Thursday, August 12th, 2004

by the Writer's Guild of Wunderland

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• GinohnNews: Gina's 'Rents Visit
• The Ember Update: Jerry Garcia's Birthday Bash
• Renee updated her site

A year ago at Origins, we started selling these really cute plush bendy flowers with happy faces that Kristin found at Toy Fair a few months earlier. She bought a huge box of them (the minimum was 576) because they so beautifully matched the flowers on our Booklet Catalog. They've been hugely popular... so much so that we usually have to put a limit on how many you can buy, so as to avoid running out before the end of the weekend. People like buying them 6 or 12 at a time, so as to make bouquets or give them away to all their friends.

We started adding a Happy Flower (as we call them) to the top of each of our store displays, and selling them in our Short Run Depot. Although we have been selling these flowers ourselves at shows for $1 each, a number of retailers who sell our games have been buying them from us and selling them in their stores for $2 each - and our distributors have started calling asking if they can carry them. In order to put them into distribution, we are going to be raising the retail price to $2 - so if you want a few at the $1 price order them quick - Alison will be updating the price in the Short Run Depot any day now.

For years Kristin has been looking for a way to package our hit card game Fluxx in a bigger box for the gift market, but I am always opposed to any idea that is basically just packaging air. She recently hit on the idea of packaging these Happy Flowers with a Fluxx deck, and after a month of brainstorming and prototyping, Flowers & Fluxx is nearly ready to go to the printers.

Here's the idea: We take 3 of our most popular items (the Flowers, Fluxx, and special promo cards) and bundle them together in a colorful package that might well be sold in a wide range of gift venues and retail markets that have been hesitant to pick up standalone card games. The Flowers & Fluxx package will include 6 Happy Flowers (one of each color), a Fluxx deck, and a special new promo card not available any other way, called Flowers (a Keeper which counts as either Love or Death).

To make this scheme even more clever, we plan to offer a special deal to everyone who shops at our online store. Whenever you buy a gift copy of Flowers & Fluxx from our webstore and have it shipped to a friend, we will mail you an extra copy of the Flowers promo card (with your invoice) for your own Fluxx deck.

The only way to get the promo card will be to purchase Flowers & Fluxx, either for yourself or as a gift to send to someone else.

Please note that Flowers & Fluxx won't go on sale until October or November. The suggested retail price will be $24.

Marlene's been doing a great job on the package design... (click on it to see a larger version):

What do you think of this list?

GREAT FOR... Birthdays * Anniversaries * Travel * House warmings * Holiday gift giving * Graduations * Get well soon * Mother's Day * Weddings * Teachers * Family game night * Parties * Bridal showers * Confirmations * Bar/Batmitzvahs * Young and old alike!

Are any of these not good choices? What are we missing? Please let us know!