By: Carrie Wigal
Copyright (c) 2006 WiggleWigal LC.
All Rights Reserved.

Your best source for finding discontinued wallpaper is the dealer from whom you originally purchased the pattern. This is where ordering from your local Mom & Pop Wallpaper Shop pays off...customer service is at its best from places like these. However, regardless of whether you purchased it originally from a physical store or an e-commerce site, this is your BEST source for finding the discontinued pattern.

When inquiring about finding more of your discontinued wallpaper, suggest the following scenarios outlined below. Keep in mind that more than likely your dealer is so accustomed to saying, "We don't have discontinued wallpaper" that they may not realize they actually might still have access to the pattern since they sold it to you in the first place. But please go easy on them...they get requests like these ALL the time. However, 99% of the time they are unable to help the customer and their efforts prove to be a waste of their time...so be appreciative of any effort they make on your behalf.

1. Ask them to check their inventory records. The dealer may have stocked the pattern and still might have a few on hand. Explain to them you purchased it from them before and give a date as to how long ago it was purchased.
2. Ask them to check their stock orders at the time of your original purchase. If the dealer didn't have this pattern in stock at the time of your initial order, they may have ordered a whole case of the pattern to get a better price from their distributor...if so, they would have sold a certain quantity to a customer and kept the remainder on hand until someone else bought it.
3. Ask if they have returned merchandise lying around. If the dealer initially sold this pattern to you out of their stock, it's possible they sold the same pattern to someone else. If that's the case, then it's also possible the other customer(s) returned a portion as overage. Discontinued patterns are not returnable to the distributor, so if the pattern was discontinued at the time of the return, the dealer would have been stuck with the merchandise.
4. Ask to see if they have opened rolls lying around. If the dealer brough that pattern into stock at their location, they may have an opened roll of the pattern. Sometimes a dealer will offer samples of in-stock merchandise to help move the pattern off the shelf. However, once the roll is opened they do not usually offer it for sale. (That's assuming you don't care if the roll has been opened.) If they have opened rolls, it may not be listed in their inventory.
5. Ask the dealer to call their distributor for you to see if there is any stock left in the distributor's warehouse. (More than likely this is how you found out the item was discontinued in the first place.) If no stock is available,
   • Sometimes distributors will sell off the last of their inventory to a third party...and sometimes it's the same third party every time. It certainly doesn't hurt to ask. Many times when a dealer discovers a popular pattern is being discontinued, they snatch up as much as they can with hopes to sell it at a premium price to people like you who are desperate to have more. Have your dealer ask the distributor what other dealers may have purchased the last of the inventory for that pattern.
   • Not every manufacturer has more than one distributor for their product, but some do. The dealer should automatically check this anyway, but just in case, ask the dealer if they have an alternate distributor for that pattern. If so, ask them to check their stock as well.

In the event your dealer is unable to help you, be sure to thank them profusely for any help they did give and request the name(s) of the distributor who supplied them with this product. As you continue to search the ends of the earth, you'll want to skip asking dealers who only get this paper through these same sources. It's a complete waste of your precious time.

When you have exhausted your efforts with your original retailer, its time to check online. Don't even bother trying to look further in your local area...at least not yet, unless you have nothing better to do. Cast your net into the BIG Sea before fishing for this rare breed in your backyard pond. Try these sites specifically:

Ordinary people buy & sell personal merchandise all the time. Oftentimes people will try to sell leftover wallpaper because either the place they bought it from will not take it back (due to being too old or having been opened), they were lazy, or they thought they could get more for it on eBay.

• When searching for the item, be sure to search by pattern #, pattern name, manufacturer, book name if you know it and pattern description. The person listing the item for sale may not know the pattern # or book name, so they will give a pattern description.
• Check the eBay stores as well as auctions. Auctions usually only last 5-10 days, whereas store listings last month-to-month.
• Be sure to check the box for "in titles and description" when doing your search, this way it will look up your search terms in the body of the ad as well as in the title.
• Ebay also has a feature called "Post to Want it Now" for buyers to indicate what they are looking to buy. Indicate here what you are looking for...give a lot of details...include colors and pattern description. Ebay will contact you if a seller responds.

Although you'll need to wade through oodles and oodles of posts to see if you find your pattern, this is the best forum I've found for discontinued wallpaper.

• Search for your pattern by pattern # or book name & manufacturer using the search box. You may find a match right away.
• You can try a search by description, but your best bet may be to wade through each and every post to find the descriptions that most closely fit your pattern. Unlike Ebay, this forum doesn't have pictures to scan through quickly, so searching for it this way can be very labor intensive.
• Post your request. Be sure to include contact information...an email preferably. I recommend posting it as "yourname at domain.com" instead of "yourname@domain.com". This will eliminate the likelihood of spam.

If after all of this you are unable to locate the pattern and you STILL want to keep looking, I suggest checking with any retailer who has physical stock of product. Remember not to waste your time searching places that only order from the distributor of the product.

When checking other sources specifically state, "I know this pattern is discontinued and there is no stock available with [name of distributor given to you from your original retailer], but do you have this pattern in your physical inventory?"

Understand that continuing like this will truly be like going on a treasure hunt, however this is your last ditch effort to finding that discontinued wallpaper. If it's worth that much to find this pattern, press on.

As much as it may pain you, selecting another pattern may end up being your ultimate fate. But don't worry there's hundreds of thousands of CURRENT patterns to choose from. Next time however, be sure to ORDER EXTRA...because you certainly don't want to have to start a quest like this again to finding discontinued wallpapers.

Resources included in this guide:
eBay, ThriftyFun.com

Copyright (c) 2006 WiggleWigal LC. All Rights Reserved.