At the request of a whole heck of a lot of retailers, here’s the bar tab Swoozie’s rang up before filing bankruptcy (as listed in public court records, confirmed here):
Top Unsecured Swoozie’s Creditors
1. Mud Pie $ 865,852.71
2. Design Design 352,268.51
3. FedEx 300,290.65
4. Heart Strings 283,440.40
5. Creative Containers 234,283.84
6. Crane & Co. 227,856.38
7. Innovative Packaging 206,337.20
8. Inviting Company 204,394.85
9. Patience Brewster 197,051.94
10. Peking Handicraft 197,051.94
11. Dennis East International 173,123.53
12. Cross-My-Heart-Cards 160,787.86
13. Oh Sugar! 147,504.44
14. William Arthur 129,746.20
15. Lifeguard Press 123,029.54
16. Hilco Real Estate 115,067.17 (Lease, Northbrook IL)
17. AmEx 113,743.05
18. MS. Dee / Molly ‘n Me 111,236.76
19. Print Appeal 109,019.93
20. Berman Enterprises 103,772.98 (Lease, Rockville MD)
21. Caspari 101,766.79
22. San Lori Designs 98,955.98
23. Natural Life 89,184.62
24. Lady Jane Ltd. 81,023.02
25. Morgan & Company 80,768.60
26. Recycled Paper Greetings 73,871.05
27. Opus Real Estate 67,820.16
28. Room It Up (Prime Source) 62,950.45
29. Cov II DDR Trademark 62,950.45 (Lease, Dallas TX)
30. Anna Griffin Invitations 62,451.89
31. ShopperTrak RCT Corp. 61,442.12 (Mall traffic analysis group)
32. Tri Coastal Design 58,679.67
33. The Orb Factory Ltd. 58,673.17
34. New Dimensions 56,815.36
35. Hog Wild 56,384.00
36. American Greetings 55,953.85
37. Long Grove Confectionery 53,082.11
38. Melissa & Doug LLC 51,692.83
39. B*Posh 49,025.08
Of the entire list, only Crane and Co. holds a lien against Swoozie’s assets. Apparently, someone in Massachusetts saw the writing on the wall and began crocheting a safety net.
To date, Cross-My-Heart is the only vendor I’m aware of who has closed their doors as a result. I fully expect there will be more, as well as a few who will try to hang on until May, with desperate hopes of writing enough orders at NSS to keep the lights turned on.
While we all recognize Swoozie’s seriously messed up, it’s hard to ignore the fact an awful lot of vendors turned a blind eye and allowed it, ignoring numbers that continued to pling-pling-pling sky high like a penny slot machine in Vegas. Seriously? Someone in accounting didn’t think that allowing a retail chain to run up five and six figure debt might be a bad idea?
Oh. Yeah. That’s the same accounting department employee who’s calling independent brick and mortar retailers over $150 invoices that are 6 days late. Go figure.
Yes, this makes me mad. Great little stores are going to lose major lines simply because someone was asleep at the calculator. A lot of someones.
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{ 16 comments… read them below or add one }
amen sister! this truly amazes me. it takes a very blind eye to not recognize and make a plan early when bills like this are getting racked up. Too bad they didn’t know it was a pattern and each vendor bowed to them!
Perhaps if this employee had called swoozies, this wouldn’t have happened. Your logic makes no sense-call debtors-call often. no matter WHO they think they are.
According to people in the know, Inviting Company and Design Design may be at serious risk of going under as a result of their losses. The same insiders say Crane was a Swoozies invester, thus wrangling the secured creditor status.
I know at least one Swoozies vendor who know they were playing with fire and were hoping for a huge payout i/when Swoozies paid.
This is INSANE!!! I am one of those small brick & mortar retail stores that buy from these same vendors and I cannot even begin to understand how they let these numbers get this outrageous.
I have reps that have lost thousands of dollars in commissions from some of these vendors that are refusing to pay, and it is not ethically or morally right!
