"Discontinued item" A sellers foolishness.

1) I like being able to browse through a doll maker's past works even when they're no longer available for purchase. Sure it would be sweet if those items were in their own little separate portfolio section & not mixed in with current, for sale items. But not having that won't get me all pissed off at a doll company. I'll just keep on browsing- it's part of the fun for me.

2) BJDs are luxury collectibles. Take a look at any other segment of luxury collectibles and you will find the same model of limited editions & exclusivity. I don't understand why this is a problem. There are loads of LE, sold out dolls that I would love to have in my collection, but probably never will due to scarcity & cost. That's ok. I'm fine with that. WE CAN'T ALWAYS GET EVERYTHING WE WANT. Learn to be ok with this or prepare for a life filled with bitter disappointment and pointless outrage.

3) Don't like the way a particular company runs their show? Take your dollars elsewhere. Or write a polite note/ request on their cs board explaining why you think a particular sold out item should be brought back. You never know- it might work. Or the company may have whatever you want in storage as a sample or something and offer to sell it to you. Volks has done this with LE sold out clothing at least twice that I know of.

4) BJD companies are in the main very small. One or two people, maybe as many as five or six. Even the Volks Super Dollfie & Dollfie Dream lines are small segments of the giant Volks hobby machine. Volks sells way more models & figures than dolls, and has been in that line of business for way longer than the BJD/ DD line. Please take this into consideration- many doll companies don't have the resources to hire web designers, accountants, marketing strategists and the like. Plus consider that Eastern BJD companies cater to their Eastern demographic. What might look like crazy marketing techniques to Westerners makes perfect business sense to the Asian market.

5) Just because an item is sold out & discontinued does not mean it has poofed into non existence. It is out there somewhere and eventually someone will want to sell theirs. If you want it badly enough you'll find it. Might take a while, but we don't call them grail dolls for nothing. Enjoy the quest.

6) Exclusivity, limited editions, small artist run companies... that's the BJD hobby. If it's just too frustrating for (general) you then maybe this isn't the hobby for you. Even mass produced collectible dolls like Blythe & Pullip are released in limited numbers and are seldom re released. That's just part of the game.

 

renee_chan said: Don't like the way a particular company runs their show? Take your dollars elsewhere .... If it's just too frustrating for (general) you then maybe this isn't the hobby for you

This is just not a good answer to someone w/legitimate suggestions. Why? Because I'm assuming that the doll makers WANT to sell their products. Now, I myself am a creative vs a business type - ergo not a lucky person who can do it myself & not married to a business type. But when I see suggestions on how to sell more efficiently I tend to check out whether that's a possibility for me - I do NOT just ignore such suggestions! Just saying.

I expect that as someone pointed out, a lot of these little mom & pop ~sic~ companies don't have the resources to do a lot of things efficiently - & that's totally understandable. And calling names is not okay either.

 

I think what they meant is, some companies may get suggestions and decide not to listen to them based on multiple different reasons or say for instance, their business works well when it comes to people from their own country buying their products (which is kind of a silly reason to not listen to a suggestion if they want people from other countries to buy their products... I get that... but it is a reason none-the-less).... also they might not be able to do the suggested thing in question because of money/having or finding the right people to help them do whatever the suggestion is (for instance... website updating.... for the most part, their website could work fine for native speakers, but having issues on their english site could go unfixed until they have someone who is a native english speaker or someone who knows it fairly well to understand why their English speaking consumers dont like the design). So if the website annoys you that much, the suggestion to take your money elsewhere is valid.... but you can still get a doll from that company by either buying from a dealer if they have one, or looking for one second hand. This keeps you from getting annoyed about the website.... for me, I just try to figure it out... if I cant, I ask someone for help or find a dealer until hopefully they can fix it (also if enough people mentioned that it was difficult to navigate to the company itself... I'm sure they would eventually get the hint.... but this still doesnt mean they'd have the means to make the changes).

Having said all that, website design is one of those things that I do think companies should fix since it does make a big impact on the selling of their products.... however, other things like keeping stuff indefinitely for sale I dont agree with. For a company to grow and be successful, they do need a variety of products and availability... however, small companies dont have the space to keep thousands of different molds as they create new items, nor do they possibly have the means to make 100's of dolls of all of their (popular) sculpts if they were to keep them all available.... and since not all of their sculpts are going to be popular, that takes us back to storage. Where are they going to put all of that stuff plus the molds for their popular items? Also... when a mold eventually degrades to the point they can no longer use it, do they spend the money and create a new one for a not so popular mold just because say... I dont know... 10 people might buy one within a 5 year time frame? All of these costs add up.

