‘Are you kidding?’: David Jones gets in on popular viral craze
A popular item gaining huge traction overseas has now available at a huge Aussie retailer – and shoppers are losing their minds.
Fans of a plush toy range are over the moon after it launched one of the biggest stores ever dedicated to the beloved item.
Jellycats are incredibly soft, but fairly pricey, plush toys that were originally created in the UK, and have fast become a rising global trend.
The stuffed animals have proved incredibly popular (the bunnies and bears in particular), instantly becoming a hot-ticket item, that have even emerged as a top gift when welcoming a newborn.
However the Amuseables range — which features everything from blocks of parmesan cheese to dill pickles — is what has proven to have won the hearts of adults.
Now older and younger Aussies alike are expressing excitement over the fact that David Jones in Sydney’s CBD has a dedicated internal Jellycat store.
There’s also one in the DJs inside the newly renovated Chatswood Chase mall.
While David Jones had carried a small part of the range previously, there was no dedicated space.
It now boasts Australia’s largest collection of Jellycats. The Sydney CBD store also has an entire Christmas window dedicated to plush toy — starring several oversized marshmallows.
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Tina Provis, from I’m A Celebrity … Get Me Out Of Here! and Love Island Australia, was one of the first influencers who got a sneak peek at the Sydney CBD location, which is located on Level 9.
She showed some of items in the range — including a stack of waffles and a Christmas collection.
“So many cuties looking for homes,” she said.
Popular lifestyle and food content creator @anniesbucketlist also shared her preview, sharing her excitement about the Amuseables.
“They’ve even got all the big Jellycat Jacks here and stuffed animals like skydragon, Gobfrey the whale shark and Bartholemew Bear in a robe,” she said.
“There’s also a Jellycat Christmas cart with all the limited edition Christmas stock.”
She showed the prices of the range with some items costing $52.99, $86.99 and $144.99.
Understandably, in the current global cost of living crisis, some were stunned by the price point.
“Why didn’t they keep the overseas prices (but I know the exchange to AUD is crazy),” one social media user said.
Another said: “How expensive are they?!”
“The price WTF,” one social media user asked.
Another said: “Wait, what!?! Them plush!!! But the price tag — ouch!”
But others didn’t seem to care that much about the price point.
“I need to go here,” one social media user said.
“I was literally at Sydney CBD at Meeq. Ae you kidding,” another said.
Some complained that the store hadn’t been established in their city. No matter what you think of the price point, the plush toy has proven to be incredibly popular with shoppers.
David Huggett is the CEO of IsAlbi, which is the distributor of Jellycats in Australia. He said the brand was seeing “microtrends” when it came to the range.
“Like the bag charms — you’ll see this is a trend going through social media which is really driving people to attach one, two or three key chains onto their bag,” he said.
“I think there is a lot of little trends you’ll see with Jellycats.”
He said what he loved about the brand was that it regularly created “fan moments” as it always had new products and it was constantly on trend.
Mr Huggett even weighed in on whether or not Sydney, following in the footsteps of the Jellycat Diner in New York and the Fish and Chips shop in London — would be getting its own fan experience.
This is where the food-themed experiences come in. Customers can nab soft toys that look good enough to eat, such as Birthday Cake, Fran Pancakes, Egglatine Egg On Toast, Go To Coffee or ab Irresistible Chocolate Ice Cream, among others.
Workers then pretend to cook the toy in front of waiting shoppers.
A viral video shows one worker talking to a young customer, handing the burger over and telling him to “slam it into the grill”.
“Oh my god, it’s so hot,” she screamed.
Meanwhile, another colleague sings as he swirls a pancake in a bowl on the oven top.
“We all want a Jellycat experience. Jellycat experiences around the world are phenomenal and they’re in some very iconic cities,” he said.
“I think Sydney is an iconic city so I think we would love to see it one day and we’d work closely with Jellycat to bring that to life.”
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Originally published as ‘Are you kidding?’: David Jones gets in on popular viral craze