I have to promise my left AND right arm to get terms with these companies. And you hit the nail on the head about these same vendors calling stores constantly on invoices overdue a few days for $100 or more, even when you have shown good faith during hard times and sending checks for partial payments every 1-2 weeks.
Design Design is now charging 1.5% on past due accounts PER DAY!!! Why should the rest of us have to pay the price?
Patience Brewster is one of my largest holiday lines and how will she survive this blow? Last I heard, she funds everything out of her own pocket since she left Dept 56 a couple years ago.
Why were they allowed to run up such huge tabs? BAD, BAD business. I am definitely going to reevaluate which lines I am going to keep in my store for now.
And I was just in Swoozies on Peachtree yesterday and bought some displays. That was the first time I had ever been in one of their stores. There were atleast 50 boxes delivered while I was in the store of brand NEW merchandise that the liquidation company is buying and bringing in to sell. And they were from some of these same vendors listed on your blog!
My dad drilled it into my head growing up that you are only as good as your word, you have to be responsible, you have to maintain good credit, and you have to pay your bills first before you spend money on other things. And if you don’t follow these rules, there are always consequences to pay.
Unfortuntely, he left out the part that you also may have to pay the consequences of others that don’t follow these rules!
Thanks for the information,
Concerned and hard working mother of 5, wife, and small business owner.
As a former employee of Cross-My-Heart cards, please keep in mind that although the bar tab for these vendors are high–Swoozies was more than one store. When Swoozies purchased from vendors, they purchased for all 40+ stores. CMH, thru Rosanne Beck, has a strict hold policy on accounts that became past due. I’m more than 110% sure that Swoozies had been placed on that hold until they paid up. So I guarantee there was no shipping to them since atleast the NY stationery show.
CMH may of close it’s doors, but Rosanne has not thrown in the towel. She will redeveloped a company & produce a line that will exceed anyones expectations.
FYI: Inviting Company is here to stay – we will be bigger and better than ever.
What happened with Swoozies is in the past. We are focused on the future.
Thank you to all our loyal customers and we look forward to seeing everyone at the NSS booth!!!
As president of Design Design, I can assure to our customers that we are financially solid. Though bad debt always flows to the bottom line, we are secure enough to absorb that bad debt with no effect to our normal course of business. New product introductions are as strong as always and will continue as usual.
Regarding the interest rate comment above, we have charged the same finance rate of 1.5% per month for past-due balances since the day we started 24 years ago. Please call our customer service department at 800-334-3348 if you have any questions or comments. We love to hear from you!
Editor’s note: An exception is being made to my policy of not posting phone numbers in comments since this involves the financial stability of the author’s company and their position on the list of Swoozie’s debtors.
I can’t think of two better companies to continue to buy from, Design Design and Inviting Company. Thanks Don and Elizabeth for setting the record straight. The only vendors in jeopardy would be the ones that were already in trouble way before Swoozies.
Editor’s note: Pretty sure the folks at Cross My Heart would beg to differ on that one…as well as a lot of other vendors on this list who, prior to Swoozie’s, have operated well-established, successful businesses for a very long time.
I just received my email from Rosanne Beck Collections that she has 3 booths at NSS. I understand tough times but with enough money for 3 booths what about the reps (ordinary people like you and I) who worked hard to sell the product and weren’t paid lots of money in Cross My Heart Bankruptcy exactly 1 month ago!
The announcement said “When your heart is broken, you retreat into a cocoon and hibernate until you explode with creativity and emerge as a beautiful butterfly” Very Short Hibernation indeed!
As a store owner I work very hard to respect and appreciate my reps. While there were reps who still encouraged vendors to sell to Swoozies when we have all known for a long time they were in difficulty the majority are out there working hard for many vendors who are not paying them right now. I won’t be buying from vendors who don’t pay their reps but sure collect from me quickly!
