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Character plush toys generally refer to soft plush toys derived from a film, television, animation, video game, book, or other media-based character. Such plush toys are usually cute and funny, imitating the look and features of the original character. Character plush toys have gained much affection from children and adults because they are not just simple plush toys but lovely life companions and recalls of favourite movies, TV shows, or books.
For plush toy sellers, character plush toys are one of the most potential products to grow their business in 2024. Thus, in this blog post, we will give ten tips for making the best character plush toys to inspire plush toy sellers’ business. Let’s get started!
Different Types of Character Plush Toys
Movie & TV Characters
These stuffed toys originated from characters from movies and TV shows, either cartoon-style animated characters or actors.
Examples: Princess Elsa from Frozen, Ukrainian from Star Wars, Marvel & DC superheroes, etc
Game Characters
This category of plush toys is usually based on characters from video games and applied to different game types, such as video games, tabletop games, etc.
Examples: Mario from Mario Bros, Ahri from League of Legends, or Pikachu from Pokémon.
Cartoon Characters
This type of plush toy is derived from animations or comics, which can be in TV animation, online animation or printed versions.
Examples: Tom and Jerry, Smurfette from The Smurfs, Crayon Shin-chan, Rick and Morty, Snoopy Dog, etc.
Book Characters
This type of plush toy is based on characters in books, which may be characters from various types of books such as children's books, novels, comics, etc.
This type of plush is a book-based character toy which resembles the characters in different kinds of books, such as children’s books, novels, comics, etc.
Examples: Harry Potter, The Little Prince, The Gruffalo, Winnie the Pooh, etc.
What is a Good Character Plush Toy?
Vivid Look
An excellent character plush toy should have a realistic appearance of the original character, with a detailed depiction of facial expressions, gestures, clothing, and any other characteristics. Ensuring a great resemblance is the first key to making great character plush toys.
Premium Materials
A good character plush toy is usually made from high-quality materials to make sure the toy is soft and comfy to the touch and is durable enough to bear daily wear. Moreover, the chosen materials should be capable of reflecting the characters’ features.
For example, faux fur is one of the most common fabrics used in making character plush toys. It mimics the appearance and texture of real fur and is available in a wide variety of colours and patterns, making it suitable for making some complex and colourful character plush toys.
Safety Guarantee
A well-crafted character plush toy won’t ignore the safety issue. First of all, the fabrics and other accessories used in the production of character plush toys should meet all safety standards and be free of harmful substances. Some low-quality materials may cause allergic symptoms in both children and adults. In addition, the character plush toy should have a steady and strong construction with securely attached components, ensuring it won’t pose any risk to users.
Exquisite Craftsmanship
A high-quality character plush toy is manufactured with expert techniques from cutting, sewing, stuffing, embroidery for eyes and mouth, trimming, and printing to quality inspection. Every step should be carefully fulfilled to ensure that the finished character plush toys are exquisite.
Great Durability
A good character plush toy should be long-lasting and resistant enough to withstand daily wear and long-time use without being easily torn or broken.
True-to-life Appearance
High-quality character plush toys should portray the traits and personalities of the original characters, accurately depict what toys represent, and evoke people’s feelings and memories.
Attractive Selling Points
Popular character plush toys should be designed with attractive and iconic character elements, which give the toys unique selling points to the target audience.
Benefits of Character Plush Toys for Your Business
Build Brand Identity
Character plush toys can be one of the most representative products of your company’s brand. They spread brand image and value through their cute looks and unique designs, which help to build a brand identity for your business, making customers easily connect your brand with the images and feelings of their favourite characters.
Increase Sales Volume
Popular movies, TV shows, video games, or cartoon books always have a huge fan base, pushing children and adults to buy their character-related products. Well-designed character plush toys, especially limited editions, are more appealing to consumers. Making these character stuffed toys can increase the sales volume of your business.
Create Emotional Connections
Good character plush toys can easily resonate with consumers with their beloved characters. This can help your brand create a profound emotional connection between consumers and your products, enhancing brand loyalty and repurchase rates.
Amplify Marketing Appeal
Unique character plush toy designs can become the highlight of your brand marketing. Providing specially crafted or limited edition character plush toys can boost brand awareness and customer engagement, helping your brand gain market distinction.
Diversify Product Range
If your plush toy business has a narrow product selection, making character plush toys is one of the most effective ways to improve your product diversity. By selling well-designed character plush toys, your brand will attract a wider range of audience and attain a higher market share.
Optimize Social Media Campaign
Well-designed character plush toys are apt to attract users’ attention on social media, driving them to be more willing to share their loved characters and stories. Thus, your brand can win wider exposure and create more opportunities to engage with consumers so as to increase sale volume and brand influence.
Increase Collectable Value
Expertly crafted character stuffed toys can be a treasure in consumers’ hearts because of their great collectable value. The potential collectable value of the character stuffed toys can expand your brand’s influence in the collector-driven market.
10 Tips for Making the Best Character Plush Toys
1. Study the Target Audience
Learn everything about your target audience as much as possible, including their ages, genders, interests and, most importantly, their cultural backgrounds and shopping habits. With the help of marketing research and customer feedback, you can better understand what your target audience needs and tailor character plush toys that really meet their expectations.
2. Exquisitely Design Characters
When designing the character plush toys, it is crucial to consider the core features of the original characters to ensure the toys can appropriately reflect the essence of the original images. Carefully craft every single detail, including facial features, emotions, gestures, etc. Meanwhile, it is better to add some innovative or funny elements to the character stuffed toys by using special materials and decorations, which will benefit in increasing the appeal of the toys.
