Owlbear (and friends) Plush Keychains

Hey all!!

Most of you, should have received a notice from BackerKi that you need to update your mailing address. If you have not, it means you have items that are not currently in inventory.

Regardless of group if you want to make updates to your order, fill out this survey (backerkit dosent let me put you back into the pre-order store)
https://forms.gle/Hw5LrbWy3161ebCn6
If you add items that we dont have in stock yet (wave 2), then we will hold your order until everything is in. If you want to change/add/remove any items from your order, use the above form.

If you dont know whats in your order, you can find that here
https://owlbear-keychain.backerkit.com/backer/review (might have to log in to get there)


now onto the update, 
Great news is that wave product has arrived at the warehouse, and finally things (at least most of it) are finally starting come together. 

Wave 1 has arrived at the Warehouse, and this includes the following items: 

(we do NOT have yet)

Ive had a conversation with Backerkit, and unfortunately, I can't backroll and get people into the addons page, since people already paid and checked out (but I am able to manually edit orders). So if you need changes to your order, in any direction, or have different questions, just reach out using the form (so i can go down the line, not miss anything by email, and make sure everyone is covered) and I'll get things sorted. 

Once things are locked down, starting next week I am going to have the warehouse start fulfillment (they need to order some packing materials, but im gonna get them started. 

Starting this weekend, your orders will be imported into shopify, where you will get an email confirmation (a last chance to verify your email)

Accessories-wise and other owlbears - the manufacturer has been painfully slow to respond after CNY, all the more reason to keep shopping around after this project is done. I approved the new production quantities, but I still have yet to see my last feedback on the accessories be updated. 

Anyways, I can show more pictures, and happy to answer what I can, 
apologies for the delay, its tax season and business taxes are always a pain. 

More updates on the accessories as they come,
Andreas

great news!

Wave One has landed at port! Once it gets out of customs, it'll get on a truck and get to the warehouse, in the meantime. In the mean time, ill be sorting through orders to see which can be fulfilled immediately so we can start getting rewards out.

GAMA - industry insider info
Also, Two weeks ago was the GAMA Trade Show, which is the Tabletop Game Association (previously known as the Game Manufacturers Association, but expanded to all things tabletop industry). This is a convention mostly for FLGS and publishers-creators, where publishers like Wizards, Paizo, Warhammer and other bigger publishers show off their upcoming products to retail stores. For me, i just had a small booth in a large expo hall to show off our plushes (prototypes) and some of our books.
Overall, it was a good show, and talking to retailers really gives me a lot of insight of how they sell plushes, and what we can do better. I did find that retailers were receptive to the keychains (as they should worked well for people who were not large plush people). I was really surprised that many were also excited for the accessories (as in ttrpgs ancillary product is usually 50% or less of the reception of the core). Main bits of feedback I heard was about shelf displays, number of plushes per box, accessory packaging (which is something i need to look at), and that it isnt evident that there is a magnet in the plush (but they love it once they find out it has it, so ill need to look into ways of making that more apparent. Oh! and for some reason,retailers really are not happy with squishables

Wave 2 Manufacturing
Workers only recently came back, so I've started communication back and forth to make sure final details are nailed down. Slated for after CNY we had included more production of our colored owlbears (snowy, mossy, charcoal) so that we would have sufficient quantities for fulfillment. In addition, I am waiting for confirmation on fixes to some of the accessories (like magnet placement) before those begin manufacturing. 
I should be getting a status update on those things soon, and will be posting when i have more information. 

Hope all is well, 
Caretaker Andreas

Hey all!
Apologies for the delay in an update. But for the last two months, we confirmed error phoenix hats, owlbear colors and quantities, new owlbear keychain colors, and made comments to the second pass of accessories. Also we confirmed shipping quantities to our warehouses (US, UK, and AUS). 

Schedule-wise, we're at the following. 

Shipping (from manufacturer) before CNY (only to US warehouse)
- Owlbear Keychains
- Drgon Turtle Keychains
- Error Phoenix Keychains (with little hats)
- Brown Owlbears
- Dragon Turtle Plushes
- Phoenix Plushes

Shipping (from manufacturer) After CNY  (all warehouses)
- Updated (non-beardy) Phoenix Keychains
- Purple Owlbear keychain
- Snowy Owlbear Keychain
- More Brown Owlbears
- Snowy Owlbear
- Charcoal Owlbear
- Mossy Owlbear
- Purple Owlbear
- (fighter/wizard/fishing) Accessories

More updates as they come, 
Andreas

PS, i notice a few people asking about getting rewards (for those who just got pins or a single owlbear thats in stock), in the next few days ill run a couple filters and see which ones we can get fulfilled (usually its messy to spit things up, esp when export actions, but ill do what i can)

Christmas came early for me this week (well it was supposed to arrive monday, but ill take what i can get)

Here is a new purple owlbear, (and brown and purple dice for reference)

What i did this time was provided them with the pantone of the purple dice we have, since i thought that was a pretty good purple)

pantone for reference

Now as you know, this wasnt our first purple owlbear, we had our prototype owlbear from our first manufacturer (below on the left), and as you can see that one is a little bit darker still.


And just because (with the fuchsi, below)
(Left to right) Old manufacture sample, new sample, wtf is this purple  sample



I think this new purple is far better,
now as you can see there is some shaping of the owlbears that needs to be corrected (esp looking at the cheast and heads), but

overall, I think this color is good. but what do you think? (Darker? Good? if we go darker then ill have to pick a new pantone (and additional sample cost).


Schedule
Also looks like me getting product will come in two waves (Freight leaving before Chinese New Year and after (which goes till march 3rd)
Feight Before is (this would likely arrive ~April 2026)

Freight After CNY is (likely arrive ~June 2026)

Accessories
In regards to the accessories update (they've confirmed they're going to finish their new sample on dec 22nd (so prolly arriving next after)

Tarrifs
one unxpected benefit from this taking so long is that at least the tarrifs are not 100-300% anymore. they're still elevated (i think in the 20-30% range, but faaar better than that madness we had earlier). 

Hope you have a great christmas holiday and more updates to come when i have them. 
Andreas

Hey Caretakers,
Apologies for the late update, I was hoping from my last update, that i'd get news sooner...but that wasn't the case.
Past couple weeks have been talking about the salvage phoenix plushes, but since there are soo many things going on (and ive been waiting for), i asked for a full update on everything, so we can get a full picture of where things are at (since i was unsure where things were on production timing, if even at all) .
Got that response last night, and here is where everything stands:

Keychain Plushes (since production is paired with the owlbear plush restock)

Plushes

Accessories Kits 

Error Phoenixes, they came back with a little chistmas hat, 

It works, and would be paired with the bearded phoenix (not affixed).
A little mixed, since it sounds like to them, id pay normal price for the production (even through they messed them up (i was hoping i could get a discount on them, since they're wasted work). 

And as noted above, we should be getting pictures of final production (fingers crossed of no issues, in the next week)

Hope you had a great thanksgiving as everyone prepares for the christmas to come, 
All the best, 
Andreas