At Fabric Mart: A Brief History

This is a SPECIAL post, written by Robert Richin,

the owner of Fabric Mart!

The store front from when our current location in Sinking Spring, PA was just opened and the store front today.

It is so easy to shop on the Fabric Mart website-- a few clicks of the mouse and in a few days a box of beautiful fabrics arrive at your door. But how did this business start?

Fabric Mart was started in July 1977 by Robert Richin. Robert learned about fabrics from his father, Sidney Richin, who was a women's clothing manufacturer and retailer. Robert would scour the factory floors of top designers to find the fabrics he needed to fill his stores.

Robert's first store was a 2000 square-foot building, located in Manheim, Pennsylvania. The fabrics came in on rolls and were folded into remnants. Theses fabrics were displayed on tables and hung on hangers. After 10 years of opening his first store, he opened seven more stores located in Pennsylvania and Maryland. The stores featured fabrics from leading designers and manufacturers such as Jonathan Logan, Butte Knit, Leslie Fay, John Meyer, Jones New York, plus many more.

During the 1990's, he started a swatch club where customers received monthly swatch mailings containing about 30-40 different fabrics.

Inside the store while it was being remodeled to be filled with the latest fashion fabrics.
The store is still filled with great finds! A good value for a good price!

About 12 years ago, they decided to start a website, FABRICMARTFABRICS.COM. Instead of sending out a general mailing of swatches, the website gave customers the ability to display 1000's of items and present them to a larger customer base.

What is FABRICMARTFABRICS.COM all about?
1) It's about providing customers with a large selection of quality fabrics at incredible prices.
2) It's about having a website that adds new fabrics everyday.
3) It's about having Super Sales, Clearance Sales and $1.00 Blowouts!
4) It's about having an exciting and fun website.
5) It's about having a site that customers want to check out every day.
6) It's about picking the best fabrics from dozens of sources and bringing them to you, the customer.
7) It's about having the best pictures online.
8) It's about having the best people cutting and packing the orders.
9) It's about shipping the orders within 24 hours.
10) It's about having the best customer service.
11) It's about having employees that care and enjoy what they are doing.
12) IT'S ABOUT EXCEEDING THE CUSTOMER'S EXPECTATIONS!

The cutting counter and store being prepared.
Today we have a computer inside of the store for customers to use to shop our online store, in store.
This makes it easy for customers to look up fabric prices, content, uses, and feel the material while browsing the fabric from the website so they can purchase it right at our location when they visit us.

Want to know more? Just ask and we will answer!

Email us at fabricmartblog [at!] gmail.com with your questions.

We will compile your questions into one blog post,

so don't forget to keep checking back as you wait to view our tips and tutorials!

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