Will there be a Yearly Special Windstone Members Only Pieces

[Pegasi1978]

pixiekissed wrote:

and the catalog would just be the regular little five or six page one they send out to the brick and mortar dealers, some people like to display them with their collections.

If I remember right Windstone doesn’t do those catalogs any more as they were too expensive to continue to make.

[Jennifer]

pixiekissed wrote:

The pre-order thing would work too if there was a yearly membership fee say $150.00 (as most decent sized dragons/gryphons etc. are around that price mark, and its not so expensive as to limit membership to people in the highest income brackets). Then everyone who signed up for the club would have the piece (valued at $150.00) or two smaller pieces (valued at $150.00) bi-yearly sent out to them.

There are a few problems with this. The idea is fun, but say that the membership fee is $150. If Windstone sent out pieces worth $150 to the members, what about shipping? Shipping is going to cost differently depending on where people live, especially international. Depending on the size and weight of the Windstone, Windstone could be losing ‘only’ $7 per order or as much as $25 or $30 per order. That’s a lot of money to loose! And they can’t simply say your $150 will get you a $120 item+shipping because that’s kinda unfair to those that would have less expensive shipping.
Additionally, that’s a LOT of extra paperwork to keep track of! Who’s in the club, who paid, what’s their current address, etc. With Windstone’s reduced number of staffers now it’d be pretty tough to make time to keep track of this sort of thing. That’s why Windstone doesn’t take pre-orders right now.. they like to have the product on hand, it gets ordered, it gets shipped, wham done. 😉

Quote:

Also to add to the club feel each member could be mailed a copy of that years store issued catalog/ brochure and be signed up for pre announcement emails on Lp items arriving in store…ie: this tuesday at 12:00 pm “such and such gryphon” will make it to the store click here for option to hold said piece and have credit card/ paypal charged to your account.

This way your only making pieces that are gauranteed to be already sold. Also you may want to limit the period when membership can be applied for. Example: membership must be signed up for by May 30th of 2009 after that people will be signed up for membership starting the following year. Then everyone who is a member can have a certificate mailed out with the club piece letting them know it is one of only 1000 pieces or however many members there are that sign up…..

Complicated! Not enough people to do this yet….

pixiekissed wrote:

I didnt mean she would give an exact date to have pieces ready (other than at some point that year :)), I meant as an added bonus when they know something in an Lp color/production will be going to the store they give members a pre-purchase option a few days before they go in store, like the small orange flapcats.

Then it becomes a matter of ‘how many of these do we make?’ for Windstone, especially if not everyone in the club wants to buy one.

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[dragonmedley]

Could they pool the resources available on the forum? Some members may be willing/equiped to track stuff like that.

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[Mmloda]

This may also be too much work but I just thought I would throw the idea out there… 🙂 How about a points system, so there would be a minimum amount set as far as how much money each memeber spends in the On line store each year( kinda like when you go and buy stuff at those stores where they give you a stamp card) and once you spend that much you are in the club and you can at that point purchase the special piece for a club price…or somthing along those lines… 🙂

Marzena

[Nytetyger]

Not sure if this would work for Windstone, but for years I belonged to the Pocket Dragon club. First off, it was US only– there was a second club for international members, hosted by an international company that sold the PD sculpts. For here, since we have some international forum members, a practical solution would be for them to “join” using a friend in the US address, thus making it NOT a losing situation for Windstone and mailing things.

When you joined, (and the membership was 50+ a year) you got a small pin, a keychain or flat printed magnet at Christmas along with a card, and a small figurine that was made just for that year. You got 4 newsletters (quarterly) and the OPTION of buying a special club figure for 150-200 dollars PLUS shipping, with orders taken from January-April, and the actual piece coming to you in the summer, giving them time to make the piece knowing the full quantity they’d need, and having the money to pay for said piece. It also allowed the collector enough time to budget for a piece and pay for it, AND gave enough lead time so no one could say “they needed more time” etc… you chose to get it, or not, and the company had no surplus waiting.

I know the Windstone staff is tight, but something like this can be done by one part time person, perhaps a forum member hired on contractually. A club year could run, say, March to March, so there would be no outcry of “I don’t have money due to Christmas, or summer vacation, etc” with a one month sign up, and perhaps limiting the first year to 50 memberships — you could even possibly put the memberships up on EBay, so the money is always gone directly to Windstone and not the person running the club. All that person would do is create the newsletters, and post to remind members when ordering the yearly piece is almost up.

