Sampling and product development

From a brief to a signed sample

Pattern development, soft samples, revision rounds and the production sample that governs bulk. This is the route a new pet toy takes when the shape does not exist yet — and the page that explains what a sample can prove, what it cannot, and what drives the number of rounds before you sign one off.

Start a Development Brief See the stages

Routes: ODM adaptation or full OEM development
Sample types: Presentation, soft sample, production sample
Documentation: Specification sheet issued with the approved sample
Bulk control: Production held to the signed sample, not to the drawing

The stages

Three different things called a sample

Most disagreements about sampling come from using one word for three different objects. A presentation sample, a soft sample and a production sample are made at different points, cost different amounts and prove different things.

What each sample is for, and the limits of what it can tell you.
Sample	What it is	What it proves	What it cannot prove
Presentation sample	An existing construction made up with your branding and packaging. No pattern work.	That the branding placement, the colourway and the packaging are what you expected on a real unit.	Nothing about a new shape, because there is no new shape. This sample belongs to the private label route.
Soft sample	A first physical build from a new or adapted pattern, usually in a substitute fabric, with the features present but not finalised.	Proportion, silhouette and how the design behaves when it becomes a three-dimensional object.	Final colours, final pile, fill weight or how the sound device performs in production. Those are set in the round or two that follow.
Production sample	The build exactly as it will be made: final fabric, final fill, final inserts, final branding and packaging.	Everything the order is judged on. This is the unit that is signed, and the one bulk is held against.	That bulk will match it perfectly — which is what the inspection routine exists for, not the sample.

A sample is a working object rather than a preview. Sending one to a buyer, getting a comment, and producing another is the process working correctly — not a sign that the first sample failed.

From brief to bulk

The six stages of a development order

Every new pet toy we develop passes through these six stages. The order is fixed; what varies is how many rounds stage three takes, and that is the number that decides the development cost.

STAGE 01
Brief review

Your brief, reference or artwork is read against what is manufacturable. Where a detail will not hold in production — a shape that will not sew, a print that will not register across a seam — we say so here rather than at sample stage.
STAGE 02
Concept and pattern

The design becomes a pattern: panels, seam lines, feature placement and the order the operations happen in. On a moulded build this stage is tooling instead, and it is the longest single stage on the order.
STAGE 03
Prototype and revision

The soft sample is built and sent. Comments come back, the pattern is adjusted, and another sample is built. This repeats until the shape is agreed — and the number of rounds is the main variable in both time and cost.
STAGE 04
Production sample

The approved shape is built in the final fabric, with the final fill, inserts, branding and packaging. This is the sample that will be signed, so it is the one worth examining most carefully.
STAGE 05
Specification sheet

The signed sample is written up: dimensions, materials, fill weight, insert specification, branding placement, packaging and the compliance file set. The sheet is what a reorder is produced from, years later, without the sample to hand.
STAGE 06
Bulk production

Production runs to the signed sample and the sheet, with the inspection routine attached at fixed points. Where bulk and sample differ, the sample governs — which is the whole reason it is signed.

Revision rounds

Why some designs take two rounds and some take six

Revision rounds are not a measure of how difficult a factory is being. They are a measure of how much the design changes between one sample and the next — and each of the factors below is a decision the buyer controls.

How complete the brief was

A brief that states the dimensions, the fabric, the fill, the inserts and the branding is sampled once at each stage. A brief that leaves two of those open is sampled again when they are decided.

How many people review it

Where a sample goes to procurement, design and marketing in sequence, each round of comments arrives separately. Collecting them into one response is the single most effective way to cut the number of rounds.

How far the shape travels

Adding a colourway to an agreed pattern is not a round. Changing the silhouette is. If the shape is still moving between samples, the pattern is being rewritten each time.

Whether the fabric is settled

Pile height, weight and stretch change how a pattern sews and how a shape sits. A fabric change after the first sample usually costs a round, which is why fabric is fixed early.

Where the sound device goes

Seating position affects the pattern, the fill and the seam order. Deciding it at the brief stage costs nothing; deciding it after the third sample costs a fourth.

Whether packaging is agreed alongside

Packaging approved with the sample shares one round. Packaging approved after bulk adds a print job to a schedule that has already been committed.