3. Use High-quality Materials
The fabrics of character plush toys should be soft and comfy enough to ensure the best user experience. It is important for manufacturers to choose a skin-friendly fabric like high-end wool, plush velvet or natural cotton. With respect to the intended function and the target customers of the character plush toys, selecting an easy-cleaning and durable fabric can make sure that users can have a pleasant experience with the plush toys.
4. Improve Crafting Technique
Details make perfection, that is to say, carefully craft every detail during the production. Pay attention to every single step, from cutting, sewing, embroidery, assembly, and printing to quality inspection, which can contribute to increasing the overall texture of the character plush toys and maximally satisfy the consumers.
5. Consider Easy Cleaning and Low Maintenance
The cleaning and maintenance of character plush toys is an essential factor in children's and collectors’ markets. Every consumer desires to keep their loved character's stuffed toys as long as possible. Therefore, a good character plush toy should be washable so that users can conveniently maintain their plush toys to extend their lifespan.
6. Test Safety
Safety is also a vital factor when crafting character plush toys. Firstly, choose materials that are free from harmful chemicals to prevent detrimental impacts on users’ health, especially children and people prone to chemical sensitivity. Additionally, safety tests are inevitable before launching the plush toys on the market. Ensuring the whole character plush toy meets all safety standards is the fundamental requirement for a high-quality character plush toy.
7. Commit to Environmental Protection
Try to use more recyclable and environmentally-friendly materials and techniques in the production of character plush toys, which helps to reduce the negative impact on the environment and meanwhile attract the attention of some environmentalists.
8. Add Functionality
To increase the playfulness of character plush toys, it is recommended to add some functional elements into their designs, such as lighting properties, sound, electric mobility, or any other interactive characteristics. These extra features can make the character plush toy more appealing and gain more purchasers.
9. Reasonable Pricing
Besides production costs, reasonable prices are the key factor to guarantee the market competitiveness of the character plush toy. A reasonable price should adequately reflect the quality and design uniqueness of the toy and the purchasing power of the target audience to ensure maximum market receptivity.
10. Build Brand stories
Expertly crafted character plush toys are not just products but represent your brand stories. Building brand stories related to characters can connect customers’ emotions with character plush toys so as to strengthen brand recognition and loyalty. Strategically incorporating narrative into the marketing campaign will foster the brand values and reputation.
Customer Cases of Character Plush Toys
Case 1: Jennifer
In April 2022, Jennifer, who is a book author known for her talented character creation, contacted us to make her custom character plush toys. She first ordered 100 pieces after correspondence through emails. She was satisfied with the samples, so she was thinking about ordering 300 custom character plush toys. Finally, she has decided to have a long-term partnership with CustomPlushMaker.
During the negotiation, with our knowledge and experience of making plush toys, we recommended she change the size of the plush toys in order to reduce the shipping cost. In spite of a rush time for the book signing event in September, we took our best steps to ensure the timely delivery of her order.
“The signing went pretty well. I sold a bunch of plush toys! Everyone loved them!” “I had a lot of fun! They went so well with my books; colors matched perfectly!” These are the compliments that she gave to CustomerPlushMaker.
Case 2: Maddison
On March 30th 2023, Maddy sent us an inquiry about ordering 3000 book character plush toys. We quickly sent her the quotation, and she decided to order a sample the next day.
Our sample satisfied Maddy, so she asked us to arrange a bulk product by June and hoped the delivery could be made to Canada in autumn. We have discussed a few details about the plush toys and finally made some minor modifications. Then, we started the bulk production.
In October, Maddy successfully received 21 cartons of her custom character plush toys, which made her very happy and excited. She sent us a few emails to give credit to our products’ quality and service. We feel proud to have a chance to be her plush supplier and wish her great success with her books and character stuffed animals.
Maddy’s compliments for CPM: “I got the dolls!! Hooray!!!! Thank you so much!” “Hello Wendy! Of course. Here are a few I have taken so far! More to come! Thanks!”
Why CPM Make the Best Character Plush Toys?
Broad Experienced: CustomPlushMaker is highly experienced in producing all types of custom character plush toys. We can handle from pre-sales consultation, product modifications, production advice, and small or bulk production to post-sales issues, ensuring our clients can get what they want.
Excellent Professionalism: We provide professional service to help our clients make their desired plush toys to grow their business.
Quality Guarantee: We highly care about the quality of our products. We ensure every character plush toy we make uses premium materials to meet all safety standards.
Creative Design: We are not those companies who stick to conventions. Instead, we keep making innovative designs to satisfy our clients with uniqueness and attraction to make their brand stand out in the market.
Professional Customization: We provide flexible customization options for our clients in order to fulfil their thoughts and needs. We are committed to turning every character design into a real plush toy.
On-time Delivery: We schedule production reasonably with multiple production lines in our factory, ensuring every client can receive their goods on time.
Reasonable Pricing: CPM is a direct plush toy factory, so we can offer the most competitive and reasonable prices to our clients to help them reduce product costs and increase profit margins.
Effortless Communication: CPM is good at having efficient communication with clients, ensuring they can promptly know what and how we can do for them without wasting extra time and money.
Long-Term Partnership: We aim to build a long-term partnership with every client. Every time they need custom plush toys, we will do our best to offer what they want. If you are planning to make custom character plush toys, welcome to contact us at toyseei@customplushmaker.com. We expect to work with you!
