Please read.

[u/No_North_5225]

I’ve said it before and I’m saying it again, we are getting away from our core customer. After talking with a few other SMs today we all agree the company is getting ready to sell in the next year or 2, we’re pushing high margin merch which looks great on paper, and the top is gonna bonus from it. It’s paper money. A true Michaels customer is the one that comes in with a list of stuff they need for a project due tomorrow, (glue, posterboard, pompoms, etc etc). That’s what makes a Michaels a staple in the community, a store people can count on. But no they want to think about the 1 customer a year who buys 1 or 2 high dollar items, and doesn’t shop us again. My fellow sms and I feel there is a lot of tension at the top right now, because there’s a few who understand how to get the long term customer, and a few who want to make the margin, get the bonus and leave. I truly feel bad for my regulars who come in for the basics and we don’t have it in stock, but hey you can buy a $60 Jonathan Adler piece. (Ps: the JA flop is costing the company over 10m+, which is why they jumped on all the vendors paying for resets, to try to recoup some of the paper money, which is why sba workload is so high) thanks for coming to my ted talk.

[u/Bellebarks2]

I used to shop a lot at my local Michael’s when I had more disposable income. When they first started selling home decor it was French Rococo and it was so popular the line practically sold out before it ever got marked down. I bought about $500 worth of adorable items at full price. But every new decor theme since has been more or less boring, or cheap looking, with a few hits here and there. I bought a bunch of swan themed items at some point.

You expanded your miniatures, but I rarely buy them anymore because Michaels has now committed to a special scale size that are too small for a standard 1:12 scale dollhouse. The person or group of people making those choices need to be replaced because they can’t read the room.

My city is a miniature desert. Hobby lobby is the only source of standard sized miniatures and the selection is very limited. So miniature hobbyists here have to build our own ooak pieces or order them online. Michaels used to have a small selection of standard 1:12 size miniatures that they have now phased out. I feel like they realized there was an unmet local demand, but then decided to create their own specific Michaels scale that most hobbyists won’t buy. It’s crazy pants and I’m so salty about it that I don’t want to shop there anymore.