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How To Pre-Order A Bear And Our Follow-Up Procedures

We have changed our pre-order procedures, as follows:

To Pre-Order A Bear:

Pre-order requests will be accepted from Charlie Bears Best Friends Club members once the electronic version of the catalog has gone live on the Charlie’s Secret Cupboard Facebook page. Requests from those who are not Best Friends Club members will be accepted following the official launch (usually a week later). We will try to confirm pre-order requests (or let you know if we are already fully reserved) within 48 hours of receipt of your request. At that time, we will also let you know if you are in one of the top 5 spots on our list (see below for why that matters).

All pre-order requests should be submitted to [email protected] for the pre-order request to be officially recorded. 

There is no deposit required to pre-order a plush bear. If pre-ordering a bear/character from the Isabelle Collection or the Signature Collection, a $25 non-refundable/non-transferrable deposit is required to be paid (we will send you a PayPal invoice) before we will confirm the pre-order. If that invoice is not paid within 48 hours (of the time the invoice is sent), we will consider that to mean that you do not want a confirmed pre-order and we will only place you on our wish list for that bear/character. Once the bear arrives, assuming you paid the $25, it will be deducted from the adoption fee in figuring the balance due. The $25 is only forfeited if you cancel or do not follow through on the pre-order. 

If you request to be notified about a bear’s future arrival by using the “Put Me On The Waiting List” button on this website, we will let you know if we can add you to our confirmed pre-order list or only to our wish list. If we let you know we can confirm a pre-order, please consider that as your personal commitment to adopt the bear when he/she arrives. If you are really not looking for a confirmed pre-order but are just interested In knowing when the bear arrives, please let us know that and we will only add you to our wish list.

Our Follow-Up Procedures:

For Isabelle Collection bears, once they arrive and have been photographed, you will be contacted individually about choosing your bear according to your place on our pre-order list.

If you are one of the first 5 people on our confirmed pre-order list for a plush bear, you will also be contacted individually about choosing your bear according to your place on our pre-order list.

If you have a confirmed pre-order for a plush bear but are not in one of those top 5 slots, you will still be guaranteed the bear but will choose your bear from those remaining, with selection being on a first come, first served (meaning first adopted/paid for) basis once we make available the listing with individual photos here on our store website.

The above is just a summary of our new pre-order procedures. To be fully transparent so there are no surprises later, more detail is provided below. I know there is a lot of information to digest (it takes more time to explain the procedures than it will for you to choose and pay for your bear – lol) but I strongly suggest that you read the More Details section below in its entirety to understand how the new procedures might affect you.

More Details:

Once we have been notified by Charlie Bears that a bear we have ordered is ready to be shipped to us:

We will post a list of the bears coming in our next shipment on our Blog page (we suggest that you subscribe to our Blog to receive notification when we add a Blog post). Prior to actual delivery (which is usually within 2 weeks after our notification from Charlie Bears), we will also try and send an email to those with confirmed pre-orders with notification as to which of your pre-ordered bears will soon be on their way to us. However, sometimes our pre-order list for an upcoming delivery is so large that it would be too time consuming to send individual emails which is why we recommend that you subscribe to our Blog. When we do send emails, to avoid them possibly going to your spam folder, please add all three of our email addresses to your “safe contact” list: [email protected], [email protected] and [email protected].

Please note that we don’t always receive our full allocation of a bear at one time. In our Blog post about the bears arriving soon, we will note which bears are only a partial shipment of our order. In those cases, it may mean that we won’t have a bear available for everyone on our pre-order list until later.

If your bear will be arriving soon and you anticipate needing a layaway, please let us know and see our website’s Layaway page for instructions on how to proceed.

Once the bears have arrived and been photographed:

If you are on our confirmed pre-order list for an Isabelle Collection bear or one of the first 5 people on our confirmed pre-order list for a plush bear…

You will be notified by email when it is your turn to choose (from photos in the Bears Against MS Photo Gallery at https://tinyurl.com/BAMSPhotoGallery). Please note, photos may be full body shots or may only be a close-up of the bear’s face. Please be respectful of other collectors waiting to choose their bear and get your choice(s) to us as quickly as possible. If we do not hear back from you within 24 hours, we reserve the right to move on to the next person on our list and move you down the list, including if necessary, moving you to a spot below the first five.

Note, the Bears Against MS Photo Gallery will continue to have both generally available and Reserved But Not Yet Allocated folders. However, to protect individual collectors’ privacy, once a bear is spoken for, its photo will be moved to a non-public folder.

If you are not one of the first 5 people on our confirmed pre-order list for a plush bear…

You will choose your bear from those listed on the Pre-Orders page of our store website. At least 24 hours prior to you being able to order from the website, we will post a notice both on the Pre-Orders page and on our Blog page with the title of the listing and the anticipated date and time that the listing will go "live". It is important that you understand that you won't receive an individual notice with this information. 

If, for whatever reason, rather than you choosing your bear from the website, you prefer that I choose a bear for you, you should send me an email (use the Contact Us link in the left side panel) asking that I do that for you and include any details that will help me choose (e.g. “I like happy faces with larger eye whites” or “I like sweet faces with smaller eye whites”, etc.)

Once all pre-ordered bears have been claimed or 7 days after the individual bears have been listed on the Pre-Orders page of our store website, whichever comes first, all unclaimed bears will be moved from the Pre-Orders page to the bear’s general listing and will be available for anyone (with or without a pre-order) to adopt.

So if you have a pre-order but do not either adopt the bear or agree to the layaway terms within 7 days of the bear’s website Pre-Orders page listing, your pre-order will be subject to cancellation unless other arrangements are requested by you and agreed to by us in our sole discretion.

Wish Lists:

Once a bear is fully reserved, subsequent pre-order requests will be added to our “wish list” for that bear. If the bear later becomes available either due to a pre-order cancellation or if we can get more, I will contact those on our “wish list”. Depending on the number of wish list requests, I may send emails one at a time (in the order the person is listed on our wish list) or I may send a general email to everyone on the wish list in which case the first person to respond saying they want the bear will be moved to our confirmed pre-order list.

If you are on our wish list and are able to secure the bear with another stockist, please let us know that so we can remove you from our list.

Pre-Order requests for Secret Collection bears are initially always considered "wish list" requests as we don't officially learn what our allocation is until just before the bear is ready to ship to us. Once we know our allocation, we will confirm the pre-order (or not).

Pre-Order Cancellations:

We understand that circumstances change but you should consider a pre-order, while not a legal contract, a personal commitment to adopt the bear. If you need to cancel a pre-order or a wish list request, please let us know as soon as possible. Unfortunately our pre-order cancellations increased significantly over the last couple of years. So from now on, people who habitually cancel their pre-orders without good reason (e.g. “I got impatient and bought one directly from Charlie Bears” is not a good reason) or simply don’t follow through with the adoptions will not be eligible for one of the top 5 spots on our pre-order lists but will be placed further down our lists or if their cancellations are egregious, may only be placed on our wish lists, not our confirmed pre-order lists.

If you have any questions regarding any of these procedures, please don’t hesitate to contact me.

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