Planet Bunnie

an artist with a growing social media brand in cute art merchandise, decided to begin on a plush toy venture.  The brand was shifting into producing gift merchandise, with cute, original, vibrant and simple character designs.  We believe all of these parameters are necessary for making a quality plush toy, so we created the Blueberry Cow character, and made it a plush toy.

We knew we wanted to produce enough plush toys to sell to stores at Wholesale prices, but we also needed to secure funding for a large quantity batch of the product, since they’re manufactured in China. Because of this need, we opted to use a Kickstarter campaign to crowdfund this batch of plush toys.

Initially it was just going to be a Blueberry Cow character, but we had been releasing sticker sheets of other characters in the mean time while planning this campaign.  They had been doing very well in popularity online, so we decided to create stretch goals to add two more designs to the campaign.

In March, 2022, we launched the campaign, in September, 2022, we fulfilled the last orders. 

It began with a business plan

Set goals for the project and determine the project roadmap.

We knew we wanted to make plush toys, but what approach was best for us? We started to write down all of the questions that we felt was necessary to answer in order to form our goals.

 Questions we asked ourselves:

Who would make the product, and who would handle fulfillment?

What does it cost to produce plush toys?  What scale do we want to produce?

Where would we fund it?  Where would we distribute the product?

When would we run the campaign?  When can we estimate fulfillment?

Why plush toys? Why Kickstarter?

How should we distribute extra products after our funding campaign has ended? 

How many plush toys do we need to order at once to get the best price?

Answering these questions allowed us to build our SMART goals. Using SMART goals is an effective way to make sure goals hold up to long term scrutiny, so we used that model when writing the goals.

A SMART goal is a goal that is specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time bound. Our initial goals were as follows:

• Goal 1 Create a crowdfunding campaign that can cover the expenses  (est. $10,000) needed to produce a large batch of plush toys, and fulfill all orders by the end of 3rd quarter 2022.

• Goal 2 Ensure customer satisfaction across all orders by ensuring quality standards are met by the time products are delivered to the customer.

• Goal 3 Use the advantages of crowdfunding potential by creating appealing stretch goals that build out a product line, and fund the creation of extra plush that can be sold to wholesale distributors or other customers online after the campaign has ended.

Project Roadmap:

1. Ideation and early planning

2. Create the product

3. Build Kickstarter campaign

4. Create marketing materials (Product photography, banners, etc.)

5. Create shipping and fulfilment plan

6. Launch Kickstarter

7. Promote Kickstarter for one month

8. Fulfil items to backers

9. Sell remaining merchandise online, to wholesalers, or at conventions

After we found our manufacturer in China, we were sent the prototype models in October 2021.  We began taking photos for marketing. Around that time we also started creating the marketing materials for the Kickstarter, and began comissioning the next two plush toys.  We designed add ons like sticker sheets, stickers and an enamel pin.

We then created our project goals and tiers.  We modeled the tiers off of previously successful campaigns. 

Plan to use a shipping fulfillment service in case the campaign performs a little too well.

We researched shipping and fulfillment options and found that it was most cost effective to fulfill all packages ourselves with 534 total backers.  But we made sure to find a fulfillment service with capacity to fulfill our orders if we grew large enough.

We asked for quotes from the USPS on shipping to give an estimated total, and charged the average price.

We did not charge international backers for shipping.  We sent them all an invoice when we had the exact amount for shipping.

The Kickstarter brought in $29,539, and all stretch goals were met.

We were very successful overall! The project brought in more than enough money to finance our large batch order for three different plush toys, as well as pay for all testing fees, production, shipping, insurance, payment processing fees, and Kickstarter fees. The campaign had many periods where it would lull, but the first week and the last week each brought in over $10,000.

Rosie wins the popularity contest

The pink cow (Rosie) was more popular than the frog (Jelly). Both Jelly and Rosie were more popular than the blue cow (Millie). We branded the campaign after Millie assuming she was the most popular! Still, we ordered 500 of Jelly and Millie, and 600 of Rosie.  

We set our project budget too high, and it limited our success

The biggest lesson we learned here was on setting a tighter budget based solely on fulfilling the backers orders. That is the true minimum budget.  Do not include post-Kickstarter goals like wholesale distribution strategies in your budget planning.  We needed only $2,600 to be profitable, but we set our goal to $10,000 because that was the minimum budget needed to get a batch with the quantity we were hoping for. We ended with our funding at 295%, which is good technically, but it could’ve been much, much higher. 

 If we had set a budget of $2,600, and hypothetically we still brought in $29,500, that would’ve been a total funding percentage of 1,034.61% which would have increased our likelihood for being featured by the Kickstarter algorithm, and being added as a “campaign we like” by the staff. 

