SurveyThe Company & The Factory
For this project, we worked with a company called Creative Plush. If you are going to create a plush of your own, we highly recommend them. (You can visit them online here.)
If you are considering making a plush toy, we highly recommend you contact Bob, the VP of Sales & Marketing at
Creative Plush. His contact information is listed below.
866-947-5874 (toll free)
239-405-8630 (T)
866-433-8420 (F)
For those who want more information the process, read on!
We initially looked at five companies. Of those, one company responded saying that they could not create the product we had requested. Another company never replied. A third sent us a newsletter every week for several weeks but never got around to giving us a quote. The remaining two sent us quotes that were very close to one another in terms of price. We initially chose the other of the two companies because we liked the products featured on their website a lot (we later learned that those products were made at the same factory that Creative Plush uses) and because they responded first, so when the estimates were the same, it seemed fair to go with the first bidder.
The customer service we received at the other company was also very good, so we don't wish to put them down in any way, however, they did charge us $300.00 for a prototype/sample, whereas Creative Plush charged us only $100. With the first company, our contact worked really hard to get us what we wanted, but something just wasn't working out (see the bloopers page for details). Once we switched to Creative Plush, we got better results, faster. Bob, the VP of sales and marketing, was in email contact with Chérie almost every day.
During production, Bob noticed that the informational glossy hang tags were not coming out very clear. Chérie redid the tags several times but did not have the proper software to produce the clarity needed by the factory. Bob then requested the original photographs used to make the tags and completely re-made the tags to Chérie's design at no extra charge. Sure, waiting on the hang tags delayed Erik's final arrival date by almost a week, but Erik was still available to be given as a gift for Christmas 2009, meeting our original deadline with a few weeks to spare.
In the time since we selected Creative Plush, at least four new companies have hit the Internet search engines under "custom plush toys." When you search for "custom plush toys," the first 10 search returns you receive are neither Creative Plush nor the company with which we began.
One of these companies makes a prototype and one revision of that prototype and mails each one for a cost of $35.00 shipping. I do think it's nice to have your prototype in hand, but it also increases cost. Of greater concern is the number of revisions it can take to get a plush toy correct (see the plush evolution page). Another of these companies has a 500 minimum and yet another has a 600 minimum, which they claim is "one of the lowest in the industry." Some companies have minimums that are even higher than that. One of them has overseas shipping that requires 60-75 days (as opposed to 4 days by air with Creative Plush).
When we began this project, all any of us knew about plush toys was that we had had a few when we were children. We knew nothing about design, manufacture, safety requirements, shipping, or anything else that went into this project. It would have been very easy for a seasoned sales representative to take advantage of us in so many ways, but Bob took very good care of us. Sometimes, a company will treat it's biggest customers or it's customers with the most expensive projects better or provide them with more customer service. This clearly is not the case with Creative Plush because we ordered the bare minimum number of toys possible (250) and then haggled on the price a bit, too. The customer service has been absolutely golden, and we are so very thankful to have worked with someone as kind and professional as Bob at Creative Plush.
If you are considering order a custom plush toy, please make sure to get a quote from Creative Plush first. Ask for Bob, and tell him Chérie sent you. If you have questions about the process, Chérie will be pleased to respond in great detail. You may email her at bleedingheartconservative@yahoo.com
Thanks Bob, and thanks Creative Plush, for making Plush Leroux's Erik a reality!