I've packed and shipped 534 orders to date! There are 361 orders remaining, with 194 US orders and 167 international orders.
Ideally, I would like to have US orders wrapped up by the end of April.
In full transparency, however, I have had to work in small batches due to financial issues. As most of you are aware, due to the wire fraud, my entire budget was upended. The money originally allotted to fulfillment was spent just getting the plushies through production. All this to say, fulfillment has been going slowly because I've been pulling the money for shipping labels out of my personal account. However, I've long since drained by personal and business savings. Shipping costs have increased exponentially since the initial campaign, so I'm only able to work in small batches of 50 or so. I've had to take breaks between batches to push commissions or sales in my shop to fund the next round of labels.
In order to speed the process up, I may auction a couple of the protoype Hurtsies, or the weird cursed ones I've found while grading plushes. I'm not sure if anyone would be interested, but I'll post them on my Insta or Twitter if I do go through with the idea.
Again, I can't stress enough that I'm not trying to make excuses. It's really hard to write about everything without sounding like I'm throwing a huge pity party for myself.
It's not ideal, and I apologize that y'all are having to continue waiting. I must sound like a broken record at this point, but I am SO grateful for y'all's patience. I don't think I could survive this whole conundrum if I haven't been met with such kindness and grace. I know supporting a crowdfunding campaign is a gamble in and of itself. I've heard of many campaigns gone wrong, and I never expected to be at the center of one. Even if this whole campaign has gone to shit, I hope I can prove that I'll see things through to the very end, at the very least.
Also, as a side note, it is just me here! I've had a lot of e-mails coming in addressing Riot, and I regret to inform that I had to let Riot go in early 2025 due to being unable to afford their services. Please don't reach out to them for campaign updates. At any point, y'all can reach out to me via e-mail with questions or concerns. My e-mail is [email protected]. I try to respond at least once a week.
Hello everybunny, I hope everyone had a happy holiday, regardless of what they celebrate!
Just a quick update on shipping progress:
As of now, there are 470 orders remaining to be shipped! Of those orders, 168 orders are international.
I am hoping to wrap up US shipping in the next few months, and will be comparing prices for international fulfillment services that can fit into my budget in the meantime.
Certainly, I sound like a broken record at this point, but I'd like to extend my apologies again for all the road bumps in this project. It has been almost an entire year since the initial wire fraud fiasco, and I have still not recovered financially. This year was incredibly unforgiving for small businesses, and losing $13k on top of my drastically declining revenue has not left me in the best shape. In full transparency, the remainder of this project is being funded via credit card.
I have received a couple of complaints that people were not satisfied with their plushies, and I apologize if that's been the case for you. If you're not happy with the plushes, that's entirely valid. However, at this point, I just do not have any funding to request the factory remake the plushies. The factory has not been cooperative, and has refused to take accountability for the hacking that led to the financial loss in the first place. I understand if people are frustrated after the wait, but all I can offer is a refund at this point once the plushies are returned to my home office.
I apologize if any of this was poorly worded. I really struggle with discussing this whole situation, because I don't want to come across as guilt-tripping my audience. It's hard to strike that balance, especially when all I can do is share words across a screen. All I know, all I can promise, is that this project will be completed if it's the last darn thing I do. But in the mean time, I'm incredibly tired, and I'm just trying my best to keep my head above water. I don't expect pity or forgiveness, but I do hope everyone realizes that I am doing the best with the hand I was dealt.
I'll be back in another month for another progress update. In the mean time, if you'd like a progress update, just shoot me an e-mail! And again, if you'd rather have a refund than wait for your order, you can reach out to me at any time!
MINI EDIT: If you've received a tracking number this week, please don't be alarmed if it doesn't update immediately! Currently, I have about 60 orders packed, but with Thanksgiving this week, I am waiting to drop them off so they won't be sitting unattended over Thanksgiving weekend! Tracking numbers should start updating Monday.
Hello everybunny! Just checking in to say that I'm still working hard to get all these babies packed. So far, I have shipped 383 out of 860 orders. I'm almost halfway there. I'm currently working through the Two Plush tier at the moment.
Thank you all for your ongoing patience. With the holidays coming up, I may slow shipping down just a smidge. I don't want to risk them getting lost in the holiday muck, or being left out while people are out of town.
If you're moving or need adjustments to your orders, remember you can reach out to me via e-mail at any time for assistance. (I'm sorry this update isn't more beefy, there's not much interesting going on behind the scenes aside from me swimming through seas of zombie buns.)
