Yoohoo, Mommies!

Glad I wasn't the only one offended !

I happen to know this particular batch of grannies well enough to know that most of them don't compute (or if they do, the extent of their ability is sending an all-text e-mail).

If we tried to tell them Webkinz is the latest fad, those who have never heard of them would simply think we're feeding them a line to make sales, and ask "don't you have any Barbie clothes?" because they know what Barbies are and know that they have bought Barbies for the tykes.

Most will not be accompanied by grandkids who will confirm that they own Webkinz and want clothes for them, so I'd rather sell the grannies what they recognize and are comfortable buying than take the risk on making clothes for Webkinz (which I'd never heard of myself before now; none of the kids I buy for are into them) and bringing 90% of them back home while losing out on sure sales of Barbie clothes.

Plus, we have umpty-ump patterns for Barbie, don't have to try to create our own for Webkinz. I don't know how good she is at making her own patterns from scratch.

That's part of the plan here. We have the dolls to fit them to, we have the patterns, we have the scraps, it costs us zero and may bring in a few bucks.

As opposed to Webkinz where we'd have to buy the dolls, search for and pay for the patterns, and then cross our fingers that this tight-fisted skeptical clientele is going to believe us that their grandkids own these things they've never heard of and want clothes for them.

At least with the Barbie clothes, if they don't sell it hasn't cost us anything but time. And, worst comes to worst, we buy a couple $3 Barbies at WalMart, bag up each one with a bunch of outfits, and toss them in the Toys For Tots bin for the tax deduction.

Hey!! Watch what you say about Grannies! I'm a Grannie and I know all about Webkinz! :) I can even go to their website, play 'Cash Cow' to earn money and then 'buy' the little critters new cloths, furniture for their rooms or some nutritious food! :)

The kids improve their computer skills and even learn that they have to 'work' to provide for their adopted family! :)

Mavia

Right on ! Grannies of the World Unite !

Or for any dyslexic grannies out there--Untie !

It is a matter of knowing the clientele. Most of these would accuse us of thinking they're gullible, trying to scam them by pushing them to buy stuff for a toy they've never heard of.

And especially the name "Webkinz", on first hearing it, I had the image of something that exists only online, like the web-pets that were the big craze about 10 years ago, and I'm sure that would be the reaction of this decidedly un-hip crowd, too. (My first thought was "So you scan the dress into the computer and paste it over the picture of the Webkin? Couldn't the kid just google up pictures of clothes without me paying for it?" And when I mentioned it to Mom, who's of the same age and background as a lot of the clientele we'll be dealing with, she had pretty much the same idea I did, that Webkinz implied it was a cyber-toy that doesn't exist IRL, so why should she spend her hard-earned money buying imaginary cyber-clothes for it?)

And, frankly, having followed Cheryl's link, I would not even want to try to explain to them the notion of putting clothes on a horse or a tiger! They'd definitely think we've lost our marbles with that one. Again, if I can't sell that idea to my own mother, I'm not sure I can sell it to the clientele at this event.

If we get enough requests for Webkinz, we'll certainly consider them for next year, but I actually think that we'd have more requests for Barbie clothes if we only stocked Webkinz, than vice versa.

Of course, at this point, Mom/I/co-booth-holder are all at that stage where the children we deal with are either late teens and too old for Webkinz or babies who are too young for Webkinz. The only one in the family who is the same age as Cheryl's DD has never mentioned them to me, and neither has the girl who's a couple years older (nor their mothers in suggesting birthday gifts). I'd put money on it that I am not the only person in the world who's never heard of them.

I always tell my seventysomething mom that seventy is the new fifty! So fifty is the new...what? Fourty?

lol

OK, if I repeat that verbatim to this particular clientele, your explanation is just adding to the notion that these things exist only online and that I'm scamming people trying to get them to spend money buying clothes for cyber-pets.

Knowing this clientele, I've got to have something better than that to convince them to spend their hard-earned money on this stuff, and that it's not just a fad that will be over by February. Whereas we know Barbie's been around for 50 years and will be around for 50 more. And she doesn't sound like a cyber-figment of someone's imagination.

Sign me Totally Confused

These are the real basic Barbies who come with only a swimsuit. I'm pretty sure I paid $3-4 for the ones I bought a couple months ago to dress for Toys For Tots. I know for a fact that I would not have spent $12 each on as many as I bought.

And a number of kids either aren't all that into Barbie (sales have dropped dramatically in recent years) or have parent who discourage Barbies. Ganz doesn't release sales figures, but Webkinz are selling through the roof according to the stores that sell them, and earlier this year their website was running more than 6 million unique visitors a month (playing using codes from the toys they've bought). That's a lot of kids, and they all have grandparents who likely know what's been on their Christmas lists. Not to mention that the clothes that fit Webkinz can often do double duty with other small stuffed animals (and what kid doesn't have boatloads of stuffed animals lying around?). Honestly, I haven't seen Barbies on a kid's wish list in ages, and I have a kid in the right age group. Mine has some Barbies, but they were all gifts and not something she plays with or asks for. Webkinz, on the other hand....

