I am so sorry you are not able to shop here despite wanting to. That's unfortunate. I do feel a bit of a response is needed, though, as I think the industry as a whole has been pressured to cheapen our product to the point that stores are closing and digi designers must semietire from designing to find work outside the home to make ends meet.
I do believe our prices. I 'believe' the prices for all art and artists, in general. It's not mass marketed, or mass produced. These are works of art, crafted weekly for our customers and sold to a relatively limited customer base. Take a look at Etsy and see the prices for almost anything handcrafted. These things take time! People should be paid fairly for their time and efforts. I am happy with the Sweet Shoppe and the way we price our kits and templates, even before I became a designer and was a customer here. I think when people are not paid fairly for the time they put into their work, it kills the digi scrapbooking industry. Their work begins to suffer. They can't sustain it, and quit. I like supporting my hobby so it can thrive. I also like knowing I am supporting small businesses and the women who work here (and their families behind them).
I can also say that having been a paper scrapper before, I spent SO much money on significantly fewer supplies. I would walk out of Michael's or Hobby Lobby with $50 of products that I could only use once. And I subscribed to scrapbooking paper kits for $30 a month and got maybe 3 pages out of each kit before I ran out of elements. When I became a digi scrapper, I was thrilled! When you really consider the size of the kits we are selling and the variety and number of elements in the kits it really is a good value for what you get and allows you to reuse them an innumerable amount of times. An $8 kit for about $6 (at New Release pricing) can make you an entire album. One of our regular customers, Debbie, can attest to that!
We understand some people have budgets and SSD has regular sales throughout the year and a way to earn monthly discounts through our challenges. We also give, for free, many products away throughout the year in free-with-purchase goodies and in our Sweet Freebie section.
I hope maybe we can change your opinion of us as a store, and that you will consider trusting us. We are not here to rob you! If you love us, you'll find value in what we create here!
