More Major Changes At Inque Boutique Made By Darice

As I reported back in mid-August, the foundering Inque Boutique was purchased by Darice after having made extensive layoffs and other cuts in their attempt to survive as an independent company.

Now designer Stephanie Barnard, who for a long time played a very prominent role at the company, is reporting on her blog that Darice is making major changes going forward with Inque Boutique and that she is no longer with the company.

Chief among the changes is that it appears that Darice will not be developing new Inque Boutique products, but simply selling the designs that were already developed before they purchased the company:

They will continue to sell the Inque Boutique products they purchased,
but future new products are not in the plan and sound very unlikely.

It seems that Darice does, in essence, view the purchase of Inque Boutique as just buying ready-made product lines and not an operating company. They wanted the SKU's, not the ongoing operations.

Without any of the pre-existing Inque Boutique staff to work on marketing and promoting the stamps, Darice will have to start essentially from scratch in that department. It will be interesting to see what tactic they take, whether they swing another deal with QVC, etc.

This one will be interesting to check out at CHA-Winter 2009 in Anaheim!