I'm sure you understand the last bit I said, but I wanted to put this information in here so that others that are thinking along the lines of the OP that keeping things around indefinitely is a viable option.... because really, it just isnt. It will cost more for storage and up keep in the long run then the money they would be bringing in from selling 1 or 2 dolls of those less popular sculpts... and I know the OP mentioned they'd be willing to pay X amount of money even if the price was jacked up since the item may not be a main line product.... but would you (general) be willing to spend 5, 10, 15 times as much as the doll originally cost just so they could cover their over head? What if an initially $500 doll ended up costing you $5000? Not saying the price would be jacked up that much... but it is a possibility. For me.... that would be quite ridiculous. If I did happen to ever buy a doll worth that much, I sure as heck wouldnt be comfortable playing with it, let alone ever taking it out of its box or shipping it or its head for faceups etc.

Also.... forgot to mention one more thing.... even if one or two of you (general) would be willing to pay an increased price for not-so-popular molds as long as they were available..... in the long run, how many people willing to do this would a company need to buy from them each year etc. to make keeping products around indefinitely worth it to them? Also... I know it has been mentioned at least once in this thread.... but materials are not available indefinitely.... for example, Iplehouse had to discontinue their old PG and RS formula since the costs of resin went up and they could also not get the formula they needed from their supplier any longer.... this had a big impact on the IH boards because there were several people who preferred the old formula.... this in turn effects how many people are willing to buy dolls in the new resin formula and yet adds another cost/loss of income on top of whatever else is going on with their budget.

in terms of that, having molds around indefinitely, then losing income because less people will be buying some of the resin colors available due to a formula switch means even more of a burden on the company. Either they will have to increase their product costs like crazy (Iplehouse has increased their prices several times due to material costs), which also pushes buyers away, or eat the costs, which means more lost income. It is just an endless circle that could eventually end with a company going under at some point.

edit: one last thing since I know it will be mentioned: what about the customers the new resin formula brought it/could bring in? well this really would come down to what % of new customers there are vs. how many people decided they didnt like the new formula.... if it is significantly more... GREAT! If not, sad news for the company. This isnt as bad in and of itself, but on top of something like storage space costing an arm and a leg and the upkeep on molds etc. it could end up causing a company a lot of stress and ultimately adding to the cause of its downfall.

 

I think the reason why people are getting defensive isn't because they think we shouldn't make legitimate, polite suggestions to companies when we see something amiss, it's the OP came in stating that LE dolls are essentially stupid and that they know the doll making industry better than the doll makers themselves and this is clearly a sign of them throwing money away and doing bad business. Which... yeah, not correct and not really the best way to get people to listen to your ideas, especially when people have repeatedly pointed out in this thread a myriad of reasons why the BJD industry uses the business model it does and that it is not comparable to mass produced doll lines.

There's a difference between a polite suggestion that might help a company out and demanding that they change the way do business solely for you because you don't agree with it and want to be able to buy a doll on your terms only right now.

 

I am in no way saying anyone should just abandon the hopes of getting a doll because the doll company has some screwy business model. Of course people should ask politely about the whys & wherefores if they're interested in that company's products. Hence the bold text in my quote above.

 

I think an archive page on websites for old stock photos should be available, even just for the research required in the second hand market. I think the photos would also inspire ideas for clothing, stories and doll personalities.
It would be great if the manufacturers could state the limits on a mold when they start making it. Even if they said 100 and only made 90, they would not be making 101. Numbered certificates would be good.

 

you say photo archive... I want the sale info too... THAT is what helps you know what is a good secondary market value... especially for something you may not know much about going in... that's why I think the whole page being kept is a good thing.

 

I truly hate wadding through page after page of "sold out" goods. It's a waist of my time and it makes the company look lazy. They should ARCHIVE the sold out products for those who want to look at them.

 

I can't say I've ever been led to believe that a doll company was lazy based on a high number of sold out items. I am more likely to think that they are busy making or shipping dolls.
Scrolling through a few pages of items never seemed like a big deal to me, because what would I be doing instead? Scrolling through Tumblr, probably. I've already elected to use that time as mindless leisure time, so it's probably safer for my wallet if I can't always put $900 worth of stuff in my shopping cart just for fun.
Some people do seem to have a different perspective though, since DoA is full of posts starting with "I'm too lazy to read this whole thread..."

 

Personally, I find it very helpful having sold out limited dolls still on a vendor's website. I can't tell you the number of times that I've gone back to Iplehouse's website to figure out how to put a default outfit that I haven't used for a while back on a doll.

