I decided to finally look on Google (there was no worthwhile info on YouTube) about mass production of plushies (since we already know how commission plushies by 1 artist goes).
Plushie production process in China (how the toys are actually made): Interesting, contains images.
One example of a company who makes plushies (the site is in English, but the factory is in China) and about minimum orders and other details.
More details of the process by the same company: You have to get a prototype ($250-500 for this one plushie alone) made and approved first. The cost of materials increases with size of the plushy.
Here is another example from a blog about people interested in plushies of main characters from books/games. The previous company required a 500 piece minimum order. The example in this blog is much bigger. The prototype was made by an artist experienced in making prototype plushies and charged $75 per hour (ending up at a whopping $1,000 prototype plushy), rather than the example of my friend who would make commission plushies that cost based on size (I think it was only around $25 for the plushie itself and no charge for the labor). The incentive for working with a professional prototype artist was to save headache with a Chinese/English language barrier. I think if you can draw your own ideas for a prototype, it might help save time (though you wouldn't be able to draw the master plan pieces if you don't know how plushies work).
Plushie production process in China (how the toys are actually made): Interesting, contains images.
One example of a company who makes plushies (the site is in English, but the factory is in China) and about minimum orders and other details.
More details of the process by the same company: You have to get a prototype ($250-500 for this one plushie alone) made and approved first. The cost of materials increases with size of the plushy.
Here is another example from a blog about people interested in plushies of main characters from books/games. The previous company required a 500 piece minimum order. The example in this blog is much bigger. The prototype was made by an artist experienced in making prototype plushies and charged $75 per hour (ending up at a whopping $1,000 prototype plushy), rather than the example of my friend who would make commission plushies that cost based on size (I think it was only around $25 for the plushie itself and no charge for the labor). The incentive for working with a professional prototype artist was to save headache with a Chinese/English language barrier. I think if you can draw your own ideas for a prototype, it might help save time (though you wouldn't be able to draw the master plan pieces if you don't know how plushies work).
More unexpected stuff to think about (safety and logo tags). If the prototype plushie costs $500-$1000, and a "small" batch of plushies has an ADDITIONAL set up fee of $2000 in order to get $2500, what is the ACTUAL cost of the material/labor/shipping to your country in order to get the plushies made? I imagine the normal amount of 10,000 plushies would cost a lot. Where would you store them? How would you ship them? Does the Chinese company own the copyright to your plushies? This isn't even considering contacting the Vocaloid company for a character license.At most factories the minimum order is about 10,000 units, but for an additional set up fee of about $2,000 some will do 2,500 pieces for you. If you provide digital artwork, the factory will print and affix the hangtags as well. Remember that you’ll need to do safety testing for the toy, too.