Mid-November Update + New Ideas
Howdy, all!
Hope you've all been doing well for the first half of the month. I know it may seem quiet, but rest assured we've been hustling behind the scenes. Though, to be honest it's mostly boring stuff, albeit incredibly important things like me juggling between the Patreon and Website pin club information to get you all set up for mailing lists because that's going to be a major way I communicate with you all when we stop using Patreon. Don't worry, we won't be spamming you with constant promos and stuff--it's mainly to let you know when there is a new update and content post on the website's blog, secret shop password at the beginning of the month, etc. And I do apologize if some of you have received more than one email with the password, I've just been trying to be diligent to make sure you all have access to the website's blog and secret shop as some of you are still members here and some of you have already switched over to the website.
Another note I'd like to make, if you've not already made the switch to the website, but are planning to, you will need to create an account on our website when you sign up for the pin club subscription. This will ensure you can access your subscription at any time to cancel or adjust when you need to. This also will make it so you can earn pons towards future shop rewards! :)
Japanese Things
Pin Club stuff aside, I also wanted to share with you some other cute stuff I've been working on in a tiny lull of downtime I had last week. Initially I was sketching designs for my annual collab for the Lunar New Year and thought "How cute would an inu hariko statue be but painted like a little tiger?!" so I drew it up for the collab, but since that won't be launching til after the new year, I decided I'd go ahead and produce it now and draw up a different tiger for that collab later.
Taka and I have been wanting to produce a "Japanese Items" collection which will include things that people typically have in their homes and businesses in Japan. Things like this inu hariko (the little dog statue) and maneki neko (for money luck), and even the tanuki statue we produced last month. Future designs will also include things like daruma, kokeshi (and yes, I plan to produce the Sailor Moon collection again, though smaller and reimagined from the original collection), cranes, masks, etc... Initially we wanted to run like a kickstarter for this type of collection, and we may still do it, but we also are impatient and hate the downtime (and fees!) that KS brings to wait for funds to come in, so we're kinda thinking we'll just slowly add to the collection each month when we place our monthly pin club orders with our manufacturers.
Another reason for us wanting to produce this collection is because one of our plans in the new year is to move towards making products that are able to cater to wholesale retailers. Part of our goals to grow the business is to get our products into retail shops. We won't make much money in this endeavor since wholesale usually means we can't sell much more than cost, but it does mean we can get more brand recognition which is a huge part of growing a business. By now, outside of our fan art, most of you know that we don't try to make designs that cater to the Western gaze, but to a Japanese audience. Even though we are based in the US and pins are not really a popular thing in Japan, we have always strove to produce items that respect the Japanese and that a Japanese person, whether living abroad or in Japan could look at and warmly say "natsukashii" which means "so nostalgic!"
What do you think of this new collection idea? Is this something you think we should produce in one fell swoop via a Kickstarter, or just add to it slowly?
2022 Pin Club Themes
As 2022 is quickly approaching, we have already been planning out the majority of next year's themes and designs.
For the Japanese theme pin club, we will be doing Japanese florals each month. One of Taka's specialties as a tebori artists is his Japanese floral designs and that's something we'd love to showcase in our brand. The flowers won't just be boring and generic, but will have a more ukiyo e or Japanese tattoo style, so rest assured it won't lose any of the Shishido Creative detail and flair you've all come to know! Each month we'll be including a sticker sheet and mini print for the floral theme.
On top of that, while it won't likely be an official "pin club" I am also planning to finally bring in some of my Filipino background into our brand as well. I have long wanted to create a collection that represents Filipino culture but doesn't reduce the culture to only food. After chatting with some fellow club members here who are also Filipino and getting some inspiration and insight, I'm also going to be designing a collection of Filipino floral and fauna pins that can coincide with our Japanese floral pin club. If you're part of any of the pin clubs, we'll have a one-time add on listing you can include this or any of the extra pre-orders on to your existing subscription.
While the 2021 Yokai club theme will be coming to an end officially in December, that doesn't mean we won't keep producing yokai! There are still so many yokai we didn't get to make that we really want to and I'm sure many of you would like to collect. So while there won't be a set of hanafuda and stickers to go with the pin, we will still be producing a pin each month for the yokai we didn't get around to. Feel free to comment or message us if there's a specific yokai you'd like to see in the future! :)
As for the Pretty Winkers pin club, that will continue as it has been, though I'm brainstorming extra goodies we can include each month like a small sticker or sticker sheet, on top of the monthly mini card prints.
Production Updates
As of last week, we got a bunch of new pins in, though only one of them was a pretty winker (Cutie Moon 2). We didn't even know it was going to be in this box til we got the box on Wednesday. Most of the pins were our new GachAnimal collection we showed you all a sneak peek of a couple months ago, as well as our new character, Kyuu-chan, that most yokai members are aware of. The GachAnimal collection will be debuting for Black Friday, and yes! we definitely have some promos planned and will let you know about that in an upcoming post soon!
I just finished grading the Cutie Moon V2 pins last night and am going to be packing any boxes for anyone who was waiting on only her from the Single Pin Tier, and sending out any outstanding boxes for members who may have already quit but were waiting on Wicked Lady or Mistress 9. While those members may have only paid for one or two boxes, and therefore I've been holding onto their Diana or Artemis pins, I'm going to just go ahead and send those out because I honestly didn't think it would take so long for remakes to arrive for Wicked Lady and Mistress 9. As of now, I still have yet to see any production pics despite constantly asking my manu if they're indeed being remade. They always assure me they are, but it sure does take a long time. Last time they had to remake an order that large due to their failure, it took like 6-7 months. We're at about the 4 month mark since they agreed to remake. While I already warned you all about how manus don't like to do remakes and really drag their feet even if they agree, it doesn't make it any less frustrating for us or you all as well I'm sure.
That said, I hope you're all aware that we will never take advantage of your trust. I say this because I constantly see posts in pin groups about other shops that don't fulfill pre-orders or answer emails, or end up ghosting. I know you all have always been patient and trusting of us, which is why we are so vigilant to never sell any extras until all members receive their items first. And if for some reason you ever don't get something and it was in hand, please don't hesitate to reach out to us. While I keep a very detailed spreadsheet of who gets what, human error can still happen, so please feel free to shoot us an email. :)
And as of yesterday, it seems these designs are on their way to us in the next shipment:
So any orders waiting on Luna, Nehelenia, and Usagi I'll be packing up to ship together. And of course when Mistress 9, Helios, Wicked Lady and Ikuko come in, I'll ship those out as soon as I can too. So don't worry if you see some people get Usagi before you, as always, we will make sure we get you what you paid for before any public sales! :)
And finally a first look at Venus' production as well!
That's about all for now, but do be on the look out for our Black Friday promos announcement soon!
- Mandy + Taka
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Hello! I think for the Japanese items collection, you should release it slowly because it will be more affordable that way instead of customers parting with a huge amount of money in one go and having to wait months to receive pins. I imagine that would be more manageable for you guys as well.
I think a houou yokai pin would be really pretty and a Yuki onna would be cool too! Thanks! Can’t wait for next year!