 

What I don't think OP gets is that this is really an artist driven niche hobby. Without discontinuing old sculpts, they wouldn't be able to make new sculpts and improve their sculpting techniques. Have you seen a lot of the really old BJDs? A LOT of them, especially the bodies, are not nearly as detailed, beautiful, and well engineered as current BJDs. Look at the old Iplehouse YIDs, especially their bodies. While some of their face sculpts were nice (hello, Lion), you can see marked improvement in their new sculpts.

Also it clearly works for them and this "I know business better than people who have been running businesses in this hobby for 10+ years" attitude is really grating.

OP also seems to think that all discontinued dolls are standard dolls that were selling really well and the company decided to just stop selling it for no logical reason. This is faaaaar from the truth. Usually, these dolls are released as a limited edition run. From the moment their promo pics are released, it's made clear that this doll is available from X - Y dates, after which it will be discontinued (unless the company decides to release it for another event, as Soom does).
This business model means that the company can sell, say, 200 of that doll in a month and just cast volumes of that same mold, which is more cost-effective than spreading those 200 sales out over an entire year.

The other reason dolls are usually discontinued is because they aren't selling well enough to keep around. Often this has to do with recasting, especially in recent years. :\

 

Or like what Iplehouse does, they release dolls as basics if they sold fairly well as limiteds.... and even those that may not have, they sometimes release them as basics eventually too or they are available in Doll Choice (which seems to be the case most of the time now.... only a few of one of their old themes were never made basic). But they still may not sell that well even then.... take their Douglas sculpt for example. I LOVE that sculpt and I and a couple other people on here own him.... but they discontinued him completely after releasing him as a basic for about a year. But he barely sold so they took him out of their lineup. It made me really really sad to see him go, but he's a huge doll and them getting rid of that sculpt made room/storage space for newer molds/sculpts.

 

I'm going to pop in with my two cents.

On Discontinued/Out of stock ITEMS: have you tried asking companies when they will restock? Someone else in this thread mentioned what many of us have learned through our time in the hobby: many of these items are outsourced. Our favorite doll companies will buy these goods to stock in their own shop, and when they're gone, they then get new items to stock in their shop. Letting them know there is still interest for a specific wig/outfit/item will drive them to buy more.
If anyone has ever shopped at Modcloth, this is where that practice comes in the most handy. Modcloth is a clothing shop, not a doll shop, but they run out of outfits all the time. But if you let them know you want an item in a particular size, they listen. If there's enough demand, they contact the company they bought the oufits from and they order more. I have seen doll companies do this, too. It doesn't hurt to send them a message requesting the return of a popular stock item. I think this is a small part of why they also keep sold-out items up.

On sold out/discontinued/limited DOLLS: We've already seen a ton of reasons as to why limiteds make sense in this hobby. Dwindling demand, collector's value, cost of production, even space can be an issue. Another issue, and one that relates to the earlier mentioned issues, is the process that a company must worth with in order to get you your doll.

Artists of any medium usually don't have the budget, technical know-how, or physical space for the equipment necessary to reproduce their art for sale. We usually need to partner up with other companies, and these companies require at least a minimum specific amount of our product in order to justify the cost of making it. And we usually want to order more than that set minimum because the more we order at one time from said company, the lower the cost per item, the more cost effective everything is.

This is true for art books, for shirts, for mugs, for models -- and, yes, it's true for dolls, too.

In order for them to both afford the cost of casting the doll and cover the cost of running a business, they need to have sufficient demand for their product; they can't order massive amounts of each sculpt, either, because due to the demand of fresh resin dolls, their product has a very real shelf life. It doesn't matter if you have money you want to throw at them for a sculpt because if you're the only person willing to buy it that month, they're not making any profit at all off the sale. So it makes sense to discontinue items and focus their energy and money on improving their other products, or creating new ones.

This is most apparent when it comes to different colored resins. I spoke to Fairyland about their first tan event and asked them why they didn't just make tan available all the time. The reason, they said, is because it just isn't cost effective. It isn't just sculpt type that needs a minimum amount of orders, it's color batches as well. So they hold these tan events in order to generate enough orders at a time, thus equaling a more cost-effective approach to offering customers what they want. Other than their tan skin, their "limiteds" are more in regards to the extras that come with the doll: clothing, eyes, faceup, etc. You can still buy the basic doll with their a la carte option.

Iplehouse's Doll Choice system works much in the same way: they limit rarer color resins to the first fifteen days of every month because it is more cost effective for them.

I haven't talked with Soom, nor do I follow Soom that much, but their dolls don't usually stay out of stock for long -- only their configurations do. They rerelease their sculpts every so often if there is enough demand for it, but it'll be on a different fantasy body or with new ears or different accessories. They aren't the only company that does this.

