What goes around...well, it comes around...sorta

Can anyone think back to the scrap industry 2-3 years ago? I can. I remember it because it was all so new to me. I was thirsty for knowledge and hungry for growth. I absorbed magazines as fast as my modest budget could afford me the opportunity to purchase them. I was so hungry that I'd even buy huge lots of older mags just to find out what I'd missed. Those were the good old days. Well, sort of.


Today, I'd be more inclined to take my magazine money and purchase a book on decoding the feline horoscope than to waste it on a CK, MM, SS, or ST. I'm sorry, the thirst has been quenched sufficiently enough to allow me to be the master of my own growth. Where as I used to avoid the magazine racks because of my inability to walk away from a scrapbooking mag, now I waltz past them with a devil-may-care attitude and dare the scrappy offerings to try to pique my interest...they've thus far failed miserably.


I had the 'opportunity', I'm using that word VERY loosely, to pop into my local Scrapping store last week. I got a doctor's appointment time mixed up and showed up an hour early, so I figured I'd pop across the parking lot to see if anyone stole my idea for a rubon sealer/dryer...no such luck. Shucks Darn. Anyway, I popped over to the store and after perusing the aisle after aisle of product that did little more than hurt my eyes and head, I headed over to the magazine rack.

Dun dun dun! I was surprised to see that the owner didn't have many copies of CK, MM, SI or ST. I figured that since the new issues had come out a little bit ago, that her sparse inventory was a result of the popularity of the magazines. Until I went over to her clearance bin. There I found many copies of several popular magazines greatly reduced by 50%...but alas still sitting there. One of the girls working there informed me that they were actually 75% off but that she hadn't gotten around to making the change on the stickers yet. Now, I'm not talking about last Christmas' issues, I'm talking about April and May issues. I'm not talking about 2 or 3 copies, I thumbed through at least 6-10 of each. This, in my opinion, was something worthy of investigation.

So, I gathered a couple of magazines (people will talk if they think that they have your money in their pockets, incidentally) and I searched out the helpful little sprite. I asked, with as much wide eyed naivete' that I could conjure up without getting nauseous, why there are so many magazines on clearance and provided the pretense that I only wanted the latest and greatest inspiration. She assured me that I was certainly getting just that and that the only reason that they'd made it to the clearance bin was that they weren't selling that well. The store sales of the scrapbooking mags had lagged so much that the owner was decreasing her order quantities and even considering only doing idea books. Information in hand, I put those wastes of tress back where I put them and scurried off to my doctor's appointment.


A person might be inclined to believe that the decrease in magazines in a store could be easily translated into an increase of money saving subscriptions. BUT, the rumors of declining subscription sales has been going around the mill for months now. One might even be inclined to believe that the popularity of online galleries has contributed to the lessened interest in scrapbooking magazines. I would be more inclined towards the later than the former.


I gave this some serious thought while I sat in the doctor's office fiddling my thumbs. It's all about economics now isn't it? Supply, demand, cost, all of that. The only problem is, that where as in the textbook economic model, demand for an item and the amount of supply of that item would effect the cost of that item, the industry tried to milk us for more than we were willing to pay, supplied more than we had a demand for and many times, ignored to cries of the consumer, instead opting to provide products that catered to a demographic that is in the minority. The result, in my opinion, has been the further decline in scrapbooker interest. I am not the least bit surprised that things are happening the way that they are, and I don't see how anyone is going to be able to fix it at this juncture.


This phenomenon is being repeated in the product sales area as well as magazine sales. Look at it:

• 1. Magazines dictate a trend and begin to feature more and more of the same 'artists' month after month/Manufacturers, pick up on that trend and speed up the production of new product releases so that there is virtually a flooding of the market with the latest and greatest.
• 2.Consumers complain about the trend and the fact that the same 'artists' are being over exposed in the publishing arena/ Consumers complain about the frequency of the new releases, and the fact that so many of them cater to a trend that doesn't reflect the creative preferences of the majority.
• 3. Magazines ignore the consumer cries and continues to request fresh layouts (but publish the known scrappers pages to the greater extent) and to bombard the consumer with manufacturer advertisements geared at convincing us that we "need" to have the latest and greatest. The manufacturers ignore the consumer cries and continues to cater to the dictated trend.
• 4. Consumers get fed up with the magazines and cancel subscriptions/ Consumers get fed up with the over saturated product market and resolve to just use what they have on hand instead of cramming more 'must have' product into their cupboards.
• 5. The magazines, when faced with a lessened subscriber base, decide to try to find fresh faces to reinforce the current trend or to start a new one. The demographic target for their marketing shrinks to such a degree that even those who decided to preview and purchase the magazines from the newsstands month to month, give up the hope for a useful publication./The manufacturers, now facing low sales, latch on to that same minority demographic that the magazines are focused on.
• 6. The work of the chosen demographic (eventually) becomes the meat and potatoes to the mag industry, though, the meat is no longer a London broil, but rather a lean, 99.9% fat free pork chop. The manufacturer seek to boost sales by getting the scrapping 'personalities' to endorse their product or create kits. The kits are gobbled up by much of the fandom while the ignored demographic scratches their heads in confusion.

So, what has happened to the industry? You and I are what happened! And the industry doesn't know how to handling this mas exodus. They throw more product at us. They bombard us with tools that fail again to meet a true need of the consumer. We protest by retreating back into our overstuffed craft spaces where we discover a world of product just begging to be used. When we do take a peak at their offerings weeks later, we find that they have strayed even farther from interests of the many in order to dredge out a new demographic of the minority.


I think it's a tug of war and I think that it's one that the industry will eventually lose. Why? Because we (people) have been scrapping for a lot longer that there have been magazines to tell us how to or an industry to dictate trends to us. Why? Because the magazines are afraid to stray away from the money earning potential of the tried and true 'artists'. Because the manufacturers only focus on the new and different while giving little credence to the tried and true. You'd think that if these two entities would switch business models, they'd somehow survive the impending implosion. If the manufacturers would focus on maintaining the interests of the tried and true while periodically presenting new techniques/styles as 'something new to try' instead of a "must- do trend", they might just see a return of their customer base...once we use up all of the rest of the stuff that they've crammed down our throats. If the magazines would embrace the true meaning of 'variety' and 'fresh face' then perhaps there would be some regenerated excitement about each publication. Instead of people shying away because of the confusing or uninspiring offerings, people would flock to them in order to garner a drop of inspiration from their true peers. If the magazines would publish all levels of scrapper, there might just be an increase in consumer interest based solely on the fact that there is a little bit of something for everyone.

Will all of this happen? I'd rather not hold my breath...people have died doing that. Do I want the industry to implode on itself? No, of course not, I plan on running out of stash some day. I do want the marketing execs to wake up and smell the desertion. All of this should be a wake up call for someone...but it's probably not going to be because there is no money in that. No, the money is in the hornswaggled masses who gladly gobble up all that the industry shoves down their throats. I'm sorry, I'm just not that hungry anymore.