New Products from A Girl for All Time
A Girl for All Time is one of my favourites brands of doll for several reasons – the designs are amazing, the quality is superb and the service is second to none. I will never forget the first time I met Frances Cain, founder of A Girl for All Time, who visited Petalina HQ and brought with her Matilda and all her clothes. I was blown away by the details and quality of Matilda’s outfits and had never seen anything quite like them before. Since that day Petalina has always waited with eager anticipation for new products to arrive and we have never, ever been disappointed. Every new product introduced by A Girl for All Time is a complete and utter joy to open and hold, whether a new doll or a new costume (and I have to admit to missing that part of running Petalina as a shop more than anything else).
Last week Frances asked me if I could let Petalina’s followers know about a new initiative that they are embarking on. In order to bring more new products to the market more quickly Frances and the team are going to be launching several crowd funding campaigns over the forthcoming year. As a small business cashflow is key, and funding the manufacture of lots of new products is very expensive, so a little at a time has been the order of the day as the company has grown, until now. Crowd funding provides the cashflow to manufacture specific products so more products can be in production at any one time. In fact some of the crowd funding projects were launched today, so if you are interested you can go straight to the crowdfunding pages and pre-order your new products straight away.
So what is crowdfunding?
Crowdfunding is a way of raising money to allow a product to be manufactured. As a thank you to those who support a crowd funding campaign by making a purchase there is normally a generous discount, and this is certainly the case with all of these new products from A Girl for All Time. Crowdfunding is also a way of ensuring that everyone who would like to purchase something is guaranteed to receive one. The item will not sell out after launch because enough will be made for everyone who supports the fund raising.
Crowdfunding is also a very good way of testing a product too. If not enough sales are made during the campaign then the item will not be made and refunds given to those who had purchased the item. I appreciate this can be disappointing for those who did want to purchase the item, but from a business point of view, a product that doesn’t sell can be very costly (storage, advertising, price reductions) and if crowdfunding avoids this happening, it has to be a good thing.
The prices of crowd funded products are cheaper because lots of costs are saved for various reasons. When the finished product arrives at the warehouse it will not sit on shelves waiting to be sold (and space in warehouses costs money), and there is no need to spend money on marketing the products as they are already sold. These cost savings are passed straight onto the supporters of the crowdfunding campaign.
Over the next year there will be 7 projects launched. A Girl for All Time is leading the way here too. Normally crowd funding is done via websites which limit how many projects can be run per year, but A Girl for All Time is going to be running the campaigns themselves which is an industry first, and the campaigns will take place on their US website. This means that everyone pays for their pre-order in US dollars, but the products will be dispatched from the normal warehouses around the world for the correct shipping fee.
So what can we tell you about the crowd funding campaigns that are about to be launched?
Well, there’s Max, and I think everyone will want to add him to their collections! As a girl I had a lovely blonde Sasha doll called Gregor, and having a boy meant that I could play families with my dolls. I think the addition of Your Modern Boy to the A Girl for All Time range is brilliant, especially seeing that he is so handsome and wears such cool clothes. Max arrives wearing an orange T shirt and jeans as in the first photograph. His blue jacket will be available at a later date. If you would like to pre-order Max please click here.
A Girl for All Time Matilda has been sold out for a while now and we will see her introduced once again. Improvements will be made to her outfit (I have seen a hint of a new brocade fabric) and her box will be streamlined. To place an order for Matilda please click here.
A Girl for All Time Lydia has also been out of stock for a while now. The original doll arrived wearing a primrose yellow outfit but the updated Lydia will be wearing an outfit similar to the outfit in the photograph below. If you would like to purchase Lydia at the reduced crowd funding price please click here.
The last product available to pre-order now is Amelia’s tea set which looks so beautiful! If you would like to pre-order this please click here.
If you would like to purchase one of these gorgeous new products from A Girl for All time, please read through the information on their website here. Note that the excellent prices of the products will last for a month only, so don’t think about it for too long. After the first month the price will increase slightly but you could still pre-order.
And please let us know if you are going to buy something!
One Comment
jennifer goodhand
i am desparatly looking for JAKOB from sonja hartmann. i seemed to have lost out on one on ebay the other day even though it was on my watch list. if you ever see one in your travels i would love to buy one. thanks for any help you can give.
jennifer