Jo-Ann Fabrics and Crafts

Went for the first time, everyone was very helpful and friendly. A smaller store than I am used to, and more crafts with less fabric (less appealing to me) but I saw employees take the time to help a lady with limited English help find the right shade and type of fabric to lengthen a dress she had brought in, and the right amount. I had a problem when I reached home and discovered that the bag of small stuff hadn’t been given to me. When I called I was first told that I had to drive 45 minutes each way to process a «return» in person, but the manager called the next day and fixed it, so I was happy in the end. People make mistakes; it’s now they are handled that’s important, so I’ll be back.

I love shopping at Joanns, they have so many great products, and they r so helpful! Love the coupons too

My frustration level went over the top last night, when my husband and I went to search for storage organizers and close-​out fabric for a good price. Thank Goodness for the coupons that I found on line that allowed me to deduct either 40% on one item or 25% of ALL items regardless of whether they were sale price or regular prices. Otherwise their prices were RIDICULOUS!
The signs all over place telling you they are having a 40% sale on Christmas decorations (for instance) just bring the prices down from «stupidly expensive» to «almost tolerable», but definitely NOT a «good deal». So much of what I found there, I could get on Amazon cheaper.
Today I went to Ikea to look for storage organzers and found a dizzying array of choices at great prices. If it wasn’t for the mob and the fact I had to drive so far, I’d have been giddy. One thing for sure, I am not returning to Jo Ann’s for good prices…
Heather B

This store is in an area I frequent so I end up having to go there for fabric.
Last week I was shopping for pillow fabric for my long distance daughter. I took pictures on my phone to get her approval. An older employee approached me, told me that I had put the fabric in my cart wrong (I should have left the wooden poles) and that I could not take pictures for any reason. She was unbelievably rude and nasty.
In the end I felt sorry for the woman who obviously hates her job yet chooses to play corporate police for minimum wage. Sucks to be her.
The Everett store is smaller, messier, and has WAY more fun and soul.

Yup,* consistently* bad service — always seems to be a bunch of post-​menopausal, old bats with bad attitudes. On my last visit the cutting table woman was dreadful. I asked her a question about the inexpensive rolls of thin Offray ribbon that they always carry and of course she could not come out from behind the table to show me where they were. There were no other customers she need to attend to (it was a weekday afternoon). I was obviously asking b/​c I did not see them in the two aisles of ribbon. She just waved her hand toward the rows and said «They’re over there» with such a snotty tone that the «dumbshit» was implied in her tone. I asked for the manager when I checked out with my other items, and the clerk asked what this was regarding. Oh, now we have to justify being allowed to talk to store managers to the check out clerks? I told the manager about the rude cutting table woman, gave her the woman’s name, etc. and the manager said very little. No «I’m sorry. I’ll talk with her»…nothing.
Now, I just called to ask if they carry three items… explained it all to one woman (who sighed heavily b/​c I was asking her to do her job, I guess) who apparently pushed it off on another (much younger clerk) who came back with a response about one of the items. Could not be bothered to look for all three or give me exact prices or truly confirm they are in stock.
This store consistently sucks and clearly management and corporate to not read these reviews… or care! (I also agree with the comments about the long wait to check out and how slow and inept the cashiers often seem to be.) The staff at the Ballard store is **great** but that location carries so little. I’m less than two miles from the Ballard store, so if I’m going to drive the 10 miles to Lynnwood for better selection, better service would be appreciated too. Guess, Micheals will continue to get more of my business.

I’m honestly shocked by all the negative reviews. I haven’t had blow-​my-​mind customer service here, but I’ve definitely never had awful customer service here either. I go to this store at least once a month, and while, yea, maybe no one goes out of their way to check on if I need help finding anything, no one has been rude. ever.
The selection at this store is amazing. The place is HUGE, and it’s a newer, cleaner store. I can get almost anything I need in here. When I decorated my new place in February I got things for window treatments and art projects for my walls, and even found some beautiful mirrors to hang in my bedroom that I ended up getting for $ 20 a pop instead of their original price of $ 49.99. I Could not have been happier.
Again, not amazing customer service, but it’s never been bad!

