As many of you are aware, GANZ has not announced any new Webkinz plush pets in the past few months. The last new plush was the beautifully crafted Narwhal. We can now officially state that there will be no new Webkinz plush in 2019 and that the Narwhal will be the final plush toy of the “first generation” of Webkinz plush.
Our reasons for making this decision are three-fold:
- For any toy to be produced at an appropriate price, a minimum number need to be produced. Our retail orders for our new styles, even great ones like the Narwhal, had fallen below this minimum.
- Our attempts to move plush sales online through the eStore and Amazon did not meet our goals.
- After 14 years and over 500 unique pets, this generation of the toy line had run its course.
The reality is that at times every toy brand needs to take a break, evolve and reinvent. Many of the biggest toy brands in the world – My Little Pony, Transformers, Strawberry Shortcake – have had times where there were no toys on retail shelves.
Will this impact Webkinz.com? Not at all. One of the big developments in the past few years is the acceptance of online purchasing. When we launched Ganz eStore in 2008, many players didn’t understand the idea of buying “purely” virtual pets. Now we’re all used to buying virtual items and we’re happy to say eStore use has been going up! Many of our new eStore virtual pets have been well received and are among our best looking pets ever! As we’ve said elsewhere, GANZ is committed to Webkinz.com and with our desktop version coming soon, the future of the game is strong.
Will Webkinz plush be back? Definitely. GANZ was born as a plush toy company and lovable plush will always be near to our hearts. We have had many discussions about future products and how best to bring those products to market. We can’t say anything more about this at this time, but we do hope to have some more announcements later in the year.
In the meantime, you can still find Webkinz plush at Ganz eStore, and through other online retailers. All available plush are “while quantities last,” so if there is a specific pet you’d like, you will want to order it soon.
We’ve all had great experiences with our Webkinz plush and have those favorites that we feel closest to. While we may be taking a break from making new styles, our incredible range of amazing plush toys will forever be a core part of Webkinz World.
GANZ
I cannot wait to see the new plush! Although, I am very worried they will be too different or even creepy… although I probably don’t have to worry about this, I still am. I hope that they are creative and cute!
This is how the end of Tail Towns began. I still miss it!
what does that mean for the on line game??
Webkinz World is still going strong :)
Some of your recent plushies (The Narwhal, The Butterscotch Bunny), are basically ‘Signature Like’ in quality. You guy’s should just slap that golden W on a few paws, and release some new signatures! I know signatures were initially made by another company, focusing on realistic plushies, but there’s no reason that you guys can’t just call your own plushies signatures lol. I have the signature siamese cat, and your recent ‘Ragdoll Cat’ is WAY COOLER than than it! Like serious, just #BringBackSignatures you guys were already making the quality plushies just make the pets a little bigger and slap a golden W on the paw.
Great so now the secondary market for webkinz which is already ridiculous with it’s prices it going to go even higher. Are there any plans to bring ALL the pets to eStore?
The stock currently available at Ganz eStore is what is left.
Sorry I meant are there any plans to bring all the past pets to the estore as code only pets?
I recently found a store that still orders Webkinz new but when I called to see if they could order more they told me that they can only get certain ones? Is there anyway you could make the Narwhal, Pebble Horse and the Rag Doll cat available for businesses to buy? They were able to add the Global Panda and Sparkle Penguin to the order for me but I really wanted the Pebble Horse & Ragdoll Cat. Please consider!
If they can’t be ordered, they’re out of stock. Sorry!
What store and where?
That’s too bad, but no surprise as it’s been a foregone conclusion for months. Time to find a new source for stuffed animals.
There are SO MANY webkinz I don’t yet have, and that you probably don’t have too. The said the plushies will come back, no need to leave Webkinz in the dust just yet. The webkinz raccutie is only like $15 on amazon, and it’s an amazing plushie! We’re already half way through 2019, if Ganz pulls through we could have new plushies within 6 months! Sally gave me some reassurance below, and it really makes me feel like they want to do what is best for us players of the game. I personally hope we will see a signature quality plushie come out, or something like the 10 year pup because he just felt so unique. Tbh I feel like they had to stop making plushies cuz they couldn’t afford to work on Webkinz Desktop AND put out new plushie releases. I bet once Desktop comes out, and costs are lower, we will see a REALLY NICE NEW PLUSHIE! Counting on you Sally!!! Don’t let me down.
All us plushie fanatics want to hear is that you will be true to your word on the ‘Definitely’. A simple “Yes, plan to be true to our word” would calm down MANY. There is a vocal group still very scared that going into future years we will just hear silence from you on the plushies. We need reassurance asap!
She responded below, I don’t know why the above comment got past the moderation since it was a duplicate. “I understand that this is all very confusing and perhaps a little frightening, but this is a message straight from the horse’s mouth. As it mentions, there are already discussions about how to move forward with plush. Plush is very much part of Webkinz World’s future.”
Sally, Please. Give us some form of reassurance about the plushies. I know you “can’t stay more at this time”. But you can say you’ll be true to your word on the ‘Definitely’ right? Tell me you’ll be true to your word about the plushies!
I understand that this is all very confusing and perhaps a little frightening, but this is a message straight from the horse’s mouth. As it mentions, there are already discussions about how to move forward with plush. Plush is very much part of Webkinz World’s future.
Thank you for the response!
Even though there will be no more plush toys this year, will ganz still be looking at the kinzstagram photography?
Absolutely :)