The Kickstarter budget should be calculated as the safe estimate for the break even point.  

This is why setting a tightly planned budget before starting is essential!

Kickstarter favors campaigns that exceed their goals, especially those that blow their goals away. Do not set a needlessly high goal. Always set the Kickstarter goal to the minimum needed to fulfill your backers.

I will admit, we went a little overboard on our plans for our first Kickstarter.  Three plush toys, the brand’s first enamel pin (something many people expressed interest in prior to the campaign), a bonus sticker pack containing three sticker designs, plus a free sticker sheet at the $15,000 stretch goal! There is considerable logistical planning involved once this many physical goods get added. Every add on is another variable, which adds another element that can go wrong during fulfillment.  Beware the addition of too many physical goods! They make the campaign more appealing, but they add a lot of variables to the project.  

 The more features we add, the more expensive the project becomes. 

 It’s important to plan the budget for stretch goals carefully. We added a free sticker sheet to every order at the $15,000 mark.  The project generated $29,500, and after Kickstarter and payment processing fees we brought in $23,058.  The free sticker sheets cost us almost $500 in costs after the fact.  Was this incentive strong enough to cost us $500? If we sold $100,000 worth of product, it would cost thousands of dollars. Would it be worth the expense? 

The decision to have three different plush designs tripled our scope. 

Build a plan for failure and a plan for success. 

Exceeding your goal is key to being recommended by the Kickstarter algorithm.  Nearly $1,000 from our campaign was brought in through the Kickstarter discovery features.  It would’ve likely been much higher had we set a tighter budget! 

Who is going to handle the fulfillment and shipping?

 We had a family operation of 5 people ready to go.  Not every campaign can afford to work with distributors. We would’ve worked with one if we made over $50,000, but with $29,500 it was more than manageable for 5 people to fulfill. We would have to wait a few months to become profitable if we used a distribution and fulfillment service. 

When adding tiers, consider virtual bonuses that do not add to the shipping cost. Shipping with Kickstarter is not as easy as it would be on Ebay or Etsy.  Expect a different process. International prices fluctuate wildly, and Kickstarter backers have the option of paying for shipping in advance. 

Avoid scope creep.

An overly ambitious project can be dangerous for your: 

• Budget

• Time

• Storage space

• Sanity

I will admit, we went a little overboard on our plans for our first Kickstarter.  Three plush toys, the brand’s first enamel pin (something many people expressed interest in prior to the campaign), a bonus sticker pack containing three sticker designs, plus a free sticker sheet at the $15,000 stretch goal! There is considerable logistical planning involved once this many physical goods get added. Every add on is another variable, which adds another element that can go wrong during fulfillment.  Beware the addition of too many physical goods! They make the campaign more appealing, but they add a lot of variables to the project.  

 The more features we add, the more expensive the project becomes. 

 It’s important to plan the budget for stretch goals carefully. We added a free sticker sheet to every order at the $15,000 mark.  The project generated $29,500, and after Kickstarter and payment processing fees we brought in $23,058.  The free sticker sheets cost us almost $500 in costs after the fact.  Was this incentive strong enough to cost us $500? If we sold $100,000 worth of product, it would cost thousands of dollars. Would it be worth the expense? 

We do not recommend relying on concept art to sell a product.

Even if we don’t reach a stretch goal, having a finished prototype isn’t too expensive, and can be reused later for a much less stressful pre-order campaign on Shopify, or a future Kickstarter campaign. 

Kickstarter’s International Shipping Nightmare

We found Kickstarter’s international shipping setup is a nightmare for accessibility. Every tier requires you to manually input every price for every individual country in the world that the seller is willing to ship to.  The customer is then expected to pay shipping prices (which are usually very high!) during the checkout when backing your campaign, and the item may never even ship as Kickstarter does not guarantee anything.

          We avoided Kickstarter’s international shipping nightmare by simply not charging international backers for shipping at checkout, and instead sent them an invoice of the exact amount at the time of shipping three months later. 

The downside of this method is that the customer’s financial situation may change, or they may have been unaware at how much it would’ve cost for shipping.  After testing this method, very few international backers didn’t pay the charge. They were simply refunded their money.

How were we able to charge over 200 international backers months later without them complaining? We stated explicitly throughout the campaign that international backers will be charged at a later date.  We reminded them with updates. and we had it stated multiple times on our Kickstarter. 

Would we sell three different designs at the same time again?

The decision to have three different plush designs tripled our scope. It depends on how confident we are in the product.

For our next Kickstarter we are considering two different designs instead of three.  When that day comes, expect another case study! Until then, thank you for reading this one!

Written by Johnnie Brambora