Is SC trying to fail?

i am not really sure but i will be sad about their part in Ali's business if this is true. i have cut ties with SC other than for Ali's sub although i do still read the message boards and comment sometimes.

I think they operate under the belief that new customers will always come rushing through the internet door to replace those nasty, disgruntled customers who complained about quality, customer service and value.

I don't know chances, but a lot of the decisions are certainly counter-intuitive in terms of good business practice.

I don't think so. I think they rely too heavily on the cachet of their "exclusive" items. In fairness, it has served them well so far.

I feel like if they want to fail or fold, there are easier ways to do it than to painfully alienate a client base over several months and trash their personal reputations in the process.

What it feels to me like is people who are in an echo chamber and simply can't see, no matter how many times they are told, how their practices and communications alienate customers.

I've heard complaints about SC kits, but none about Ali's kits or about BPC. That sounds like a faltering product line. Could be that whoever is handling subs is new and just needs to get a grasp on things or that trouble is brewing and it goes deeper. Hoping for the former for all of the SC fans.

I was thinking that maybe SC was in financial trouble and that's why they changed the sub format. The way the new system works they are guaranteed a certain amount of cash flow. Doesn't matter if you fulfill your sub or not, SC will be getting approximately $200-$400 per year per scrapbooking kit customer (if they sub for a year). Multiply that times thousands of customers. This can apply to all the other subs they have. That's a lot of guaranteed cash flow. Might look good to a bank.

Besides money, there's also the other side: management. In the past, I worked for a very successful doctor who was a controlling narcissist. On the outside to his patients, he was very charming and everyone loved him. But behind closed doors he was a nightmare to work for and micro managed EVERYTHING. His business was slacking a bit so he would hold meetings. He shot down new ideas and wouldn't consider doing anything different. Nobody was allowed to give input. He never took anybody's advice. He found ways to point the finger at people when things didn't go well. But he forgot the fact that it was HIS idea. He thought what he was doing was the only way to do it. Funny thing is that after a while, it began to look like he was sabotaging his business. Things didn't add up. Things didn't make business sense. But he didn't care. He made a name for himself and dammit nobody was going to tell him how to do things now.

Looking back, I think about what could have been. His practice that was doing well, could have been super successful. He could have catapulted to the top of his profession. Sometimes self sabotage is a side effect of being a narcissist. Because if you aren't going to listen to anyone else but yourself, how do you know when you are making terrible mistakes? I think that's the case with SC.

I think perhaps they want to get the kit club down to a more manageable size & purge some of us oldtimers who are used to better standards & therefore too demanding for them. They'll then be free to concentrate on the wholesale side & world domination.
But really, who knows. I just find it mind-boggling.
I made a snarky comment about the BPC video links being broken, but felt remorse & deleted it. But seriously, I tried to tell them in a convo that there was a problem & got treated like a complete idiot.

Love it!

This rings true! At an event this past weekend my tablemates were speculating along the same lines. Two out of the five of us are/were SC International customers. We had a class with April a couple of years back.  At that time we had a signup sheet go around for a free kit as an incentive to subscribe (clarification: we all got the kit, we did not have to subscribe to get one and they paid for shipping- I laughed internally as this was not long after the international customer shipping fiasco) I wondered how a business could give away 400 kits! They must be making money hand over fist or perhaps they were able to write this off as a charitable donation to 3rd world scrappers?

Incidentally the event at which April taught has since been squeezed by the worsening economy and they have responded in a similar way to SC; they are cultivating newbies (most of the prizes at last year's event were awarded to first-time attendees- all they had to do was put up their hands) who don't know any better and are undemanding. Many of their attendees of long standing are not attending this year. Some of the experienced gals are also disappointed that 3 out of 6 teachers are repeats (two of them are on their third trip out, the 3rd one is the owner who is talented but we don't want to take her class every year). The kits last year were thinner than before and the projects not that challenging. I do not want to see any shops close or events fail and I know new clients are necessary to keep the industry going but I think it is short-sighted to p-off long term customers.

I have seen a lot of scrapbooking related businesses begin and end during my 19 years in this hobby. It's hard to compete in a hobby that once was popular, but no longer has as many customers. Again and again, there is one major factor in common with the businesses that fail, and which SC seems to be doing: poor customer service. The businesses that focus on keeping customers happy (and try to make things right when customers are upset) are the ones who typically stay in business the longest.

If a business has had a lot of success, then things turn sour, sometimes those making the decisions have the attitude that new customers will come and replace the disgruntled ones, instead of correcting the policies that drove away the established customers. That is always a mistake. A successful business can keep the older customers and continue to gain new ones. If a company starts hemorrhaging customers, the more likely it is that it will fail. I have only seen one company lose huge numbers of customers and actually turn around: Provo Craft.

Provo Craft had one unique factor in its favor that Studio Calico does not. Provo Craft had a product that persuaded customers to invest a lot of money in cartridges. Once customers had done that, they were less likely to switch to another system because of the money they alread hadinvested in that cutting system. Even so, Provo Craft was losing customers in a big way to one of its competitors. Apparently it got bad enough that someone high up realized they had to make some changes. They eventually started listening to customer complaints and concerns. They came out with a machine that could cut heavier materials than its biggest competitor, and kept it reasonably affordable. When customers complained at launch that a subscription was required to use SVG files, and many publicly stated on their Facebook page that they would NOT buy the new machine, Provo Craft did an abrupt about face in about two days and said SVG ability would be free. Instead of just deleting the threads, they listened and reversed their policy. Provo Craft also started keeping promises, such as their promise that the Explore would be wireless. While I don't like all of their business decisions, Provo Craft has managed to survive despite the odds, and trying to meet customer concerns and desires was the one thing that kept them from folding. Once they realized that they were NOT too big to have to listen to customers, they managed to hold on to customers that otherwise might have eventually jumped ship.

Based on what I have read about Studio Calico, whoever is making the business decisions is ignoring the importance of customer satisfaction. Unless something changes, I think they are a company in serious trouble. No, I don't think they are deliberately trying to destroy their company. I think their powers that be just think they are too big and important in the scrapping world to fail. They aren't. No one is.

I think SC went too big when they released their project life kit.Now they seem to have cut back a bit, either to get back in control of their business or they were just overextended. Heck, maybe they just weren't making enough money. I mean when the planner kit came out they had a huge design team and now suddenly that design team is rather small. I miss so many of the designers that used to be there and while I enjoy some of the current designers, the CT gallery just doesn't hold the same excitement.

I find the ct gallery is very Samey, no one who scraps in my style and very white looking 

id love to see more diversity there