It was a sobering but necessary reminder. Karen knew that the teahouse where Margot and Elspeth had held her interview lunch was struggling, and the children’s bookstore down the block was barely hanging on. She also understood that their remote location was a disadvantage to busy shoppers, who often had to choose convenience over rural beauty and historic charm. Customers who traveled out of their way to visit a particular favorite business usually strolled up and down the picturesque streets, window shopping, making purchases at other shops, reading the history of the buildings off brass placards affixed to their brick or stone walls, and enjoying a bite to eat or a cup of coffee before heading home. If any one of those businesses were to close, their customers would no longer make the drive to Summit Pass, and those lucrative, impromptu visits would inevitably decline.
They were all in this together, Karen realized. Just as one empty storefront hurt its neighboring shops, one thriving business would help others to prosper. None of them could match the low prices offered by online retailers that sometimes didn’t have to collect sales tax and received huge wholesale discounts due to their bulk orders, but the small business owners of Summit Pass could offer a better, more engaging, more enjoyable shopping experience, especially if they worked together.
Karen spent every spare moment pondering the matter. She brainstormed with Elspeth and Margot and hashed out ideas with Nate as they lingered at the supper table after the boys finished eating and ran off to play. When she was confident that she had devised a sound plan, she made arrangements with the owner of the Wise Owl Teahouse and invited the owners of all the independent, small businesses on their street to a meeting where they could discuss their collective fate.
It was a sunny, bright, auspicious October afternoon when nearly three-quarters of the invited guests crowded into the teahouse to hear Karen’s proposal that they band together for mutual support. The mission of her proposed new organization, Explore Summit Pass, would be to sustain the village’s economic viability by educating residents and visitors about the importance of supporting local small businesses. “They need to know it’s not merely for our sake,” Karen said. “One very important reason I doubt most shoppers consider is that their sales tax provides important revenues for our schools, fire department, police force, emergency medical assistance, snowplows—services we all use, or at least ones we want around in case we need them someday.”
As nearly everyone nodded in agreement, the shopkeepers, restaurateurs, baristas, and others chimed in with other important reasons: Shopping local created local jobs. It helped ensure better, more knowledgeable, more personal customer service. It was better for the environment, because local products required less travel time and thereby reduced carbon emissions. It invested in the long-term stability of the community, since local business owners typically lived near their businesses and cared about the region’s future. It increased consumer choices, promoting innovation, competition, and lower prices over the long term. It promoted entrepreneurship, helping local residents move up the economic ladder. It increased support to local nonprofits, since local businesses were more inclined than huge chains with administrative offices hundreds of miles away to give to community organizations and charities.
So many sensible, pragmatic, and inspiring ideas were thrown out that Karen, newly energized, had to scramble to write them all down. “This is exactly what we need our customers to know,” she declared. “They may believe they’re merely shopping or dining out or enjoying a relaxing getaway when they patronize one of our businesses, but they’re also investing in the future of their community.”
In addition to educating the public about the benefits of shopping local, Karen explained that they also needed to introduce them to the other shops and services just down the block from their favorites. To encourage loyal customers of one establishment to consider trying a neighboring business, they should actively promote one another and cohost special events designed to draw shoppers to the village. “The Wise Owl Teahouse could set up a tea table in the String Theory Quilt Shop, arranging teahouse menus and business cards there too,” she suggested. “We’ll benefit from having refreshments for our customers, and the samples will encourage our customers to make their way down the block to the Wise Owl. We can display some of our sample quilts on the walls of the Oasis Day Spa and Salon. Oasis staff and customers will enjoy an ongoing art exhibit, regularly updated, and their clients may be tempted to cross the street and see what else we have to offer.”
“We could produce a street map marking all the participating businesses,” suggested the owner of the Centerpiece Art Gallery. “We can divide up the printing costs. I know an exceptionally talented artist who might be convinced to design something absolutely gorgeous for us in exchange for a nice lunch at the Summit Pass Café and a few books from Wild Things for his nieces.”
“Throw in a citrus–green tea detox facial from Oasis and you’ve got a deal,” said the art gallery owner’s partner, who everyone had already guessed was the artist he’d had in mind.
“The back of the map should list all the reasons to shop local we’ve mentioned here today,” said the proprietor of the Woodpoppy Inn. “And any more we can possibly think of.”
As everyone chimed in their agreement, Karen threw Margot and Elspeth a look of triumph. Explore Summit Pass was officially under way.
The map was, as promised, a work of art suitable for framing. Even before the boxes of maps were delivered from the printer, individual businesses began arranging cross-promotions among themselves—a tea party at the Wise Owl to celebrate a bestselling author’s appearance at Wild Things Children’s Bookshop, discounts on massages at Oasis for guests of the Woodpoppy Inn. A few days before Thanksgiving, Karen, as the de facto leader of Explore Summit Pass, held a press conference on the village green to announce the organization’s official launch and to urge neighbors far and near to buy local for the holidays. To her delight—and immeasurable relief—Black Friday in Summit Pass turned out a deeper shade of midnight than it had been in years. Sales at the String Theory Quilt Shop were up; classes were at full enrollment. Help Wanted signs appeared in storefronts up and down the street, and everywhere the air hummed with a new spirit of cooperation and optimism.
