A rant about Australia's "favorite" fabric chain store

First some background information.

 Ruben Fried and his brother Morry Fraid (they say the different surnames was the result of a teacher's spelling mistake during their school years) started out selling fabric at Melbourne's Queen Victoria Market before opening their first store in the suburb of Malvern in 1973.

Over the next three decades the chain expanded quickly, branching out from its haberdashery heritage to become a sort of do-it-yourself destination for craft lovers. Manchester, soft furnishings and party supplies have also been added to the range.

The company has more than 100 stores across Australia, New Zealand and in Singapore and Hong Kong, and annual revenue of around $800 million. Freid and Fraid were valued at $695 million on BRW's Rich 200 list in 2008.

But what this chain has effectively done in such a quick takeover of the craft market is push the smaller stores with the knowledgeable, friendly and unrushed staff out into the cold and out of business.  

Although there is only two of these stores now operating on the gold coast, their presence has greatly reduced the amount of smaller stores that could offer you the personalized help a lot of home sewers need and enjoy.  

Imagine if you will a warehouse full of fabric with plenty of staff wandering about to help you.  You're amazed by the pure size of the building and what looks like masses of choices before you.  Sounds good right?  Ok ok Well as you get closer to the rolls of textiles you realize something is wrong.  There is one or two feature fabrics in each section and then the rest actually looks like filler.
There is rows and rows of horrible garish colours and nothing anything like the colour you need.
And then it happens.. you lower your standards and or have to alter your vision right there in the store. 

You give up on the fabric and take you butt over to the bag making station.  Again they do not have what you need even though a large amount of their customer base makes bags from their quilting stock.  Do they have bag feet?  Do they have bag bottoms?  Nope and nope.  Okay...

Off to get some ribbon and bobbins.   AGAIN with the garish primary colours..no range to speak of.   Dropped my standards again.  Off to get bobbins.  STILL OUT OF STOCK!!!!! WHAT guys! it's been two months! TWO MONTHS! you think just cause there are plenty of janome bobbins on the shelf then people with brother machines can just wait I suppose... I asked and they were like yeah, we don't have any in stock......." like it's a big mystery..They've been saying the same thing for months now.

You start to wonder about the people that make these stock lists.  are they writing them on scrap paper out the back.. do they actually know ANYTHING ABOUT SEWING OR COLOUR???

Which brings me to my next point.  Spotlight is not a fabric shop.   Spotlight is a supermarket that happens to sell fabric and craft supplies.  Asking a person working at spotlight for sewing advice is like asking a check out chick for advice about Cooking.  They have no idea. the extent of their training is to cut fabric, retrieve patterns from a filing system and work a register.  You should of seen the woman's face when I asked for some help understanding pattern drafting..She looked at me like I was suggesting she know quantum physics.  It's SO frustrating to get that response..People that owned sewing and fabric stores USUALLY DO SO BECAUSE THEY LOVE TO SEW!!!  These people act like either they have no idea or they couldn't care less.

Sewing is a social craft, a sharing craft a craft for people to discuss and inspire. This mega chain has swallowed everything and still has not the decency to offer the sewing community an adequate service by stocking properly and hiring people that actually have a knowledge base in the goods they are selling.  A lot of hardworking people have lot their livelihoods to them.
They are the people I need to help me. It's sad.