Business is slow, how about you

[Randy Cornelius]

I have been sitting around with not much to do in the shop these days. Mostly working on stuff for myself that don't pay. It seems that the 1st of April someone just turned off the tap and orders stopped coming in. I was very busy during Christmas and right after but not now. Is anyone else experiancing a slow time like me? I got a call today from a sales lady from Siegel wanting me to buy skirting leather they have on sale. I was telling her that I did not have much business and that I could not place an order. She stated that she has heard that from a lot of shops that she has called. She said one customer that has bought from her for years turned the shop over to his wife so he could go get another job to pay the bills. I think the price of gas is having a trickle down effect on all business.

Just wanting to know if I am alone or if anyone else is slow these days.

Randy

[wolvenstien]

I cant speak on my leather work.... I have never had allot of business to depend upon... but I can speak from my uncle who runs a tire store. The past few months have not been nice to him, and he is constantly trying to figure in additional means of making money. The fuel is not helping anything, it is hurting, but we are experiencing a nationwide recession. Next time you take your wife out to eat, take a look around. Are there as many people in the restaurant as there normally would be? I took my wife to a nice restaurant this past friday on her birthday. This restaurant always has stand by waiting especially on a friday. When we got there at 6pm, we were seated immediately. I didnt think about it at the time, but after talking to my uncle this weekend, he mentioned going to Red Lobster on that same friday. The manager let half the staff go home around 7pm when he was there eating. Everything is being effected in one way or the other...

[Beaverslayer]

Up here it's pretty much business as usual, but I am always watching the news. I think the main problem in the US these days, is the one with the sub prime mortgages. This seams to have really affected all the different aspects of the economy. Nobody has confidence in the financial markets, so they are investing in the comodities, such as gas, oil, gold and the like. The paper here today said that by this weekend gas will be $1.50 per litre, this equates to $5.76 per US gallon, which just is not right for a place that produces so much oil.

I hope your business increases soon, maybe when you all get those "Stimulus" cheques, all will be good again.

Ken

[tonyc1]

Up here it's pretty much business as usual, but I am always watching the news. I think the main problem in the US these days, is the one with the sub prime mortgages. This seams to have really affected all the different aspects of the economy. Nobody has confidence in the financial markets, so they are investing in the comodities, such as gas, oil, gold and the like. The paper here today said that by this weekend gas will be $1.50 per litre, this equates to $5.76 per US gallon, which just is not right for a place that produces so much oil.

I hope your business increases soon, maybe when you all get those "Stimulus" cheques, all will be good again.

Ken

It's between $1.49 and $1.54 here in Tasmania now. We might have to start using horseback again if this keeps up!

[wolvenstien]

It's between $1.49 and $1.54 here in Tasmania now. We might have to start using horseback again if this keeps up!

Hey, people start using horseback.... they will stimulate the leather industry....

Fuel here is 3.69 a gallon for regular....

Edited May 13, 2008 by wolvenstien

[JRedding]

Randy, we had a stretch last fall that seemed pretty slow we were behind enough it allowed us to catch up on a few things and it picked up around Christmas and has remained steady since. I've heard the same as you from some suppliers and I seem to be getting more courtesy calls about specials and odd lots than normal from some. I can only speak of the conditions here but the horse market is in the crapper in our part of the country. Good broke saddlehorses brought a fair price at the annual spring horse sale here last weekend but consignment was down about two thirds. With the price of hay last fall horses were being given away and dumped on the BLM ground to winter with the wild horses south of town.Weiner and yearling colts are pretty much free. The county here wintered so many horses that had been stray penned and remained unclaimed they were boarding horses at the fairgrounds because no one anticipated getting horses dumped on them like that and they didn't have the facilities to handle it. It's only my opinion but a bad horse market and seeing people get out of it alltogether because it's too expensive coupled with the fact there's fast becoming a saddlemaker for every horse still in operation, I don't see it getting easier anytime soon. I've worked with companies that have maintained ad space in the Horseman pretty much continuously since 1991 so I've watched the ads monthly since then. Last year in the pre Christmas edition I beleive it's the gift guide I counted around fourteen ads for custom saddles clustered within three pages, I didn't notice several of the old tough regulars like Big Bend, Ryons, and Platte Valley amongst them I beleive they had ads somewhere else in the magazine. Most of the fourteen if I remember right were small shops and/or new advertisers. It's just the most I've ever noticed flooding in there pre Christmas. I've gotten the feeling the middle ground market amongst the backyard horseman or pleasure rider may be taking a decrease in size due to lack of disposable income , probably brought on by high gas prices and higher everything prices because of high gas prices like you said. Add in the increased number of shops soliciting these folks for their business, it's starting to appear to me like there's more people seated at the table to get a piece of shrinking pie.

[wildrose]

I think the focus is going away from handcrafted items. People want stuff cheaply, and they don't care if it's "made in China", etc.

I work p/t at a retail clothing shop in the local mall, and it is the slowest I've ever seen anywhere. In 3 hrs we might get one paying customer and one browser. Sometimes we only get one person in at all!

