Build-A-Bear announces: Animal Crossing™: New Horizons collection to launch tomorrow
If you are following Build-A-Bear on Twitter, or if you had the foresight to sign up for their newsletter emails, you may have heard that the long awaited Animal Crossing™: New Horizons line will be dropping tomorrow.
The big question is, which characters will they be featuring?
A few weeks ago Build-A-Bear announced that they would be launching an Animal Crossing™: New Horizons line, and the internet was a buzz with questions. The toy company gave very little information at the time, which left plenty of room for speculation.
Since then we have heard nothing from either Nintendo, nor Build-A-Bear that would give a clue as to exactly when the plushies would come out, if there would be a purchase limit, or which characters were on the roster.
Now, nearly four weeks later, without any warning, they have announced that customers will be able to sign up for a virtual queue tomorrow morning. The sale begins at 10:00a.m. CST, and you can log on to secure your place in line starting at 9:30a.m. CST.
If you aren’t a part of the email list, here’s what you need to know:
- The “line” is random.
If you’re familiar with virtual waiting rooms at all, you’ll know how stressful they can be when trying to make sure you get an early enough spot. For this virtual line, you will be able to sign on a half-hour before the sale begins, but don’t worry about being the first to sign on because your spot in line will be assigned at random.
2. You can walk away from your computer.
If you’re someone who can’t stand to sit and stare at their computer for 30+ minutes, you’re in luck. If you sign up for email notifications you can go about your day and you will receive an email when your turn is approaching.
3. You’re timed.
A couple weeks ago the Animal Crossing: New Horizons fanbase had a similar event in the form of Sanrio amiibo’s being released exclusively at Target. There was a huge problem with scalpers buying up whole stocks of amiibo’s and a lot of people missed out. Many fans are concerned that there will be a repeat of this experience with Build-A-Bear, so it’s possible that adding a time limit was the company’s solution to this problem(though it seems that limiting one purchase per customer would have been a much more relaxing shopping experience). Whatever the reason, once it is your turn to log on to the website and pick out your Build-A-Bear, you will have a limited amount of time to browse the characters and finalize your purchase.
4. They will be released in stores this Summer.
If you aren’t excited about the idea of getting up early tomorrow, or you don’t want to deal with the stress of a timed website browse, there is hope. According to their email update, Build-A-Bear will be releasing the Animal Crossing™: New Horizons collection in the Workshop this summer. They have suggested that there will be restocks online, so if you are the patient type, you may be in luck!
5. They STILL have not said which characters will be available.
At the time of writing this, Build-a-Bear’s announcement as been out for several hours, and there seems to be no indication as to which Animal Crossing™: New Horizons characters will be in the collection. My only guess as to why they are continuing to withhold this information is that they want as much traffic to the sale as possible. One only has to scroll through the replies on Build-A-Bear’s official tweet to see that fans are much less interested in a collection that only features Tom Nook and Isabelle.
All in all it seems like Build-a-Bear is trying their best to accommodate as many customers as possible, and we’ll just have to hope that works out. Personally, I already have an alarm set and I will be ready with coffee at 7:15a.m. PST.
Good luck everyone!
