The demand for a Science Museum of Minnesota hoodie made wildly popular by the Netflix show "Stranger Things" has overwhelmed production of it, leaving some customers wondering when they'll get their goods.
Rest assured, the hoodies will soon be in the mail.
The crushing demand for the purple hoodie featuring a brontosaurus skeleton along with the other clothing items "exceeded our wildest expectations," said Kim Ramsden, the museum's communications director.
The museum originally sold the "Thunder Lizard" hoodie in the mid-1980s. Now thanks to Dustin, a nerdy, happy-go-lucky middle-schooler on the Netflix show who wore the purple hoodie, the museum has revived its production.
Museum officials expected to sell 10,000 to 15,000 "Thunder Lizard" clothing items when they began taking orders in early November, Ramsden said. So far, they've sold more than 30,000 T-shirts, sweatshirts and a recently added onesie for babies to customers across the country and around the world — including a recent order from Norway, she said.
The revenue from those orders will translate into an extra $500,000 for the museum's education programs, Ramsden said.
On the downside, the crush of orders taxed the museum's Green Bay, Wis., supplier, Promotional Designs Inc., and Shopify, the e-commerce platform where customers placed their orders. The demand caused a glitch that meant some orders were processed without a tracking number.
So there's some anxiety among customers who expected quicker deliveries and were concerned they couldn't track their orders, Ramsden said.
Ramsden said every order that was placed before Nov. 24 is expected to be shipped this week and delivered by the first full week in December. "The first week we had 18,000 orders the first couple days," she said. "Now we're selling several hundred items a day."
Mary Lynn Smith • 612-673-4788