After 27 years of shopping at almost every Jo-​Ann store throughout Oregon and Washington, I’m done. I will never, ever go into another one of their stores again and it was this store that actually caused me to go «postal», write a long letter to their corporate headquarters and find as many sites as possible to post negative reviews.
Years and years of enduring extremely long wait lines, condescending & rude employees, have led me to this decision. This chain should not be in business after treating loyal customers the way they do, time after time again.
This situation I find in almost every Jo-​Ann store on at least half of all my shopping trips is the following…
1. There is no one that you can ask a question of, without them being totally annoyed that you are interrupting them from what they are doing (like cutting fabric or doing a cash register transaction).
2. The checkers are not well trained on the register software and if they make a mistake or have any type of issue with the transaction, you can expect to spend 5 – 8 minutes waiting for them to figure it out. All the while, the lines back up and they are very slow to call anyone up to help out. (Today, I waited for 25 minutes to do a return!)
3. The selection has been definitely going down for the past few years and just this year I have noticed an even bigger cutback in items. I can only assume it is because corporate is noticing the decline in sales (probably because other customers like myself are finally getting so pissed off they are finding alternative places to spend their money.)
I admit, Jo-​Ann fabric stores are convenient and if you shop the sales, you can get good prices on items. But I cannot put myself through this repeated aggravation every time I want to go shopping in their stores. There are alternatives like Hancock Fabrics, Michaels, Ben Franklin, etc. In the Portland area, there are many more choices like Fabric Depot and Mill End. In all of these stores, the employees seem genuinely happy that you are spending money in their store. That is definitely NOT the attitude of the Jo-​Ann employees.
Find other alternatives. Don’t take this kind of poor service. You work hard for your money and you should be spending it with a company that appreciates it.

I’ve never given a bad review… :(I only log on when something is incredible… BUT
Absolutely horrific customer service. And after reading other reviews… It’s not just me and my knowledge of what customer service SHOULD be.
The only reason I’m giving it a one star is because I have to give something. Great selection and probably would have bought hundreds of dollars worth of fabric right then if I wasn’t verbally shoved out the door with someone walking on my heals reminding us that they were closing shortly.
We walk in, initiate the greeting with the lady at the information counter (who’s name tag read Patti), who then said hello in an annoyed tone, without looking up and said «we close in 15 minutes». We said «don’t worry, we’re just running in for a specific thing. Won’t be here long» expecting to hear a welcoming response and it was an impatient «oh ok». When we were looking at fabric a lady came with a look on her face of ‘how dare you unravel this fabric’ and said «You need to make sure you put those back. We’re waxing tonight and I don’t want that touching the floor» The look on her face was as if we were going to pull her own hair out. We say «that’s no problem» and she walked away. Two seconds later another lady walked up and said «We close in 10 minutes, is there something you need» in the nastiest tone and when I turned around, the look on her face was absolutely insulting and rude. I said «we’re leaving» with no patience in my response and she said «ok» AS she was walking away. Naturally I would have expected a response of «Oh, that’s ok, just wanted to make sure you didn’t need assistance,» Or something like «Oh, no worries» Something to make us feel like we were welcome. We returned to Patti to ask about a specific fabric and she rolled her eyes and gave us no real response, or showed she was interested in helping us at all, then turned her head and yelled «will someone PLEASE lock the front door». I have never been treated with such disrespect. Not one person in that store, that we were in contact with, was pleasant, not one person had any kind of friendly demeanor. It was very uncomfortable.
If your doors are open, you are open. You do not get to clock off in your head and find it indecent for customers to utilize the fact that you are not closed yet.
We will be returning after work, not to buy what we intended buying only there, but to speak with a manager of the unbelievable treatment.
I dare them to work in a restaurant!

The store is big and bright and has a lot to offer but I have stopped shopping there due to one rude fabric cutter named Jennifer. RUDE RUDE RUDE. My money is being spend at Michael’s.

I shopped here on two occasions to buy pillows for my wife. Each time, when I went to pay for the pillows they tried to charge me extra. I explained to them that the pillows were listed at a lower price.
Instead of providing decent customer service and saying something like «let me confirm that for you» they said «that’s because customers put the pillows back in the wrong bin.» I explained that the bin was full of the same exact pillows and I am sure none of their customers shifted all the pillows from one bin to another.
They finally sent someone to check the price and, what do you know, I was right. So they fix the price.
The first time I went I also had a coupon. The clerk told me «you can’t use that coupon because it’s only valid on full price items». I explained that I was paying full price — the item was not on sale. She said «I just discounted this item by $ 4 for you.» I then explained that what she did was not a discount — it was a correction.
Ultimately I got out of there each time paying the correct price, but not without spending several minutes working to get it.