I want to praise all of the vendors – hurt by Swoozie’s – who continue to pay their debts, as best they can. The bankruptcy laws don’t seem fair to me; when a company can close one day, owing my sales representatives thousands of dollars that will never be collected, and then re-open with a new name, conducting the same business. The people at the bottom are the ones left with the bar tab.
I’m hearing (from several sources) that some of the bankrupt Swoozie’s stores may be opened under a new name, with original ownership behind them. Haven’t been able to confirm that, but am just as curious about who, exactly, will be willing to sell product to them when so many companies and reps have been left holding the bag.
I just attended the National Stationery Show in New York, and there was quite a bit of talk about Swoozies. Unfortunately Swoozies growing too fast accompanied with the downfall of the economy has hurt many vendors … which in turn hurts all of us that are small brick & mortar retailers.
But I have to point out that with 44 stores, any one of those unpaid tabs could have been a single Christmas order. Think about it … a $5,000 order for Christmas is $220,000 over 44 stores. I am not suggesting that I am in favor of how Swoozies conducted business or how some vendors responded. But business is business, and big name stores like Swoozies and Kate’s have (or had) the luxury of throwing their weight around with BIG orders. If you were a sales rep, would you turn down a 44-store order?
As small business owners, we have to work EXTRA hard to be the retailer where vendors want to see their product. If you are not passionate about the small business you are in, you need to re-think your calling. Most of us will not make a million dollars in small business retail. We are here because we love it – the people, the products, the strategy. And along with that passion comes the painful truth of being the little fish in the great big sea. We need more collaboration, more forums, more togetherness to make our small businesses work. Many thanks to Cinda for providing avenues for us to work together.
Editor’s note: And a huge, heartfelt thank you to you, Saranne, for the thumbs up.
I am not a Swoozie’s supplier, rather I’m a customer, but I’d like to add my two cents about my own Swoozie’s experience.
While it’s becoming more and more common to send an electronic invitation for almost any and every social event these days, I’m a girl who loves the extra touches. I throw a lot of parties and I really enjoy sending out beautiful invitations-they set the stage for a great party. I love monogrammed ANYTHING (who doesn’t?); therefore, I was in our local Swoozie’s at least once or twice a month buying gifts, paper items, etc. Sure, I could have bought those things online, but I like seeing an item in person before I buy it, and Swoozie’s is close, so I was in there a lot. I consider myself to be quite a pleasant and friendly person, and so I was surprised when my smiles and pleasant tones were almost ALWAYS returned with less-than-impressive customer service. In fact, employees were sometimes even downright rude. It is one thing to have one or two employees who need to attend a well-respected charm school, but when it literally seems to be EVERY employee, it makes you wonder what is going on with the management. I have never had this kind of experience in any other establishment in my life-EVER! All of us have bad days every now and again, but when you seem to be having a bad day EVERY day….While I LOVE their products (especially Mudpie and Cross My Heart), I can’t say I’m surprised or saddened to see them go.
My point is this. Knowing how they have consistently treated their suppliers and knowing how they consistently have treated me, it is clear that there is a problem in this company with integrity and morality. Really, this bankruptcy and closing comes as no surprise at all, does it? Best wishes to all the companies who have been negatively impacted by Swoozie’s mistakes.
Just got an email from Swoozies today saying they are opening 7 stores again. Who on earth would sell to them, after being stiffed for huge $$? I don’t get it…
The whole thing is sick. I loved going to Swoozies, it was fun, a great concept, unique. I was so sad to see them close. But the owner should be ashamed of herself. It is UNbelievable that they can open new stores with the amount of money owed and vendors left to hang. Our bancruptcy laws are seriously flawed to allow this. I couldn’t, in good conscience, shop their new stores until old debt was paid.
Swoozie’s back in business?? How can this be? Just read an article about this in the Atlanta Newspaper and saw it on facebook and website??