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Customer Service Kiosk -- Questions for LE vendors.

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  #31  
Old 2015-03-04, 12:18pm
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SGA SGA is offline
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Why can't "how it works" be discussed publicly??? I would sure like to know!

It is also not correct that "one can't cut prices drastically" because they will cause someone else to go out of business. The soft glass rod business is all about putting the small vendors out of business. Small vendors have limits on what they can buy and a lot of the times can't get all of the newest colors.

One vendor/importer has been the leader of cutting prices 50% or more. That is a definite attempt to put other dealers out of business. I know that for sure because I was told to my face that there are "too many dealers." Businesses have been putting other businesses out for years. They can do it based on price or better service. Or maybe because they control the market which probably IS illegal if someone wants to take the time to fight with them.

My suggestion is that one dealer has too much power in this particular marketplace. If I were CiM I would want to keep all of my dealers happy. Once the smaller dealers are gone you can bet that will be the end of half off and free shipping promotions and your prices will be higher than ever! Just look at where they were before the economy crashed when you couldn't get a discount until you bought 20 lbs. Does anyone remember that besides me?
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As I said, it was an extremely broad definition of why prices are as high as they are and I specifically mentioned the two CIM wholesalers. Frantz is selling similar kind of like Walmart. They're big dogs, they buy in HUGE mega bulk at the lowest wholesale price and they can afford to sell it cheaper as a result. But they're still not cutting their prices so low that nobody can compete with them. It's a fine line. And I am not explaining it very well.

I think it's called predatory pricing. 90% of it is legal, again the Walmart analogy. But sometimes it walks a very fine line. My point being: once pricing has been accepted, it's generally something that is very difficult to drop back to former prices. And you're right. Sometimes it's not worth the person's fight to take it to court.

I'm not promoting Frantz or Ed Hoy. I buy local. I buy my Tag from you Paula because you have the odd lot TAG and you were the first to offer Wicked and Seaweed. It sucks. But unfortunately Sue was correct. It's supply and demand.
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  #32  
Old 2015-03-04, 10:34pm
Finn_28 Finn_28 is offline
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I am a newbe to hot glass (and to the forum) but have been working with small beads for jewelry for a few years. One thing that is popular among the beading community is group buys; one group I found on Yahoo Groups. The last group buy for beads totaled $11k. I have seen group buys listed for tools and presses, but are there any for glass? If anyone knows of a glass buying group please post or PM. Thx
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  #33  
Old 2015-03-04, 11:45pm
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Quote:
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Also would like to add I'd rather have stable permanent colors than 50 limited batches.
You can have that but it would be a different coe. it's Bulls Eye Glass and the prices are very reasonable, colors pretty much stay the same, rods are cut beautifully, and mostly the same size, made right here in the good old USA!!! and you can buy $1000.00 worth and get 50% off. Go in with two or three others and save big. $333.00 and you pay around 166.50 with two other people, if you go in with one other person and buy 1000.00 worth you both pay $250.00
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  #34  
Old 2015-03-05, 12:53am
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yeah not going into a different COE at this point. There wasn't an issue with permanent colors before in 104, why is there now is the point. Why are they doing just limited runs. I honestly don't care if they are straight or cut pretty, it's going to be melted anyways.

As for 'don't buy it', I do not anymore. I know many others state the same. There are threads here from before and on fb of unhappy people.
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  #35  
Old 2015-03-05, 7:11am
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Elizabeth Beads Elizabeth Beads is offline
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I think it's fun to have variety and new colors. I'm not doing production where I have to make the exact same thing over and over. I enjoy the heck out of a color and if/when it's gone, I find a new color to bond with. If I love it I buy a couple of lbs. and by the time I've made that many beads I'm ready for a change.

I love Bullseye but they too have discontinued popular colors and their stock colors are limited in range. Lampwork cane is not the main focus for Bullseye. BE opaques are mostly opals, and some of the BE rods are ridiculously shocky. The real fun was in their special production colors and Bullseye stopped making them.