The brief

What a development brief has to contain

A brief is not a drawing. It is the set of decisions a pattern maker needs in order to build something that can actually be made — and every item below that is missing becomes an assumption in the quotation.

Shape and size

What the product is, its finished dimensions, and the size run if it is graded. A sketch, a reference photograph of a competitor product or a written description all work; a dimensioned drawing works best.

Construction

Plush, squeaky, no-stuffing, chew or interactive, and whether the design is an adaptation of something existing or a new shape entirely. This decides whether there is tooling.

Materials

Shell fabric and pile where it is known, fill type and density, and any material the product must avoid. Where the material is not known, say what the product has to feel and behave like instead.

Features and inserts

Squeakers, rattles, crinkle layers, treat cavities, attachments, and where each one sits. Placement is a pattern input, not a finishing detail.

Branding

Where your logo goes and how it is applied, with artwork. Embroidery, woven labels, printed tags and moulded logos each have a different point by which they must be decided.

Packaging and market

The packaging format and the destination market. The destination decides which test reports and certificates the product carries, and that set is confirmed before sampling rather than after.

The buying guides include a longer walk-through of preparing a product development brief, including the questions worth answering before the brief is written rather than after the first sample.

Cost

What drives the cost of developing a toy

Development is quoted per project rather than per product, because two projects of the same size can differ by a factor in effort. These are the four things that move it, in the order they usually matter.

Development cost drivers

Quoted per project

Tooling: Moulded constructions need a tool cut before anything can be sampled. This is the largest single item on a moulded development order, and it is also the one that carries forward: the tool belongs to the product, so a second shape from the same family is much cheaper than the first.
Number of revision rounds: Each round is pattern time, sample time and materials. The factors that reduce rounds are listed above, and together they are the most controllable part of a development budget.
Number of sizes and colourways: Grading one pattern across a size run is far cheaper than developing separate shapes, and colourways are counted as separate sample sets even when the pattern is shared.
Testing and documentation: Which reports and certificates the product has to carry, decided by the destination market and the retail channel. A market that requires more evidence is a longer and more expensive sampling stage, not a hidden charge later.

Send a brief for quotation

Handover to production

What happens after the sample is signed

Signing a sample is not the end of development. It is the point at which the product stops being described in words and starts being described by a document that bulk is measured against.

The specification sheet

Dimensions, materials, fill weight, insert specification, branding placement, packaging and the applicable compliance file set. This is what a reorder is built from, and what an inspection is checked against.

The approved sample

Held as the reference unit. Where bulk and the sheet disagree, the sample decides. It is the physical record of what was agreed, which a drawing never is.

The inspection routine

Incoming material, in-line checks, finished goods and pre-shipment, weighted towards where that construction fails. The routine is described on the quality control page.

Reorder stability

A reorder runs against the sheet rather than from a photograph, so fabric, colour, fill and packaging repeat. Where a mill discontinues a material, that is raised before production rather than discovered in the carton.

What buyers ask about development

It depends on the construction and on how many rounds the design needs, so we give a sampling date in the quotation against the brief rather than a generic figure. A private label presentation sample and a new moulded toy are weeks apart in effort, and quoting one number for both would be misleading.

Where the construction already exists in the range, yes — that is the private label route, and the first sample is a presentation sample built to final specification. Where the shape is new, skipping the soft sample means the first time you see the proportions is also the last chance to change them.

On an OEM build the design is yours and the pattern developed to make it is part of what the order pays for. That is stated in the quotation rather than left to interpretation, because it decides what happens if you later move the product to another supplier.

That is what the round is for. Comments are collected, the pattern is adjusted and another sample is built. What we try to avoid is a sample being wrong for a reason that was knowable at the brief stage — those rounds are avoidable, and they are the ones that cost time rather than money.

The sample is function-checked and inspected against its own specification, and the applicable test reports are established from the destination market before sampling so that the sample is built to the standard it will be tested against. Testing for a market we have not been told about is the most common cause of a second round of testing.

Send a brief and get a sampling plan back

Tell us the shape, the construction, the size run, the features and the destination market. You will get a sampling plan showing the stages, the applicable minimum order quantity and the compliance file set. Related reading: the OEM and ODM routes and the buying guides.

Start a Development Brief See the workshop