Build-A-Bear, Spend-A-Fortune (Build a Bear)

Member Name: englishrose

Product:	Build a Bear
Date:	15/03/09 (145 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Traditional. Good Quality. Personal. Fun website

Disadvantages: Over-priced. A bit schmaltzy .

I first heard of Build-a-Bear last autumn, when my elder daughter attended a friends' birthday outing here. She came back with a personalized rabbit complete with its' own outfit , matching shoes and birth certificate, and was absolutely thrilled about the whole visit.

It's an American brand, and now has shops in all major cities in Britain.

Soon after my daughter's visit, it was Christmas, and the spending money that Santa Claus brought was saved up for another visit to the Factory. By this time, my younger daughter aged 6 was also very interested.

There are about 20 or so bears to choose from, and they are not all strictly bears - some are dogs or rabbits, etc. When you enter the shop, you follow a strict route around the place so that you do everything in the correct order.

First you choose your 'skin' as all the bears are first of all without any stuffing. We chose a black labrador type dog, and a panda. Prices start at around £12, and go up to around £30, just for the 'skin' .

Next, you move along to the little computer where you choose if you want to enter a 'sound effect' into your creature. My children didn't want this so we moved along to the main event: The Stuffing!

A member of staff operates the stuffing machine, which in essence looks like a really big tumble dryer, all the stuffing is going around in a rotating drum: The animal you have chosen is wedged painfully onto an open ended pipe, and the children can operate the foot-pump to make the machine insert it's stuffing.

Optionally, you can also have a heart for your creature: The children choose either a plain or gingham red heart and place it in the chest of their chosen animal themselves. The sales assistant then pulls tight the threads to 'sew up' the opening and seal everything inside.

The sales staff were all very young and friendly, and chatting with the children (not mine though, who were overwhelmed with the experience and clammed up!). However, they do have a very American style of selling technique, and their job is to push you to buy more and more bits and pieces, shamelessly targeting the children to this end!

Right , so now your animal is complete - what it needs now is a birth certificate! You sit at the computer provided and fill in your details. It's optional , you don't have to fill in all your personal email address etc if you don't want to. Your child will choose a name for their bear, and fill this in. While you are browsing the clothes etc., the 'birth certificate' is being produced and will be given to you at checkout.

Clothing and accessories for your bear:

There are outfits for every occasion for the Build-a-Bear gang. There are male or female outfits, shoes, even little roller-skates and sunglasses, you name it, they've got it. FOR A PRICE: Everything is bought seperately, and nothing is cheap. For example, we bought a pair of gold strappy sandals at £5.00, a pink hooded sleeveless jacket at £10.00 and a ballerina style dress at £8.00 !

When you have finished , you may feel the need to smarten your bear up a bit before you go: There is another machine just for this, where you press the foot pump and it blows warm air out to 'fluff' the fur up again.

Okay, so when you think you have got everything, here's the most painful bit: Go to the checkout to get the total, and don't forget to collect the birth certificate: On this, your bear will have a serial number so that your child can 'register' it online, at the Build-A-Bear website.

They can then become a 'character' on this site, and chat with fellow fans: My 6 year old hasn't done this, but my 10 year old has, and can't get enough of it (supervised of course, and after being drilled by me about personal safety measures etc!).


Overall, we spent around £60.00. I would never normally spend this amount on 2 cuddly toys and some clothes for them, in my life, but I allowed them to because it was their own personal Christmas money, and also because Build-a-Bear is the big fad amongst their friends at school, and on those days when you can bring your toys in, this is what they are all bringing.

We visited the store in the days following Christmas last year, when every shop had the sales on , but I noticed that Build-a-Bear factory did not have any sale or reduced items at all. Saying that, it was really busy, full of other children doing the same as mine, spending their Christmas money, and lots of other parents standing around looking pale and sweaty like me! Several of us made eye contact with each other and exchanged sympathetic comments, which was quite funny.

The bears we bought have been in constant daily use ever since then, around 3 months ago, and they have lasted well in quality and playability: They accompany the children to bed at night as well.

Maybe it's because the children feel that they are personalised, but I think they have been played with more than any other toy we've ever had, and it's imaginative role-play type of playing too, which is great: These toys are very traditional and don't "do" anything so it gets the kids' imagination going.

Verdict: The kids love it, it's not just a shop , it's a total experience. It's quite painful for adults though, lol.

Summary: The kids love it :) The adults feel like they've been mugged :(