Just my thoughts.
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  #36  
Old 2015-03-06, 1:37am
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I used to like the odds, when it was occasional. Seriously I love CIM but it's just getting ridiculous. There are colors people have been asking for for years, they used to be really good at filling the gaps where we needed colors, now if they do you can barely even try it. If you're not on it, you lose out, as I see I just did again for Sakura oy, it literally just hit port.
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  #37  
Old 2015-06-25, 3:31am
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People forget how easy it is to make a "new" color just by mixing some old ones together. You can make your own custom made colors from glass that you already have! Kay has an entire website devoted to color mixing. Somewhere.
Just saw this thread. You can find the color mixing charts, and more here:

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  #38  
Old 2015-06-25, 6:05am
Angie09 Angie09 is offline
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I talked with Kathy of CIM on the phone at length about 8 or 9 months ago and here's what she told me. The "problems" like limited colors and shocky rods are a result of not being able to get the manpower to make the glass correctly. When the economy went bust all her regular employees were let go in hopes they would still be around and employable once the economy started to recover. Unfortunately, they had all moved on to other jobs and she was faced with hiring new employees that were not as good as the regular crew. This in turn created problems both in trying to match colors and bad pulls that have air in them and are shockier than hell. She replaced all my shocky glass and apologized profusely ... she is very nice but I think her problems are somewhat out of her control ... cuz (if you've ever run a business with employees) good help is hard to find.

I personally don't buy the limited colors any more ... of Effetre, Vetrofond or CIM. What's the point of falling in love ... only to find the color is irreplaceable. I've just expanded to 90 and 94....gorgeous colors from Gaffer!!

So, that's all I know personally ... it doesn't help with the glass prices but hopefully makes the limited situation a little more understandable.
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  #39  
Old 2015-06-25, 6:28am
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Still, rods are cheaper overall in America than Europe. You should see the prices in the UK for starters, its depressing
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Also as an aside, Frantz gets colours from Effetre that the UK dealers don't.
I love CIM colours myself, but I'm not feeling the love in the prices, especially as all their glass is made in China where labour and raw ingredients are cheap.
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  #40  
Old 2015-06-25, 6:40am
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I love CIM colours myself, but I'm not feeling the love in the prices, especially as all their glass is made in China where labour and raw ingredients are cheap.
Good point!!!
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  #41  
Old 2015-06-25, 3:26pm
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I have to disagree that customers are the number 1 losers... why do you think the small glass vendors are all disappearing? When your supplier is undercutting the hell out of you, even the most loyal of customers will stop shopping with you and go to the Walmart of suppliers. It sucks.
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  #42  
Old 2015-06-30, 11:23am
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What she said. When you are a large company and you won't sell the new colors to the smaller companies, the customer will go where the new colors are. It's pretty messed up especially when you gave a "yes" to the smaller company joining you. It's greed at its finest.
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  #43  
Old 2015-06-30, 12:28pm
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Oh the Walmart will sell to us, but we can't sell at the same prices as Walmart, so there's no point in stocking them... I have so much glass I can't sell now because when I bought 90% of it, I was able to say "I have the same prices as XZX suppler"... then he started in with the perpetual 30-40% "sale" prices and left me to deal with the mess... So, here I am...
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  #44  
Old 2015-06-30, 1:36pm
Taybear2 Taybear2 is offline
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Sorry, my latest comment I was on mom's account doing the bulk buy thread.
But....this is what I wanted to say.

My mom lost alot 2012. We all did. Business closed because of her mom, audit, legal troubles with my brother, grandma moved in, mom found two full time jobs while taking care of her mom, then she loses mom, her sister, jobs, and my dad who was found to be doing things he shouldn't have. She owed "big company" a small amount of money but after everything, there was nothing to give and they are still hounding her for it. If I intercept the mail, I throw it away. She's still trying to recover from all the crap and this just adds to her recovery time. She'll survive. She's my mom and has never been a quitter!
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  #45  
Old 2015-06-30, 6:50pm
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Hi Taybear2... your mom is a friend of mine. Thank goodness I don't owe big box boy anything, and I love to make beads, so I will use the glass eventually.

Neither one of us are quitters, I'm shutting my store down on my own terms and will continue to make beads and jewelry from my home.

Next time I'm up your direction, maybe you, your mom and I can get together for a drink. =)
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  #46  
Old 2015-07-02, 3:06pm
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Sounds good. I have one more month off before school starts back up!
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  #47  
Old 2015-12-22, 6:20pm
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I own very little of the CIM line, and one reason is that I don't want to fall in love with a color only to discover I can't get more. And sadly once I know I can't get more, I don't want to melt what I have, which makes no sense I realize but it's true.
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  #48  
Old 2015-12-22, 7:35pm
Angie09 Angie09 is offline
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I agree Eileen ... i HATE falling in love with a color only to find I can no longer get it ... but with that said, there's no substitute for Celadon, Lapis, Marshmellow, Hades and a few others in any other line so (for me) I have to buy CIM ... I just try and do it when there's a sale!!
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  #49  
Old 2015-12-23, 7:39am
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If you are hurting with prices in USD. Then think about the rest of the world. The prices that people in the southern hemisphere have to pay if they want the latest colours is laughable and our retailers do not get it any cheaper either. I know this well, I used to be a retailer and my wholesale prices were not great because I couldn't buy the huge quantities necessary to garner a decent discount. Before too long some underhanded supplier called Affordable Inspirations came on board and did a number on several glass retailers here forcing a bunch of us closed. Now that the dollar is dismal, they're nowhere to be found. I'm not blaming CiM for this screw up, but when there is a race to make a buck and not protect an economy things usually end badly. Anyhow, back to the prices people below the equator are expected to pay.