[gunfighter48]

I manage a self storage facility and our occupancy is down 4 % ( about 20 units) from the first of the year. Last year we were at 90% occupied or better. This year I'm having trouble trying to maintain 85%. The gas prices are really starting to hurt everyones budgets. And our expenses keep going up along with everyone else's. We just had to raise our rates by an average of $10 per month per unit. Our electric bill went up 15% in January. Seattle is just starting to see the recession that the rest of the country has been in for about the last year.

John

[Ian]

I am conviced that cheap imports are a huge reason for the decline in the leather industry. I remember when owning a leather jacket was quite an extravagance - now Pakistan and China have flooded the market, mostly with buffalo, pigskin and split leather.

A leather auto interior was considered the realm of luxury cars - now it's common. Same with leather furniture. The cheap split leather sofas with vinyl backs and sides are in some cases cheaper than regular upholstery, yet proudly carry the 'Genuine Leather' label. And, by the way, someone told me (and I don't know if it's true) that the Japanese auto makers are now buying half the world's supply of cowhide.

The real travesty is the free use of the word 'genuine'. A customer asked me why my plain bridle leather belts were $30, when they could buy a 'Genuine Leather' belt at the flea market for $3.00. I wondered the same thing, so I picked up a couple of the $3 jobs. Well, they turned out to be plastic with something that looked like shredded cardboard inside. I've seen bonded leather marked as 'genuine'. How can they legally do that?

The average person can't possibly be as educated on the various products that go under the banner of 'leather'. I believe that the garbage leather coming in from Asia has seriously hurt the prestige that leather products used to have. The high end market, like the incredible saddles that have been posted here will probably never feel the pinch, but surely saddle shops making riding saddles must have been hurt by Mexican and Indian saddles. The same goes for harness. A friend just paid 6 grand for a used show harness for his Morgan - a beautiful piece of work, but how long before Indian factories are producing something similar enough to satisfy the average driver? When people hold up Amish made harness as the mark of quality (when I have found the opposite to be true in many cases) how do harness shops compete with folks who are happy to work for 4 bucks an hour?

For myself, doing mostly items for motorcycles there is still a market for high end items, but I have stopped trying to compete with manufactured saddlebags - some of which are very well made, using quality leather and hardware, yet sell at a price that I can't hope to compete with.

I keep holding my breath, waiting for the bubble that the Cable Channels created with the bike builder shows to pop. I know that motorcycle sales are down dramatically and some of the custom builders are going out of business, so it may be happening now. I know quite a few guys who took out second mortgages to buy custom built bikes. You know how that story ends.

The much publicized prices for seats by Paul Cox and Duane Ballard created a thousand basement seat makers turning out seats of various degrees of quality. Though the exceptional makers like David and others are few and far between. Still, the lines start to get blurred.

Never the less, even though I consider myself to be fairly average in the skill department, I don't intend to stop what I'm doing because of the dip in the market, though I might find myself reducing the variety of items I make and relying more on my 'day job' and less on the leather business. And, when the business drops at the end of the riding season, I'm going to spend more time developing finer skills and drifting back into the hobby position I used to occupy.

Edited May 13, 2008 by Ian

[mulefool]

Well, so far (Knock on Wood) things have been pretty good here. But I do admit to being nervous. I build pack saddles at the high end price wise of that market. We recently attended a large packing clinic where we usually do quite well. Last year we had our best year ever. We didn't do as well this year and sold more smaller ticket items. However in general I'm still really busy. I don't advertise doing any repair work and don't encourage it, but I've thought if things got slow I might promote that locally since there is definitely a market for it. I am kind of worried about the horse market, but I guess you just have to wait and see and maybe have some contingency plans in mind. I've also become alot more on top of my own costs and trying to keep things in check. of course I should be doing that anyway. It's hard though to feel like you need to raise prices at the same time everyone is feeling the pinch already.

[Washroad]

I work in the trucking industry. Can you imagine what's happening to us because of fuel prices?

We normally set a "rate" for a haul; point A to point B is $100 when fuel is less than $2.00 per gallon. Right now our fuel surcharge is slightly over 35%. Point A to Point B is now almost $140.00. Customers don't like it but know that everyone is doing the same.

The thing is, we can only increase the surcharge once a month. So, if fuel goes up during the month, we have to eat it until the start of the next month.

We've done everything we can to increase fuel economy, our trucks now average 7.5 mpg (considering they weigh 80,000 lbs [a little over 22,000 kgs] that isn't too bad.

As far as my job goes, I've still got one and this company will weather this storm. It's been through worse than this and survived quite well.

The housing market in good ol' Orange County.......

A while back, my little 1300 sq.ft. house was valued at $600,000. Should've sold then, huh? A very nice house 3 doors down the block from me, 2 remodeled baths, remodeled kitchen, finished garage, nice patio, etc., sold awhile back at $607,000. Two families moved in, and less than a year later put it back on the market at $675,000.

