fabric comes in bulk amounts.
categories: to be sold in the store, to be sold online, or to be donated. Ewa Powell carefully categorizes and inventories the fabrics to be sold through Modern Fabrics. She also spends a great deal of time finding places willing to take donations. According to Ewa Powell, that can be difficult because the
“It’s no one’s fault there’s fabric left over, but that is where we benefit,” Ewa Powell says. “We help in the process of the end product not going completely to waste.” She notes that the fabrics sold at Modern Fabrics or online through their website are not secondhand. “This is all first-quality fabric that has all been inspected before it came to me, and then when we get it, we inspect it again before we put it on the floor, and then we inspect it again,” Ewa Powell says. “If you are in the store, we literally inspect it in front of you. And if we sell it online, we inspect it before we ship it.” Making this unusual business model work has had its share of challenges. Ewa Powell shares that she and her husband are both creatives and had no business experience before beginning this venture. She says store manager Debra Worthy, who has a background in banking, handles the business and finance side, which allows Ewa Powell to spend her time collecting and curating fabrics to sell in the store. Every week, Ewa Powell goes to each of the furniture manufacturers she partners with and picks up new fabrics. She then takes the material to a 25,000-square-foot warehouse in Hickory, N.C., (approximately one hour away from the store). She carefully inspects each piece of fabric and divides it into one of three
Modern Fabric’s primary customer base is people who are looking to have a piece of furniture reupholstered. Generally, people come into the store to look at fabrics and get free samples of those they like. Then, the consumer texts a
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