This will be a lengthy post, so for those that hate that, sorry, scroll on by! LOL
Those of us from Ohio and long time collectors saw the handwriting on the wall years ago.
Back in the day (1980's and 90's) both the baskets and the pottery while top of the line in price were just that in quality as well. They were (still are) beautiful pieces of hand crafted art, made to last a lifetime, and unlike many 'collectables', were designed and made to be functional for so many things. Their baskets, pottery and textiles (again, I've never seen such good textiles as back in the day, that Longeberger textiles were) were all made here, providing so many jobs both in Ohio and across the nation.
When Homestead opened up (we would go probably six times a year as we live so close) it was something to behold. Jam packed with merchandise, beautiful and of great quality, and jam packed with people. They, prior to the building of Homestead, took the tiny town of Dresden, and made a thriving destination out of it. The local economy boomed and was so dependent on Longaberger. It was truly an American success story, on so many levels.
Fast forward to the last decade or so, and it has all been nothing but a ghost town. The decay of both Dresden and the Homestead campus was both disgusting and heart wrenching to witness. It is always hard to see something so thriving, fall so far.
I will say, the last several years, the employees at Homestead (the few still there) were both a product of the loss and a big cause of it. The astounding arrogance about the downfall of the company, their support of Tami even when she was damaging the company before it's sell off, their refusal to see how far down the company and the business and the campus had come was like something out of a Stepford Wives movie. They touted how well the company was doing, how soon and strong they would be coming back, and were insulted and nasty when anyone noted how far the fall had been, or how sad the condition of things now were. It was both perplexing and frustrating to see people demonstrate such an ignorance and arrogance about the situation, and I can only think management both before and after the sale of the company was very poor.
I don't believe that baskets are a thing of the past. I believe that their marketing and their brand development got stuck way back in the early 2000's and the poor management and extravagance of Tami Longaberger drove their company slowly and painfully out of business.
Baskets have been around for thousands of years. Even if they take cycles as home decor or 'collectables', there is a huge market for all things storage, organizational and utilitarian. There was no reason for them to end up this way.
They locked in way too long to the only market being their consultants. I never advocated ending that, but they needed to develop other ways of selling their wares besides home parties. They didn't get with the times when TV network shopping exploded or when internet shopping first took off. They waited too long to make products available even at their destination of Dresden/Homestead. For many years, you couldn't buy most of their products even there (just a few specially curated pieces each year were available there for a long time). People would travel from all over the world to see the factory and Homestead, but not really be able to buy the products they wanted while there.
I always said they should have maintained their consultants but developed small lines for on a shopping channel like QVC or HSN. They should have had a line available for purchase online much sooner. They didn't need to abandon entirely the home sales part of the company (after all, it did make them what they were), but as times in retail changed, Longaberger did not (at least not fast enough).
The quality of the baskets deteriorated over time too. It is so easy to look at many baskets made in the last decade or more, and see how poorly constructed and how much thinner the materials are than those from the 1980's. They did attempt to bring lots of colors and designs to meet changing styles, but they just were missing the mark.
When they could no longer get a US partner to produce their pottery, it went overseas, and that was a huge blow to their bottom line. People were so impressed with the quality of the pottery, but more so the made in USA aspect of it all, that they never really recovered from that. The made in China pottery is excellent, but many people refused to keep paying the high price for it since it wasn't made here anymore, regardless of the fact is was still high quality. They did attempt to bring the manufacturing of the pottery back to the states, but couldn't find a partner that could do it (how sad is that? If you are from Ohio/West Virginia you know how many great potteries we once had in the area).
This is indeed a sad end. Any US manufacturer that goes out of business should be disturbing to us all. But I will always maintain that it was about greed, poor management, failure in marketing, and bad business decisions that took the company down. It wasn't that baskets are a thing of the past. The company didn't get innovative and creative enough to do what I think could have been done to keep the company strong and lasting.
I believe that if Dave had still been at the helm and been young enough, they would have weathered the changes in retail, the economy, customer demands etc. and still been highly productive and profitable. And I think there are others who could have led the company through it as well, but the family seemed more concerned with their own success than that of the business.
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