In January, when the last receipts were counted, nearly every business that had joined Explore Summit Pass reported dramatic improvements in holiday profits compared to the previous year. Even those merchants who had not come aboard benefited, but not as much as they might have had they been more involved. By spring, it was necessary to order a reprint of the village map—revised to include several shops whose initial skepticism had been quelled by the organization’s quick success. A third printing was ordered just in time for the height of the summer tourism season, and as summer waned and the holidays approached again, Karen organized the creation of a special coupon book and punch card, which gave shoppers the opportunity to earn Summit Pass Points and win prizes for shopping at a variety of local businesses.
Month after month, the shops and restaurants of Summit Pass reported stable profits despite the rocky economy. Elspeth and Margot often told Karen that hiring her was the best decision they had ever made in the history of the String Theory Quilt Shop. Nate was tremendously proud of her, and once, abashed, he apologized for forgetting that he had married a genius. And above and beyond her success with Explore Summit Pass, Karen enjoyed every hour she worked at the quilt shop, whether she was teaching, sorting bolts of fabric, or ringing up purchases on the cash register.
And yet, every so often, she felt a small, almost imperceptible twinge of wistfulness. A customer would remark that she was purchasing supplies for a week at Elm Creek Quilt Camp, or Karen would read a profile of an Elm Creek Quilter in a quilting magazine, and she would feel the sad sting of rejection anew. She would recall each painful, embarrassing moment of her disastrous interview and wonder if anything she could have said or done
would have made a difference. She would imagine how different her life might have been if only Nate had come home from work to watch the boys as he had promised. Then she would look around the quilt shop, shake off her melancholy, and remind herself that things had turned out rather well for her. She was necessary and appreciated, and she had made a difference not only for String Theory, but also for businesses throughout Summit Pass. She could not regret anything that had led her to that point. She was happy. Her friends, coworkers, and family were happy.
She had no regrets—only rare, ephemeral misgivings that swiftly dispersed.
The astonishing success of Explore Summit Pass eventually leveled off. As the economy worsened, and as Internet commerce surged, a few shops on the street closed their doors after melancholy going-out-of-business sales. Other storekeepers chose retirement over the endless uphill slog to remain viable. The String Theory Quilt Shop suffered a minor dip in sales as new online quilting retailers like ifabricshop.com and virtualmaterial.biz popped up almost weekly, but as Margot reminded them whenever the outlook turned bleak, certain bulwarks protected them against the threat of competition from the Internet: Quilting classes were much more fun in person, and quilters still preferred to see fabric with their own eyes in natural light, to touch it and evaluate the drape and quality before they purchased a single yard. “They can’t do that with a grainy image on a computer screen,” Margot would say confidently, even as book and pattern sales dwindled.
In mid-October, at the same time Karen was debating whether to attend Quiltsgiving, she began to notice a strange trend in the shop. Quilters would browse through the aisles of fabric, compare one bolt to another, take what appeared to be detailed notes as if they were planning complex projects, but then leave without purchasing so much as a spool of thread. Within weeks, Elspeth worriedly reported an unexpected decline in fabric sales. Karen did not correlate the two curious occurrences until one morning at breakfast when she happened to mention both. “What exactly are all these scribbling quilters writing down?” asked Nate, immediately wary.
“I’m not sure,” Karen replied.
“Maybe you should find out.”
Her suspicions heightened, Karen became more observant. She soon realized that the browsers who spent hours examining fabric and not a single minute buying any were writing down information from the ends of the bolt cardboards—the manufacturer, the designer, the name of the collection, and the SKU number. Having gathered those details, they could purchase the fabric at any retailer, be it another small, independent shop like their own, a big box chain store such as Fabric Warehouse in Waterford, or an online shop anywhere in the world.
“They’re using our shop as a showroom,” said Margot when Karen shared her jarring suspicions. “I can’t believe the audacity. Have they no consciences? To make use of our services, our products, and then to shop somewhere else—it’s positively unethical.”
“It was inevitable,” said Elspeth grimly. “The question is, what can we do about it? What they’re doing is morally wrong but it’s not illegal, and we can’t prove anything anyway. If we accuse someone of using our inventory to help them make purchases elsewhere, they’ll simply say they were only browsing but didn’t find what they wanted. What exactly could we do to stop this?”
Neither Karen nor Margot had a good answer for her.
The following week, they raised their concerns at the bimonthly meeting of Explore Summit Pass, only to learn that other shopkeepers had observed the same startling practice at their stores. The manager of Wild Things Children’s Bookshop conceded that it had been going on at their store for years, and the customers were becoming bolder and less embarrassed with each passing week. “They don’t bother to discreetly write down authors and titles on the backs of old receipts anymore,” he said, shaking his head in disgust. “They just pull out their cell phones and snap a photo or scan a bar code.”
“That’s shameful,” declared the owner of the Woodpoppy Inn.