This is a huge store, and can be overwhelming if you don’t know what you want. I call it «The Crafter’s Mothership» simply because it is so huge. One thing I really like is that the store offers single skeins of the DMC Color Variations thread, so you don’t have to buy the whole packages online (not that I haven’t already done this). I actually found an awesome cross stitch kit that I wanted, but would have had to order by mail. In general, I have been satisfied. The first time I went was on a weekday evening and the lines weren’t bad.

This store is huge! It has a really, really large selection of everything from fabric to scrapbooking to beading, to floral to knit/​crochet. Much larger then any of the other local craft stores (I’m looking at you Michaels) in the Lynnwood area.
My biggest issue is the lines. Every single time I’ve come here, whether it’s 8pm at night on a weekday, or a Saturday morning, I end up waiting in a line wrapped half way around the store. They usually have 3 – 4 checkout people, even in the «slow» times, but seriously, the smallest line I’ve ever been in was 14 people deep and it took me the better part of 25 minutes to get through it. I don’t know if the employees are just super slow, or if it’s just the customers taking too much time. but it drives me crazy and makes me not want to go back. Too bad I don’t have any other options. Oh well. It’s not as bad as the Christmas lines, which took over two hours to check out (the line literally went from the front, wrapped around to the scrapbook area, then back to the knitting area, and all the way back to that back corner with the fabric. Jesus christ).
4 stars for selection and variety, –1 for awful lines.

How can a retail store survive this climate with such dismal dare I say CUSTOMER SERVICE.
There is no !!! excuse.
I am a bit of a retail diva since I have done it and taught it. With the computer set up there is no reasonable explanation for the front end lines.
I will not return. Any retail trade gets three chances and then they loose my dollars.
They do not carry anything exclusively so away I go.

Today was my first — and LAST — visit to this JoAnn.
I just moved to the area and was eager to get my fabric fix at a store I generally enjoy going to. I found the selection here lacking (easily half the selection of flannel I’m accustomed to), and the employee at the fabric counter was downright nasty.
She frowned at my questions, argued with me when I asked about a sale price, and barked her responses at me. She was just so mean, I’m dreading ever coming back here!

Look, I have needs. Simple needs, maybe, but they must be fulfilled.
For my knitting and crocheting needs, there are really only 3 places that are easily accessible to me: Michael’s, Joann’s, and Fred Meyer. At about 4 aisles’ worth, Joann’s has the most yarn out of these three stores. Most of the yarn they carry are acrylic and on the less expensive side, but I really don’t need anything fancy for the toys and afghans I make. The color range is enough, and I can really only ask for more variety on the yarn. (like, could I have some white brushed acrylic?)
They also have enough materials for scrapbook makers/​keepers out there. and enough crafts to keep the children busy. There are some materials for fine arts, storage boxes galore, and enough equipment to keep my basic sewing kit properly supplied. They have a few oddities like a whole big section of fake plants, but, whatever.
I know that everyone has complaints about the Joann’s. but, seriously, there’s not really too much out there that’s better within easy access. I’d actually have to take a car out and wander around Seattle.
The only times I ever encounter lines in this Big Store are later at night. and usually when people are trying to make last minute costumes or dresses for certain holidays. I’d have to agree that the fabric line is quite a wait, and sometimes I feel like they really should have more than just 3 cutting stations for such times.
Craft beginners might appreciate the store more. And, until somebody builds a 3±story super-​craft emporium or open up several more specialized craft stores in the area, I feel like Joann’s is pretty much it.

the selection is plain. the service is plain. everything here is plain. it’s not worth the visit, seriously. at least in this location. everytime i go there, i’m disappointed.

While this store is huge and they have a nice selection of fabric and other craft supplies, the line waits are ridiculous. First you wait forever at the fabric counter, then you wait forever in unmoving check-​out lines. I’ve had these issues half a dozen times at this store, and have stopped going.