Best wishes, Ericka

I was just teasing you a little, Karen! :)......although my grandkids love their Webkinz and drag them around all the time! The Barbies usually just sit on a shelf! I think they enjoy interacting with them both as a 'stuffy' and also as their 'dependents' online.

If you know what your clientele will buy then of course go that route. Just keep in mind that the Webkinz have been around for quite awhile and they are VERY popular! Cloths for them might be something to consider in the future.

Just talked to DBF who has even more kids in the family than I do, some in the same age range as Cheryl's DD.

He's never heard of Webkinz, his first reaction was also "something that exists only in cyberspace". He points out that there has been absolutely NO advertising for them on TV or in the newspapers/magazines the two of us read, so there's no way that he ever would have asked anyone in his family "would little Susie like a Webkinz for Christmas?" And even now, he's still not sure that he'd buy a Webkinz rather than a Barbie if he was buying for one of the little ones in the family.

Reading him Mavia's explanation still didn't convince him that these exist in 3-D form instead of only online. Given the choice, he'd buy Barbie clothes for the nieces before he'd buy Webkinz clothes, and having been to this event and seeing who attends, he agrees that this particular clientele is not likely to turn down Barbie clothes for Webkinz clothes. It's not a child-oriented event, there aren't a lot of kids there to be yanking Granny's sleeve "I want Webkinz, not Barbie", so we have to go with what the grannies are familiar with and not what kids would buy.

You (Mavia/Lucille/Sheena) are hands-on, technically-adept grannies. A lot of people are not. My mother hesitates to even touch a computer for fear she'll break it. Dad will push a button if I tell him "arrow moves the page up so you can keep reading", but isn't interested in learning how to use one without me there to tell him every step. They don't go to websites; when I had a TV interview online, I dictated the URL to Mom, told her to go to the library and have someone help them get it to watch it on the library computer, and they couldn't be bothered. "Oh, just tell me what you said. I know what you look like."

If you don't have in-person interaction with the kids, you may not have heard of Webkinz; one of my grandmothers was a long-distance call and didn't want to spend money talking to the kids, so we talked to her once a year when we went to visit. If it wasn't advertised on TV during the grown-up programs just before Christmas, she didn't know about it.

And although DBF and I have regular interactions with the mothers (and grandmothers) of the children in our families, and occasionally with the kids, no one has ever told us anything about Webkinz. So, just because you three are familiar with them does not mean that every granny will know what it is, or think that Webkinz clothing is preferable to Barbie clothing. Nor that every granny's grandchildren are as gaga over them as yours are.

DBF spent many years in retail and now does some sales consulting, and his expert advice was the same as my instinct: for this particular event, stick to Barbie clothes. He knows the event, he's seen who shows up, he's listened to their comments at the other booths, and has a good read on what this particular crowd will and won't spend their money on. They don't do fads; they know Barbie is not a fad. You can only say what you'd spend your money on, because you don't know this clientele as well as we do.

And, since the Barbie plan costs us absolutely zero upfront, if we sell nothing, we have lost nothing. Whereas if we invest in the Webkinz and Webkinz patterns, and sell nothing, we lose our entire investment.

Not in my life it doesn't. I wouldn't dream of cheating and my husband has too much character and class for that nonsense. We've discussed many times that if it ever comes to a point where either one of us is no longer happy, we'd discuss it and work it out however we need. Mature men and women do not run around cheating. I find shows which promote it are horrilble, particularly for the women who are cheated on, or the men who are cheated on.

I suppose my point is with all this moral fiber crap we're supposed to buy, and gays are not permitted to marry because they are not a man and a woman, yet we can have prime time television shows portraying the most vapid behavior I can imagine to be a tad hypocritical.

Sex sells. I ain't buying. Anyone who has been cheated on knows. Particularly the wife of John Edwards. I cannot imagine how Elizabeth, his wife, who was cheated on during her hardest time in life must feel when she passes "Desperate Housewives" on the dial.

Just talked to my partner in crime who is a teacher and has kids still living at home, and even she said "what's a webkin?" It may be one of those regional things that either hasn't made it to our part of the world or for some reason isn't as popular here as it is among those of you on the East Coast who've been contributing to this thread.

Mom verified that not only she (as the honorary GGM) hasn't heard of them, but that the grandmother didn't know about them, either. The best she's found among her circle is "there's a sign on the door of the card store Webkinz Sold Out" and the only reason she had any notion of what they were was that there was a picture of a stuffed animal on the sign. Every one of them thought this notion was nuts, putting clothes on horses and tigers? Nope, they wouldn't spend their money on that.

Given the initial investment involved is more than we're expecting to earn selling the clothes, the notion was vetoed by my partner. She's got a ton of old Barbies sitting around (3 daughters), and a lot more ideas how to dress them than she does for dressing animals.

I know several parents who are OK with Barbie but not with Bratz. The kids may whine for a Bratz, but they're going to get a Barbie if mom has anything to say about it.

BRAVO!

We wonder why people think cheating (both on spouses and in business) is acceptable, but never point the finger at all the backstabbing and bedhopping that goes on on TV. That's where some people get their moral compass from; they can't differentiate between real life and TV. They're learning that the way to get rich is to lie, cheat and steal, because that's how it happens on their favorite show.

That too lol