Jo-Ann Fabric and Craft

I don’t live near a garment district, so I get excited to go to Jo-​Ann. It’s inspirational to walk among the bolts of fabric, to see how an idea evolves, and be around the color and texture. I get Joann’s emails, texts, and postcards, and they’ve advertised a few Minion fabrics, and a no-​sew fleece blanket project — none of which, of course, were in stock last night. I wanted to see this stuff because my Minion-​obsessed son has a birthday this week. This is often the case with Joann — the thing you want isn’t available, in the store or online. At least in the store, a human MIGHT be able to tell you so. When something isn’t in stock online (when it’s listed «in stock»),
just doesn’t ship anything. No follow up. You’ll anticipate your package, but nothing comes. And you’ll wonder if maybe it’s the weather, or the long holiday weekend that’s holding up arrival. You’re reasonable. Eventually you contact them. They tell you, «Oopsie, we ran out of that.» And you’ll ask, «Why didn’t you let me know, so I could look elsewhere?» because now time is tight. And they say, «At least we didn’t charge your credit card!»
The line at the fabric cutting station: The employee will have a «please kill me now» expression. I believe Corporate treats them no better than sheep, or perhaps button-​pushing research monkeys. I’m not the only one who goes to Jo-​Ann solely for the fabric and associated sewing notions — you can get other arts and crafts stuff elsewhere, and often at FAR more reasonable prices. Yet, the fabric desk is chronically, woefully understaffed.
Jo-​Ann has a few aisles of seasonal stuff, but the only time to look is after the season has ended. But, even then, the prices are crazy. This is a tough market right now, and the store is all about DIY, so I can’t help but question them for selling Independence Day wreaths for 70 bucks. We are talking twigs (which are free) and a strand of shiny, patriotic stars (a dollar or two?) and some damn wire to bind it together. Even with the very deep, post-​holiday discount, the wreath was about $ 13, which perhaps, with labor — honest, properly paid labor — would be an appropriate price. But it’s insulting to see the original price, and know that they’re likely relying on near-​slave labor; and see dozens of these unpurchased wreaths because people cannot justify the expense, before or after the holiday.
On a positive note, a wonderful aspect of Jo-Ann’s — and I always forget this, until faced with it at the store: the remnants. There’s a lot of crap in there. But sift through. You’ll find a yard of desert camo print for your Marine — maybe he needs a pillow? You’ll find the Tardis fabric, so you can make some pot holders for your nerdy kitchen. There will be at least one bold, beautiful upholstery fabric that will knock your socks off. And a good smattering of tuile and silky stuff for accents and liners for your other projects. And you’ll wander up the register with this armful of treasure and spend less than $ 12 because remnants are already 50% off, but also, the cashier will inform you, some of the patterns are on sale, and you get 50% off the sale price… and the sale price is never on the remnant’s tag.
So, you’ll leave happy. But it’s a hard-​earned happy, because like the fabric desk, the cashiers are also victims of corporate-​level inanity. You wonder why the F it is so hard to give these people your money. The check out at the Red White and Blue Thrift Store in Hamilton (a sadistic free-​for-​all) is better than Jo-Ann’s. At Jo-Ann’s, checking out is like getting lost in a corn maze at Halloween, except instead of being surrounded by corn, you’re surrounded by cheap crap you feel compelled to at least consider, and in doing so, you have to let that gaggle of women go ahead of you. It’s here, in the Crap Merchandise Maze, I finally found my first Minion item — a t-​shirt, with no price tag. There are also hand lotions and soaps, deceptively packaged like Bath & Body Works, that are JO-​ANN EXCLUSIVES and ON SALE for 6 for $ 5, so you think, MAYBE I need these? And while you’re mulling it over, more people go ahead of you, and you discover that crap is regularly $ 1 a piece anyway. So you skip it, but now there are 15 people ahead of you, including that first gaggle of women — a group of 7, with 1 cart, but they all have separate orders. And even then, some of the ladies will want certain items rung up independently. There will be 60 spools of thread in the cart, to be divided up 12 ways. This isn’t Jo-Ann’s fault. But they don’t seem to have a process to cope with it properly. You, like the poor woman at the cutting station, will want to die, when an angelic voice calls out, «next customer please.»
And, just when you’re making a mental note to remove yourself from the Jo-​Ann alerts, the cashier tells you that you owe them $ 11.53, when you were expecting to pay closer to $ 30. So you’ll stay on their lists; but you probably won’t go back until after Christmas.

Buy online and avoid this terrible chain. They are overpriced and under staffed. There were only 2 workers and about 15 customers trying to get service. They do this to cut costs at the expense of customers and workers alike. It took me 30 minutes to get a single piece of Velcro, and no one helped me find what I needed. This place needs to go out of business. They exploit workers and are unable to provide quality service and overcharge. Again, buy online and put them out of business.

TERRIBLE CUSTOMER SERVCE! I haven’t gotten friendly help from anyone who works here and I have been countless times. They are always under staffed, always to busy to help customers, and if you ask for help its like your getting in their way. I am always waiting in huge lines at this store… always. Dont go here if you are on a time crunch. Everyone who works there makes it seem like it is the last place they want to be. This is the worst customer service I have gotten from any JoAnn’s and its a real shame because I normally love these stores. Just NOT this one!

I have yet to have a pleasant experience at this store. Every employee, except for the friendly cashier with braces, gives the impression that they despise working here and all seemed to have a general negative outlook.
I was almost not let into the store because they were trying to lock the door at 5:45 for a 6pm closing, then I was practically kicked out at 5:59.
Staff in general seems annoyed to help and act as though they are doing you a favor if they do help in any way.
Also a negative for JoAnn in general: If you special order fabric from the store, you still have to pay for shipping and pick it up in the store. It was actually cheaper shipping to order online and just have it shipped to any address. I was then given the run-​around in the store because they cashier did not know how to cancel my order when I just decided to order online.
I ended up using another fabric store to get the exact same fabric and it ended up being ½ the price, including shipping, even after the 40% off coupon that JoAnn was offering.
Will never return to this location.

Terrible for bakers or cake decorators! This store doesn’t even have an aisle for cake supplies. They have an end cap for cake items. and not even a full end cap of supplies. Better stick to the one in Fairless Hills!

Really great fabric store. There is a larger one down by the Oxford Valley mall in PA, but this store is more helpful I’ve found. Great sales on after holiday trinkets too! You can also sign up for educator discounts.

I’ve been to this store a couple of times and they’re incredibly helpful.
We were tasked with finding fabric for a quilt my uncle is making, and needed enough fabric to cover both sides of a 90″ square. Let’s just say that in the end, we needed just under 9 yards of fabric for each side, but had the dilemma of 45″ — seam allowance, and bats of fabric are cut as 8.5 yard lengths. So there wasn’t enough fabric at this store for any of the 4 fabrics we chose.
Instead of sending us frustrated and on our unmerry way, the salesperson checked the inventory at another store and recommended that we purchase most of the fabric there so we wouldn’t waste our money on pieces that wouldn’t work for our project, and said that if the other store had better lengths if we bought any of the pieces at this store, we could return them as long as we left them as is.
That was nice. We did end up heading to the Fairless Hills store and they had exactly what we needed.
Thank you!