::shrug:: Not sure any of this helps or is even viable, but I did similar when I ran several large fan organizations years ago. 🙂 Hope something in here helps 😀

[Jennifer]

Keep the ideas coming! I just wanted to mention the fact that Windstone has less staff now than before just to emphasize that they don’t have a whole lot of time. They probably need to start making and selling Windstones full time again before they can think about hiring anyone else….

But ideas don’t hurt! Keep ’em coming. 🙂

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[Tara]

Nytetyger wrote:

For here, since we have some international forum members, a practical solution would be for them to “join” using a friend in the US address, thus making it NOT a losing situation for Windstone and mailing things.

I like the ideas in your post except for what I quoted. While I understand the situation, I’d like to be able to join even though I’m Canadian. The buddy system might work if you had someone to help you and then you’de still have to pay extra shipping to get the items. If I’m going to have to pay for shipping I’d rather pay it direct from Windstone than having to pay someone else to act as a go between. Unfortunately, this would only make things even more unfair for those of us who live internationally. I hope that if the club does go ahead that a better solution to the problem is reached. 🙂

[Nytetyger]

FlamingDragon wrote:

Nytetyger wrote:

For here, since we have some international forum members, a practical solution would be for them to “join” using a friend in the US address, thus making it NOT a losing situation for Windstone and mailing things.

I like the ideas in your post except for what I quoted. While I understand the situation, I’d like to be able to join even though I’m Canadian. The buddy system might work if you had someone to help you and then you’de still have to pay extra shipping to get the items. If I’m going to have to pay for shipping I’d rather pay it direct from Windstone than having to pay someone else to act as a go between. Unfortunately, this would only make things even more unfair for those of us who live internationally. I hope that if the club does go ahead that a better solution to the problem is reached. 🙂

Yeah, I kinda figured that the sticking point would be that everyone would want to join, and we have forum folks all over the globe– I was just trying to make this as simple as possible for Windstone itself; the connections and getting things to international folks being on the side of US, not them, might make it more likely that it can be done with the staffing Windstone already has, and since the forum folks seem to always pull together wonderfully, doing the gruntwork on our end to lighten Windstone’s load seems fair for their effort of actually doing a club with yearly unique items. 😀

[pixiekissed]

I dont think any international members would be offended that shipping costs to Canada or elsewhere are more expensive, thats not Windstones fault thats just how life works. I was thinking the $150.00 (non-refundable) would be the payment for the Windstone itself it gets one made painted and ready to go, no left overs. Once they are ready to ship then shipping costs get emailed out and made by members if a member refuses to pay shipping then Windstone hasnt lost any money on the piece they made for them because it was already paid for and worse case scenario if someone decides to skip out on their piece over something silly like shipping (highly unlikley) then Windstone can auction it off on Ebay.

As for the pre-alert I dont think quantities for a store issued Lp would be a huge issue as they were planning on making them for the store anyhow, this isnt specials made just for the club, its a pre alert for members on what was already planned for instore, if say there are 40 pieces and 60 club members and 45 decide to order them maybe once items are paid for the last five pieces missing could be made to fit the demand. Then if Melody decides the club demand was pretty high she may want to make just a smaller batch for instore.

There is almost always a high demand for those special “extras” and if someone is willing to pay for a club membership they are a pretty hardcore collector, I think having too little product will still be a big problem. If you always make just a little bit under the club member amount then you’ll still only have a handful to selll in the store if your lucky enough to have left overs. Also if its only a small fraction under the club member limit then if everyone wants one or two it wont be a huge amount of work to make up the extra 20 or so pieces, Im also sure if you were worried about something like left-over pieces at this point alot of members would happily pre-pay for the item before you started batch 2.

[WindstoneCollector]

The only thing I saw is that people on the forum are the only people who know about LP…Not true. Anyone can read this forum, even the guests so they also know all about LP pieces. And, I am quite sure they also have an account to buy them in the online store, some without an account on the forum. So, that wouldn’t quite work as a “special club piece”. (Plus, look at the forum memer list! Wow what a long list of people! 😮 )
I agree it is alot of work to create and run a club of any sort. There has to be a way around this. Everybody who wants a club needs to keep thinking until we all come up with a good and fair solution for creating a club that everyone can join. 😉 I’d love to be able to say I belong to Windstone’s club. Also, while reading the post about the PD club, I thought it sounded like a well run club, but needed to sorta be refigured for the international people. I don’t want to see people like GB and all our Canadian friends feeling left out, or uninvolved, so let’s keep thinking! 8)
I’d be more than willing to help with keeping track or whatever with another person, or persons. (Just incase someone has a really good idea they are holding in. Incase they are holding it in, because it might be too much for just themselves. 😳 )

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