It didn't sell and went into foreclosure.

House is still nice but the yards are in bad shape. New asking price.....$450,000. Yes, that's a lot for a house, no doubt about it, but a drop in price of $150,000 is huge.

Luckily, my wife's company is doing so well they are hiring and they just gave her a 7% raise!!!!

I just looked outside. . .

My 3-month old Border Collie is busy harassing my 9-year old Shepard/Husky, the sun is out, I'm above the ground and it's going to be a great day!

[Luke Hatley]

WASHROAD...............

[Ian]

A while back, my little 1300 sq.ft. house was valued at $600,000.

Wow, that's amazing - and I thought Massachusetts was expensive. How does the average person buy a house in California? Are the salaries that much higher?

[wildrose]

Actually, houses where I used to live in Hunterdon County, NJ (around Flemington) are easily in the 400,000 and up range. We call them McMansions. Nobody builds small homes anymore, it seems, around there. To me, a large home like that is a disgusting waste of money that could easily be spent on many worthy charities.

[Washroad]

Wow, that's amazing - and I thought Massachusetts was expensive. How does the average person buy a house in California? Are the salaries that much higher?

The "average" person doesn't buy a house here. They can't. You need an income of more than $80,000 to buy a condo here (Orange County)(only 30% of the population can afford to buy here)(many commute from the "Inland Empire" as it's more affordable than here but they have to commute close to 40 miles)(you should see the rush hour traffic here), more for a house.

The houses that have sold in my neighborhood had 2 families buying them so they could qualify.

You most likely pay more in property taxes than we do (we have Prop 13 that limits our property taxes to a 2% increase a year). I know friends in Texas pay a lot more property tax but they have no income tax like we do. Govmint will get ya one way or another.

Income higher? I don't really know.

Wildrose, I think people ought to spend their own money on whatever they want. Yes, lots of good charities, but a house is very important and I would love to have a larger one on more land.

[jennifer]

I’m down in the suburbs of San Diego County, and like Washroad, my house was in the $600,000 range two years ago, but I don’t even want to see what it is now. I have an older 1500 sq foot home and just saw a brand new 3000 sf model home fully furnished sell for $400,000.00.

When I bought my home I was near a dairy and had lots of open space around our neighborhood. They overbuilt when prices went up and some of the new neighborhoods have 50% in foreclosure.

As far as income and work supply, things are tough. My husband has been looking for work for the past 18 months and with 35 years of experience in grocery sales can’t get more than part-time $15.00 an hr temp work.

Most of the people who work regular admin type jobs are earning $10-$12 an hour. At the humane society work starts at about $8.00 an hour and the Director of Animal Control earns under $40,000/year.

I work a full time job as a data analyst and run a small business in order to make ends meet.

When I hear the politicians say we may be heading into a recession I wonder what they are looking at.

I can tell you this, prior to Monday I was working for the county access and crisis line and along with foreclosures, suicide calls are way up, gas prices are at $4.00 a gallon, our board for the horses just went up another $60.00 a month and Bermuda is at $14.00 a bail.

I’d say there is not a lot of discretionary spending left in many peoples budget.

Jennifer

quote name='Washroad' date='May 15 2008, 01:59 PM' post='47248']

The "average" person doesn't buy a house here. They can't. You need an income of more than $80,000 to buy a condo here (Orange County)(only 30% of the population can afford to buy here)(many commute from the "Inland Empire" as it's more affordable than here but they have to commute close to 40 miles)(you should see the rush hour traffic here), more for a house.

The houses that have sold in my neighborhood had 2 families buying them so they could qualify.

You most likely pay more in property taxes than we do (we have Prop 13 that limits our property taxes to a 2% increase a year). I know friends in Texas pay a lot more property tax but they have no income tax like we do. Govmint will get ya one way or another.

Income higher? I don't really know.

Wildrose, I think people ought to spend their own money on whatever they want. Yes, lots of good charities, but a house is very important and I would love to have a larger one on more land.

[Washroad]

Wow, that's amazing - and I thought Massachusetts was expensive. How does the average person buy a house in California? Are the salaries that much higher?

Want to see scary house prices? Check San Francisco.

Jennifer, my house was built in '61. It had been a rental for 12 years when I bought it as a "fixer-upper" and I'll never do that again! What a freakin' money pit!

[Roger]

i am good and steady but not overbooked the way i have been off an on. i don't have near the inquiries i used to have but it seems that nearly everyone that contacts me does have me do the job.

i'm thankfull to not be without the work as i need the extra income. last summer i when nearly four months without much work

[wildrose]

"Wildrose, I think people ought to spend their own money on whatever they want. Yes, lots of good charities, but a house is very important and I would love to have a larger one on more land."

I'm with you there, a house is very important - my problem is when people are buying what we call "trophy homes", rather than a reasonable house for their needs. Why does a couple with no children (i.e. "empty nest") need a home that has enough square footage to house a family of 5? That's my point. Better to have a smaller house with more land around it.

That's just me...