Orders should slowly but surely start trickling in over the next few months. I am making decent progress, but I want to keep expectations realistic by saying that it's just me handling all of these orders. I still have to handle my online storefront throughout this fulfillment period as well. That being said, I'm eager to get all of these out! I am shipping everything by similar weight and package size, starting with the smaller orders including only one Hurtsie, then working my way up.
I'm sure you're all tired of hearing it, but I'm so grateful for the kindness and patience people have displayed during this entire campaign! Admittedly, I've been so incredibly anxious about checking e-mails and comments, but I'm trying to be better. I love my silly little zombie buns, and I just hope everyone else will find some much needed joy in their plushies after this whole crazy debacle.
Fluffing Your Hurtsies
When your Hurtsie arrives, they may appear Extra Skrunkly! Not only are they undead, but they have been vacuum-sealed, shoved into a box, traveled overseas, shoved into ANOTHER bag, and then delivered to your door! They've been through a lot, okay? You try looking your best when you've been crammed into several layers of plastic. It's okay though. They bounce back.
Once your Hurtsie arrives, make sure to give them a good fluff. Maybe toss them around a little to get them back into shape. You can put them on a gentle fluff cycle as well if you have a dryer available to you! It may take a couple days for all the wrinkles to fall out, but a good snuggle will help speed the process along.
(If you receive an extra skrunkly-looking Hurtsie, you should definitely post so we can all laugh over it.)
"Will there be extras?"
After the fulfillment period is over, I will put up the leftover plushies in my main shop. The add-ons such as charms, sticker sheets, and patches, may get posted up in my shop sooner rather than later to help recover expenses. I've already packed all of the inserts with add-ons, so there's plenty of extras to go around there!
If you need help with your Hurtsies, please e-mail me directly at [email protected]so your message doesn't get lost! I'm always always happy to help!
The plushies have all been delivered to my storage unit! We have 111 boxes total of all of our freaky little friends.
Our storage unit is looking a little chaotic, and my god is it hot in there, but it gets the job done! The boxes were stacked nicely, but we unfortunately had to go spelunking for the embroidered patches. (They were at the very bottom in the back…)
After unloading the truck, I enlisted the help of my dear friend to start packing the inserts into their bags. My friend and I spent 12 hours overall, but we managed to get over 500 orders packed! Now all that’s left is to start pulling the plushes and get them shipped off.
After the whole wire fraud debacle, I unfortunately did not have the budget to go all out on the packaging. However, I love to be extra, so I figured these lil specimen bags would be a silly little way to pull the whole package together!
Careful not to get infected.
I had two events scheduled this month, but I’ve cancelled both of them in order to focus my energies on packing orders.
Now for further transparency, my storage unit is unfortunately located an hour and a half away from my house. Due to my remote location, there would have been an additional $1500 remote delivery fee if I were to have had them shipped directly to my home. I am going to try to get out to my unit as much as possible and spend the whole day out there packing orders. However, my son is in school at the moment, so I will be scheduling around needing to drop him off and pick him up.
Please know that the Hurtsies are my main priority right now, but I do need to divide my attentions between the BackerKit and my shop in order to continue making an income. When I put my mind to it, I can get a lot done, but it is also just me and a handful of willing friends working on the fulfillment! Even though the plushes are here and fulfillment is chugging along, it may still take a few months to get everything out. (But how awesome would it be to get everything out in time for Halloween? 😫 A bunny can dream!)
I am currently looking for fulfillment services to help me with my EU & UK orders. If I cannot find a service, I will refund any orders that cannot be fulfilled. However, that’s the worst case scenario.
I’ve had many people ask if there will be extras! I fully expect to have extras of nearly everything, but I will not be posting any extras for sale until after fulfillment is completed. I need to make sure that I have enough for orders and account for any B-grades that may pop up.
Please be patient with me and understand that the initial fulfillment takes priority!
If you are local to Knoxville and would like to arrange for a local pickup, please contact me via email to discuss a meet-up location! (I will not be meeting anyone at my unit for my own safety.)
As always, thank you SO much for y’all’s patience with me during this project. I have fulfilled many preorders and never have I expected that something like this could happen. Even when I have had some shenanigans occur, I’ve still managed to pull it off without much delay. It’s going to take a long time for me to recover from this project, but I’m still incredibly thankful that I’m able to see this project to the end.