Now lets forget shipping, because it's pricy and it's not limited only to CiM. So these figures are for GLASS only.

Its roughly $55AUD 1/4 pound for Red Alert at some retailers. Whilst that is one of the most expensive I've seen for Red Alert, all the other latest CiM colours fall between $20AUD - $45AUD a 1/4 pound. When comparing it across the board the picture for artists in the southern hemisphere wanting CiM glass looks fairly bleak and the price of Red Alert isn't an anomaly, it's just standard CiM pricing for Ltd runs. I know most people think artists from New Zealand and Australia must be made of money because of where we live, but we're not. Its definitely not a case of comparing Apples with Apples either. I don't know of any Effetre Ltd runs that goes for as much as a CiM ltd. The most I'll pay for hard to get glass is thin Lauscha rods at roughly $25USD a pound. A POUND. We're talking 1/4 pounds for CiM Runs. So this is pricy stuff.

I love CiM glass, absolutely unequivocally adore the colours and so far I haven't had any of the shocky rods people are describing, but those high prices for wholesalers who then pass onto retailers is a bit much. I'd love to be able to agree with the logical argument of "well if its too much don't buy it", but when we break that idea down, what essentially is being said from one customer to another is "don't buy this niche market product if you can't afford it because you're not lucky enough to live in a place where free shipping is normal and the currency is local to you." As a manufacturer I would be horrified to learn that I'm essentially isolating perfectly good markets out of my product because of the horrendous costs of procuring a glass that is made in the southern hemisphere but has to be purchased from the northern hemisphere in order to resell that glass to my customers in the southern hemisphere. Hrm. That's some logic for you. Also, choosing not to buy a product because you don't want it feels different to not being able to afford a product that you could afford if it wasn't for a whole bunch of other factors added on top. Telling an artist, sorry you can't play with those tools because you're in another country and can't afford the shipping and conversion rates of this product is frankly, not very empathetic.

I can't even blame the retailers because I know that it's a wholesale pricing issue. We know that smaller retailers will not be able to pass on as much savings to the customer unless they wish to make less of a profit margin. However we go to those smaller retailers because they might be offering something very attractive to the customer, such as free shipping, or generous freebies etc. The point is, for artists in the southern hemisphere, no one in their right mind is going to pay $50 bucks for what essentially amounts to 6 rods of glass. Double Helix glass isn't even that expensive. That's my context. Even if I buy DH glass through a retailer in Australia and not direct from the manufacturer it's still not as expensive as some of the CiM ltd runs.

I usually don't stick my nose into this sort of stuff, but I believe in balance. There is going to be a point where supply shall meet demand and judging from the threads here and on Facebook, its obviously coming.

Anyhow, for what it's worth. That's how it looks to lampworkers on the other side of the pond.
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  #50  
Old 2016-01-13, 2:00am
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Hi, I agree with you completely and it is a difficult situation to be in. I can't believe that no resolution has been found.

When you say, supply meets demand, do you mean that the markets they currently have are saturated and they are going to have to address these issues?
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  #51  
Old 2016-02-18, 12:53pm
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I didn't want to post here again until it finally happened. Prices have now been raised for anyone buying from the Ed Hoy Company. They have been raised so much that small dealers now have no profit after shipping. I am fine as my glass business is not my sole income but I really feel for the other small dealers. This is a huge injustice to the many small dealers that supported CiM through the early years and invested their funds into CiM glass.
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  #52  
Old 2016-02-18, 1:38pm
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I loved selling the heck out of CiM, it will unfortunately be different now.
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  #53  
Old 2016-02-18, 4:52pm
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I'm so sorry to hear that!
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  #54  
Old 2016-02-19, 6:01am
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Unfortunately prices will go up and for some already.
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Old 2016-02-22, 5:33pm
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And so am I.
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