Just had this by email
Dear All - it is with sadness that I have to announce the closure of the Scrapitude Shop.
Before I go into detail let me just say:
Our Message Board and Gallery will stay!!!!
We will still be running competitions, challenges, contest and as it is my home from home, there is no way I let the MB go - we are too much family there.
Now as to the closure.
The shop was started when I had such bad problems at my old job, what with sometimes not getting paid on time and the rumours flying that the company might go bust soon. Scrapping was all I knew then and I thought building a little business on the side, we would have something to fall back upon, in case I would have lost the job.
With working close to home it was no problem to juggle work and the shop but now there is no way I can manage keep running the shop and be out of the house 12 hours per day.
We did decided before the holiday that my Partner would take over the shop totally but in all honesty - it would take me months to teach him everything and as scrapping isn't his hobby, he wouldn't know what the Scrapper would be wanting to see in the shop. Meaning, my input would still be needed for at least another year.
It wasn't an easy decision to make and my Partner asked me to re-consider but frankly, the shop isn't making enough money to warrant going through the stress, hassle and extra work each day.
It also had a major impact on my scrapping - since I had the shop I didn't enjoy scrapping as much anymore. Sure, I did manage a number of LO's per month but half of them were done because I "had" to do them, to showcase stash from the shop.
The domain Scrapitude will remain with me and I will keep the shop live until every last thing is sold.
As I am a Sponsor on UKS until the end of December 2006 that is how long the shop will stay open anyway.
The DT will stay with me for the time being. They still have assigments for the following months but I won't be inviting more Guest DT, I am afraid.
After that I hope to keep the DT on as Moderators for the Scrapitude Message Board as I still have big plans and hopefully that will make our community grow even further.
There is a Major Closing Down Sale going on now with everything discounted.
All Papers are 35% - 50% off
All Cardstock is 35% off
All Ribbons are 20% off
All Kits are 10% off
and much much more.
There were still some outstanding orders on they way to me from the US, so you will see new items appearing once in a while but they will go into the discounted areas straight away.
The future for Scrapitude the shop is hopefully not as bad as it looks at the moment, but right now I can't compete with all the new online shops popping up at evey corner, with almost everyone undercutting each others prices. I say, good luck to them if they can afford to sell at almost wholesale prices but I am loosing business this way. The last three months were really bad and I am not willing to put all the work into something which is not making me money.
So I decided to cut my losses now and start from scratch next year with a different concept.
The main reason why I keep the domain is that my Partner and I will be working on a plan to maybe bring the Monthly Kits back and there are two other ideas in our heads {not giving those away yet though}, which we think might work. But a shop with many different items as Scrapitude is now, will no longer be.
Everything you see in the shop now is already discounted and NONE of these items will ever be re-stocked. So if you fancy something today - you better buy it!
Postage costs might have to be adjusted if what you order is way over the standard postage fee charged by the shop system{but I will only send you an additiona Paypal invoice if it is significantly higher}
Thank you for your custom throughout the last year and as I said - we might go back to the Monthly Kit only some time next year but as for now it is:
Goodbye from me and goodbye from him
Kim & Lyndon