of "sale notice" and yes, not appropriate for destashing -

On the other hand, do you really mean you want to exclude member business' who may be planning/having a great sale? Like a holiday special or end of year/season clearance - limited duration type sale?

and no, I agree the Jimmy Dean type would be a good fit in the forum other than if they choose to become an advertiser and promote traffic to that portion of their site.

Still thinking - but really bothered (not by forum because either here or in General make the most sense) but but how some of the groups not dedicated to a particular business are also adding "yarn sales"

just too dispersed "in my never humble opinion" and probably a headache I don't really want to get involved in "anyway"

[knitterlady13]

wheat What I meant above is that a thread dedicated to "sales" should be dedicated to just that and not general advertising. So, saying "our business is having a sale" is different from "we sell yarn...come visit our site". The title of this thread is actually very ambiguous. One could read it as "post sales you find on yarn", but just as easily be interpreted as "anyone who sells yarn post here". Having a general advertising thread like that would make it more difficult to pick out the actual sales. Additionally, having the ability and permission to post all over the place may make paying for advertising seem less appealing, especially to smaller startups.

I'll note that in the destash group I modded/admin'd on R, we had a dedicated thread for vendors to advertise anything "ravelry craft related" - so yarn, fiber, patterns, tools, dyes, etc." No individual advertising threads were allowed and we limited how many times a business could post in a given month. Within our group rules and in that thread we also highly recommended Rav advertising. So, no, I'm not saying that member businesses shouldn't be able to post, but particularly in the main forums (as opposed to groups) it's a good idea to have some limits so as to not discourage purchasing ads on the site.

[lovestostitch]

Yikes! I never realized how complicated this topic really is. I was thinking along simple lines that people could alert others about great sales they encountered but I can see how complicated it can get. I'm fine with this thread being removed if Admin wants to handle sales in some other fashion.

[knitterlady13]

lovestostitch JMHO, but I still think your thread is fine. It's great to have a place for members to share where we can find good yarn sales!!

ETA: Admin can probably move the thread if he thinks it belongs somewhere else. Another option is a group. On R there was an entire group dedicated to posting sales. I think that worked well because businesses wanted to advertise in multiple places, so they could post in that group, but still buy site ads.

[lovestostitch]

I thought a group might be a good idea too. That would be one way to organize different types of sellers.

[wheat]

I am not suggesting it be either moved or removed - only that it may need some thought now to avoid complications later

[lovestostitch]

I think I'll start a group and see if I can organize sales alerts. If Admin comes up with rules or a different way to handle sales, we'll adjust then.

[knitterlady13]

wheat lovestostitch

So after some thought, here's what I think. I really feel that it's perfectly OK to say "hey everyone! post here if you've found a great sale", but at the same time say "please no self promotion". That was usually what we did on R because it encouraged people to seek out paid advertising (which was inexpensive) and kept threads from being cluttered by advertising.

[lovestostitch]

knitterlady13 wheat - I started a group and created topics to attempt to organize the posts. I think sorting them will help. Please join the group:

https://fiberkind.com/sguncategorized/yarn-sale-alerts

[knitterlady13]

lovestostitch Awesome! I've joined.

[lovestostitch]

Great!