Partner Spotlight is a series designed to highlight the vendors that partner with ABA to offer discounted products, services, and business opportunities to ABA members. Each installment, we interview a different partner to learn more about their organization and why indie bookstores matter to them.
Punchkins is a new brand of collectible plushies that are STUFFED with personality. They offer a wide range of plush to appeal to anyone and their new book-adjacent plush gifts and bookmarks are the perfect complement to any bookstore.
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Bookselling This Week met with Dante Trasatti, Punchkins' VP of Sales, to learn more.
Bookselling This Week: Why don’t you tell us a little about the origin of the company?
Dante Trasatti: The core team at Punchkins had actually worked together before on previous projects, so when the founder started Punchkins, he brought us with him.
So although the brand’s new, the team has been in this industry for a long time, and we have experience telling jokes through different mediums.
Plushies were new for us, but they're a really cool way to design something fun, and tell a joke on it. Little did we know, it's kind of like reading in a way, where reading the product brings you joy.
BTW: That's awesome. It's really cool to know that y'all have been together for a while, even though this particular product or brand is new.
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DT: Because we're new, we’re not experts, so our product looks different. I don't want to say it was a happy accident, but we didn't know if there were rules to making plushies like this.
We're not doing traditional stuffed teddy bears and cute and cuddly stuff. We're making random things, like our little RV. We got a pun, “RV there yet,” and it's got embroidered little Christmas lights on it and little windows.
There's terminology that goes around in gift and toy products these days, “Kidult,” which is a mashup of products that make grownups feel like kids.
Honestly, the whole team — there's seven of us — are just big kids. We all have a great sense of humor and, and in some way, shape, or form, we all participate in the designs and the jokes that we tell on these items. It's really cool.
BTW: I love it. And I feel like the older you get, the more you realize that adulthood is just a myth and keeping that whimsy is important.
DT: Oh, 100%. We all want a little bit of comfort out of the day.
I like to describe our products as personal mascots. You immediately connect with a product in the catalog or on the website (or you know somebody in your life will connect to it) and you want to sit it on your desk. You want to put it someplace where it's this charming reminder of who you are or as a misery-loves-company kind of comfort.
That's a common thread, no pun intended, through a lot of our products. Whether it's the dumpster fire or the little ghost that says “Livin’ the Nightmare,” they’re so relatable because our lives as adults can be funny but also sad in some ways.
BTW: I love that little dumpster fire.
DT: He's the best. He's still our number one bestseller.
BTW: What prompted you to partner with ABA and our members?
DT: We've become sort of a bookseller darling, because we've been accused of being book adjacent.
It's not just because of the literal adjacency with the product, but because our product tickles your brain the same way a book would — it’s something for your brain to subconsciously figure out.
BTW: There's such a range of products that I feel like all of our bookstores will find something that matches their particular vibe.
DT: There really, really are.
I love that when I look across all the bookstores that carry Punchkins, at a glance, they order a lot of the same stuff in some way. It makes me feel good that we're accidentally catering to booksellers with our sense of humor.
BTW: When y'all started, did you see yourself being sold in bookstores at all?
DT: Nope. Not at all. When the owner started Punchkins, he called me up to say, “I’m starting this company, see what you think about it. I think it’s totally you.”
Series one was this cross-section of dad jokes, cute puns, and a few edgier items. The approach for us, internally, was that this was uncharted territory. It's like lava. We’ll see where it flows and see what catches fire.
So, years one and two, were really about seeing where this lava flowed — and it was flowing everywhere.
Like you said, there's something for everybody in the catalog, so we were attracting bakeries and cafes as well as conventional gift shops, but little did we know that the jokes had resonance across all kinds of things.
We were turning up in adult shops, and smoke shops, and all kinds of places. Counterculture liked us. It's become quite ubiquitous.
The original lineup had about 30 items, and we were really cutting our teeth on what the factory could do.
We were really pushing the factory to do things because, again, we didn’t have any experience with plushies. We didn't know if there were limits, and we got really lucky, because our factory partner allows us to do really crazy things. For example, we use some pretty unique fabric for our toaster and tater tot designs.
BTW: I do need to know now, though, if you have a favorite design.
DT: That is a really tough one.
It's easy for me to say the dumpster fire, because it's just everything for everybody, but I feel like that's kind of lazy because it's such a good selling item.
Maybe the D20. I recommended we make the D20 because I'm a huge gaming nerd.
Another big group of customers, which is bookseller adjacent, is the hobby and game stores. We go to the GAMA (Game Manufacturers Association) show every year, they’re like the ABA of board games. So I thought, “Let’s do a D20, but let’s do it Punchkin style.”
BTW: I was actually excited when we partnered with y'all, because I had started seeing Punchkins in some of my local bookstores. Is there anything you want to tease? Any new releases or hints about future designs?
DT: The team is always very guarded with me about what they're working on, because I'm front-facing and they don't want me to spill the beans about stuff.
But I can say we are expanding our series of Booksies.
Now that we've found our voice and our design strengths, this is really a flex as far as plushies go. They aren’t jokes and there is not a single bit of print on them — the design is entirely embroidered.
Booksies are plush books. We've taken public domain titles and we've created ridiculously high-end, well-made plushies.
We launched them last year, starting with designs for Pride and Prejudice, Moby Dick, The Tell-Tale Heart, Alice in Wonderland, and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
They were overwhelmingly embraced, which was no surprise because these titles are so timeless, so this year we added Winnie the Pooh and The Great Gatsby. They just debuted, and everybody went bananas for them.
We're going to continue this series, and we're going to have some fun seasonal ones in the back half of the year!
We may also do more book plushies, because we're so close to the consumers now that they slide into our DMs and make suggestions.
We're really just not going to stop.
Booksellers have been so awesome, and at the end of the day, we're kind of in the same business, which is this ultimate expression of free speech. We celebrate the ability to say anything and share it with everybody, and I feel like that transcends just making products to sell to people.
BTW: Is there anything else that you want to mention, that we haven't talked about anything that you feel is important to say to our members?
DT: I can't voice my appreciation enough for this overwhelming and unanimous way everyone has embraced a small little brand like us.
You guys doing this to us is the ultimate flattery, because you appreciate us for who we are and what we're doing. I'm so thankful.
ABA members are eligible for 10% off orders $150 (or more). Visit the ABA Partners page for more details.