“It’s more than that,” said the bookstore manager flatly. “The challenge used to be getting customers into the store. Now even that’s not enough. If more and more people go to the trouble to come into the store and still buy online—well, that could be the last word in the final chapter of our history.”
The admission sent a chill through the room. Wild Things had been a cornerstone of Summit Pass for more than fifty years. If parents no longer brought their children to the village, if neighbors no longer came to buy charming board books for expectant friends and stayed for lunch, if grandparents and aunts and uncles no longer made their annual pilgrimages to satisfy eager younger readers’ birthday wishes, if publishers no longer sent popular children’s authors to town on their publicity tours—every business in Summit Pass would suffer.
“We still have our quilt classes,” Margot said after the meeting broke up and she, Karen, and Elspeth walked somberly down the block to their cherished quilt shop. “We still have better customer service than any computer algorithm could ever attempt to imitate. Our loyal customers won’t let us down.”
“Of course they won’t,” said Karen, but Elspeth remained silent.
Perhaps even then she suspected the worst was yet to come, although none of them could have imagined the form it would take.
Although it seemed like a terribly inconvenient time to go on vacation, Margot, Elspeth, and Nate joined forces to convince Karen that she needed and deserved a respite, so on the last possible day, she made her reservation for Quiltsgiving and began looking forward to her return to Elm Creek Manor with a dizzying mixture of excitement and apprehension. On the Sunday before Thanksgiving, a week before her trip, Karen had woken early to fix Nate and the boys blueberry pancakes for breakfast when she glanced at her cell phone and discovered that Elspeth had called and left a message at five o’clock. She never phoned Karen at home so early, especially not on her day off.
“Please come in as soon as you can,” Elspeth said in her voice mail. “They’ve really gone too far this time. We need to strategize.”
They? Who were they, and what had they done? Quickly Karen called the shop, but the phone rang and rang and went unanswered. She left a message promising to be in by nine, and then she scrambled to get her family fed and herself showered and dressed. Worried, Nate kissed her good-bye and asked her to call him as soon as she found out what was going on.
She drove as quickly as she dared, and when she finally arrived at the quilt shop, she found Margot and Elspeth huddled in the back office, eyes fixed upon the computer screen, their expressions a mixture of anger and worry.
“What’s going on?” Karen asked breathlessly, unwinding her scarf and slipping out of her coat.
“iFabricShop has declared war on brick-and-mortar quilt stores,” said Elspeth grimly. “Overnight they’ve gone from being a competitor to being an outright predator.”
Bewildered, Karen turned to Margot and was alarmed to find the more optimistic of her two employers nodding. “What exactly have they done?”
They had designed a price-check-and-purchase smartphone application, the two women explained, sometimes interrupting each other in their haste to get the story out. Users could scan the bar code on the end of a bolt of fabric by snapping a photo. The image would automatically be sent to the iFabricShop database, which would within moments respond with all the relevant information about the fabric as well as iFabricShop’s price per yard. With the touch of a few keys, the user could then purchase yardage from the website via their existing user account.
“We don’t pay for inventory, rent, utilities, and wages so that iFabricShop can use us as a showroom,” said Elspeth, pushing back her chair and pacing around the cramped office. “It’s wrong. It’s not just comparison shopping. It’s using our shop, our products, and our people without investing a single cent into any of it.”
“It’s unconscionable,” sai
d Karen, faint from disbelief.
“It gets worse,” said Margot, a shocking admission from their resident optimist. “To kick off the holiday shopping season in a big way, they’re offering five dollars off any purchases made through the new app.”
“It’s bad enough that we can’t compete with them on price,” said Elspeth. “How can we compete when they use us to acquire all the benefits of a brick-and-mortar store without any of the expenses?”
“And when they bribe our potential customers to aid and abet them,” added Margot, her voice rising in anger.
“We’ll have to circumvent them somehow.” Karen thought quickly. “Can we ask people not to use their cell phones in the store?”
“Not without alienating them,” said Elspeth.
“Can we cover up the bar codes?”
Elspeth and Margot exchanged a look. “That might work,” said Margot, nodding. “They can still write down the information, but at least we’re making it a little more difficult for iFabricShop to steal our customers.”
Karen didn’t think their usual, loyal customers would want any part of iFabricShop’s scheme. It was more likely that iFabricShop’s usual customers would visit String Theory for the first time, browse, scan bar codes, make their online purchases, and leave. The shop might become more crowded than usual, but as threatening as the new app seemed to be, String Theory might not suffer any loss of sales.
She would have said so aloud, except that her employers seemed in no mood to hear about a possible silver lining in what looked like an entirely overcast sky. Margot rummaged through a desk drawer searching for thick black markers to obscure the bar codes, while Elspeth produced a box of address labels from a cabinet. The three spent the rest of the morning racing to conceal bar codes beneath adhesive labels or opaque black ink, pausing only to open the shop at noon. Whenever customers were present, they labored more discreetly, unwilling to pique their interest and give iFabricShop free advertising for their app.
The Giving Quilt Page 28
