Joanns - you lose!

Yesterday I was very close to buying the yarn to make that coat, despite my list of of why I don't need to buy it. In a moment of weakness, I put the yarn in my online shopping cart and entered my free shipping coupon and...wait a minute. The total came up $3.00 more than the day before when I put the yarn in the shopping cart. What??? Then I realized that Joanns changed their offer! Earlier in the week they offered an additional 10% off for orders of more than 8 skeins. Yesterday they changed it to 5% off. My email from them, which announced the sale, also said 10% off for more than 8 skeins. I realize it's only a $3.00 difference but it's because they changed their offer that I will not buy the yarn. I suppose if I really, really wanted this yarn, I would call them to complain and insist they give me the 10% deal, but I took this as a sign to not buy the yarn.

It's also another reason why I dislike Joanns. Thankfully they're not the only fabric store in town and certainly not the only one on the internet. Thank goodness. Why do I dislike Joanns? Oh, let me count the ways:

• They don't carry much, if any, quality fashion or quilting fabric. If you want cheap, garishly printed fleece, Joanns is the place.
• Their stores are almost always a mess and fabric gets trampled on and dirty
• The manager at my local store is a awful - I've witnessed her chew out employees and she complains about stuff to customers
• They hire employees who don't sew and can't help customers
• They measure and cut fabric poorly, sometimes resulting in pieces that are short of what you asked for and paid for
• Their store policies prevent employees from doing anything nice that will ensure repeat business. I recently bought some end-of-the-bolt sale fabric which was in two pieces. One piece was 2 7/8 yards and the other piece was just about a yard. I was charged full price for the 1 yard AND the additional 4 inches on the piece. A good fabric store might give me an additional discount for that remnant, not charge me for 1.11 yards. Sheesh.
• They stock a lot of cheap, holiday decorating crap
• They've started to carry their own line of notions, which look to be inferior in quality
• It takes forever for them to put out the new patterns
• Their trim selection is pathetic
• They discriminate based on location - depending on where you live, you get either a 40% or 50% coupon in your mailer. I get 40%.

The only good thing about them are their pattern sales and the coupon. I've used those coupons to buy most of my Gingher scissors, well at least the scissors they have in stock, which aren't many. I wait for pattern sales to buy Vogue, Simplicity, McCalls and Butterick patterns. They also carry Burda for 50% off. But if I need thread or zippers or binding tape, I'd rather go to Hancock's.

So you lose, Joanns and another store will win because the $54 (and not $57) I was going to spend at your store will be spent on yarn somewhere else.