To the SPO & Collectible Community:
Most of you never get to talk to owners of stores whether they are big or small and I always make it a priority to send you an open letter once a year. Myself and my staff strive to be as much as we can a part of your lives as a part of you trusting us as your go to place to purchase. In this letter I will go over many achievements we have made over the past year and what we have in store for you for 2021!
I know that 2020 has not been the best of years, quite frankly one of the worse for many people. I am truly sorry for many of you who were affected. We received many emails over the year about how covid has affected you and we have done the best we can to help those who were having trouble as well as donate to many families who were severely impacted. I hope that it gets better for everyone this year.
Over 2020 we have made many improvements to SPO which some of you might know of and some of you might not be aware of. I will briefly go over what we have done and how we have improved your experience with us before we get into 2021.
Launched a SPO app on App Store and Google Play (instant Funko, deal notifications and quick shopping)
Launched VIP benefits (special perks for ongoing customers)
Improved Website and Navigation (added filters and cleaner interface)
Released 4 Funko SPO Exclusives (Mandalorian, Marvel and Dragon Ball)
Onboarded a shipping and customer service team (faster turn arounds)
Partnered with several new brands to provide such as Pokemon TCG, Video Games, Stitch Shoppe (pop culture apparel) and many more collectible brands
Above are just a few of the key milestones for SPO this year and did not want to bore you with all the more trivial successes that we have had. We achieved our goal on being able to offer a wider range of collectibles and appreciate our communities input on what to provide! Thank you to everyone who has helped us grow and I thank anyone as well for the future if you decide to shop with our store.
We are excited to get into 2021 as much as you are for 2020 to have finally ended. We are launching several new features (some even start today!), providing commitments to you and being more involved with the community. This is our goal for 2021 to put it short, we want to be more involved with you! I will go over all the details below on how we will improve SPO this year for you.
On Time Products – I for one am extremely excited about this. I know last year due to covid and manufacturing failing to deliver on promised times we were still able to work out accounts up and get into a better position with the brands we work with. By doing so we are now right at the top of the chain (we won’t beat target, gamestop, etc.) and should be receiving product the same time it releases in stores! This is something huge that we have had a lot of requests for and we can now proudly say moving forward (anything ordered starting today on) we are in a very good position of getting collectibles first. We will continue to improve our relationships with brands and work on being one of the places you can trust to have your product at release across the board.
VIP – We have now added more features to our VIP program with the launch of VIP Tiers. Our VIP already offers a lot of special perks and we have come up with more ways to reward you moving forward as you keep purchasing with our store. Just to announce some of the highlights of the new VIP benefits being added are reserving any TCG product before the public, dedicated VIP rep available to you Monday through Friday, weekly updated inventory sheets of what you can get that’s in stock from brands you may not know about and many more new benefits! During the course of next week, you will receive an email with your respective Tier and password to access the VIP page.
Better Customer Service – Working off the feedback from staff over the past year and from you we have updated our commitments and are prepared for 2021. Any emails received whether you are a VIP or not will be responded to within 2 business days whether we have an answer or we are waiting on a response from one of the brands to get the answer to you. We will respond! The average of last year was about a week turn around time. With the team we have in place we are making this commitment to you. One of the top inquiries of last year was a general “when does this product release/ship” and we always respond of when the manufacturer is expected to ship (not when we ship to you) which we cannot control when they do. As a part of our commitment to keep you updated on every order, I am excited to announce we will be launching our weekly updated order reports! What this means is that if you place any purchase with us, at the end of each week you will get an email updating you on when the expected shipping date is from the manufacturer to us. In doing so we hope this eases the burden of you having to search our website for the status update dates or having to email us and waste time to find out. This program will be up and running within the next 2 months so be on the lookout for that weekly email!
Website – We are currently in the process of improving the feel again of the website. We hear you and still see a lot of clutter so to speak on our store and will be removing older products that won’t be coming in at all from the store and improving the category filters on each product collection. We look forward to making your shopping experience a little easier by the end of this month.
Special Events/Twitch Streaming – In December we launched a Pokemon TCG Online tournament that was very successful with the winner getting a TCG booster box (MSRP Value $143). We are now officially launching special events and tournaments for the community! From games to brand special events throughout this year we will set up a calendar of events. When we get close to a special event we will send a newsletter via email and let you know how to participate. Starting tomorrow you can participate in a Pokemon TCG ONLINE single elimination tournament to win physical prizes! For the most up to date news on fun events and games please join our discord (see below). We have also launched our Twitch channel so I can personally chat with you and we can have fun doing live TCG breaks together. We will also be hosting games and tournaments live on Twitch for physical prizes. Make sure to join here: https://www.twitch.tv/shoppoponline. We are also launching a mini VIP program on Twitch as well. For subscribing on Twitch you will start to earn FREE live TCG Pack breaks every month so make sure to check it out if you are into TCG!
Discord – We have had a community discord for quite a while now you can join here: https://discord.gg/UXk9NfQ. We have revamped our discord to be centered around you! On our discord you can win prizes, sign up for games and tournaments with prizes, chat with other collectors, show off your collection, talk about mainstream pop culture, play games with others right through our discord bots and more! There is even a special place for VIP members and Twitch subscribers! We invite you to come check it out!
TCG – I am very excited about our TCG products upcoming this year and having a direct involvement in this! We have expanded from Pokemon TCG to now carrying (or soon to carry) Cardfight!! Vanguard, Digimon, Dragon Ball Super, Final Fantasy, Flesh and Blood, Force of Will, Future Card Buddyfight, My Hero Academia, Weiss Schwarz and Yu-Gi-Oh! We have updated this section on our website to include accessories, singles/bundles, PTCGO codes and live breaks! Check out our easy-to-use interface here: https://shoppoponline.com/pages/tcg.
Exclusives – I will not be able to leak much information about this unfortunately! Be on the lookout this month and next months for more Funko SPO Exclusives to be announced and released! You can pick up the few exclusives we have left that are not sold out here: https://shoppoponline.com/collections/shoppoponline-exclusives.
More Brands – One of the other focus points of this year will be to add brands you want! We hear your suggestions every time and are always exploring options to bring on board to SPO. Look forward to seeing more brand options towards the middle of 2021!
I know this letter was long winded but I wanted to make sure to keep you involved as we keep working harder to be a part of you. I look forward to SPO being able to help out with any of your needs this year! Thank you for taking the time to read this and as a bonus here is a discount for 15% off any 1 item at our store (no restrictions) valid through Sunday 1/3: owner. I hope you have an amazing year and feel free to reach out to us anytime you need something to Support@ShopPopONLINE.com.
Best Wishes,
Colton Kleynhans