And of course BJD markets will cater to the collectors with limited editions of things! That's how a hobby works. Fairyland does this the best, in my opinion, because they try to make everyone happy: they release a limited edition of something, then they release the basic version (usually through a la carte). And this goes beyond dolls, too! Crobidoll used to run preorders for 8-9" wigs because the demand to have them in stock just wasn't high a few years ago, not from them, at least.

Taking all of the above into consideration, I don't see this as bad business practice. I see this as strategy. I see this as doing more than surviving -- I see this as a fight to thrive in a world that is used to on-demand, mass-produced, disposable products.

On Poor Website Design: Now this? THIS I CAN AGREE WITH OMG. I don't enjoy having to click through pages and pages of sold-out items in order to get to what's in stock. I know the only thing they can do about this is hire someone to manage their website better, and they don't often have the budget for this. Still, it'd be nice if out-of-stock items could be filtered out, or at least sent to live behind the in stock items. Still, even western shops keep out of stock items mixed in with in stock items. (Again, I think this is to encourage people to order more of said item, so make sure to bug your favorite doll shop in order to get things in stock again!)

 

I completely agree. It was especially confusing to me, as a new BJD enthusiast, to see these unavailable dolls mixed in and listed in with their regularly availble stock, without any good apparent reason. Sure, it's nice to be able to at least go through their unavailable stock so that I might take down the name and search for it second hand, but having it clearly divided would be a lot easier to distinguish what I can and cannot get.
So many times I've seen thumbnails for a doll that I would have snatched up in a second, only to see the SOLD OUT label a half second later. Gets my hopes up every single time.

 

Doll releases haven't always been so systematic and predictable as they are now. Ten years ago Luts couldn't keep up with demand for their standard Delfs and they would go in and out of stock weekly as they were able to cast and finish them. It took me more than a month of getting up at some weird hour of the night which corresponded to the time and day of the week that they updated their stock on hand. It was simply the only way to secure an El at the time.

I know that some of these stories are tl:dr get off my lawn/uphill both ways in the snow kind of posts, but there just isn't any other way to explain to newbies that things have evolved a lot and it really is ridiculously easy to buy a BJD now. They are even given away for free on a regular basis. I can count on one hand the number of sculpts I have never seen come up for sale secondhand. There's nothing wrong with a fun hobby also requiring a little patience and self-discipline.

If a doll is marked as sold out but is still on the website, then you are armed with all of the information you need to search for it in the marketplace. We all want the stuff we are selling to be in demand, right? If companies pulled all of the sold out goods off of their site, we'd have to rely on our own photography skills to sell all of the BJD stuff we no longer want to keep.

 

This ^^ (bolded)

omg.... I swear that is the main thing that the OP totally missed with this and is also what other newbies are missing too.... this hobby is mainly about patience. I really dont think this hobby would be as much fun and enjoyable without the irks of having to wait months for a doll or taking your time to find one on the second hand market etc. I appreciate them much more after waiting while the artists put all the love and care into making them just for me. I will also appreciate a grail doll much more after taking the time to find it on the secondary market. The only dolls I've kept besides my BJDs are my Bratz and my porcelain ones. All my old mass produced barbies are either in the garbage, or in some random box some where at my moms (if she hasnt thrown them out yet).

I do understand that people find wading through sold out dolls annoying, and it can be, but this is yet another thing that I'm sure some of the BJD companies could fix easily if we as customers asked them to have a sort function. At least Iplehouse and a few other companies have a limited section so you know those are sold out for good (as in... the fullsets, not necessarily the sculpts). Iple also puts all their sold out dolls at the bottom/back of all their sales pages which is what I would prefer. I dont want things to be "archived" and stuck under a link that I have to dig to find. I'd rather it be included in the regular stock section but just at the bottom or under a different tab that is easily accessible from the regular section.

 

If you're comparing BJDs to Mattel dolls you obviously have no idea of the beauty and the art these dolls represent. You should perhaps stick to mass-made dolls and not handcrafted dolls. Pullip is a good way to go.

 

A lot of us are telling OP to collect something more fitting to OP's business-oriented tastes, but it's creating an unwelcoming atmosphere, and that goes against the community aspect of our hobby. OP's original intent was to vent frustrations and many of those frustrations come from a lack of knowledge about the history of the hobby -- knowledge we can and have provided as this thread continues to grow.
But we should remember that, should we choose to participate in the community aspect of our hobby, we have a duty to represent our fellow hobbyists and the artists involved in the best way possible. Our collections are our own, but our community is a shared experience, and with that experience comes responsibility. That includes sharing our knowledge with those uninformed (be they new additions or collectors with a decade's worth of BJDs), educating newcomers, and teaching the generations after us to both appreciate what has been accomplished in the hobby as well as seek to better it for generations that come in after them.
I know I'm going totally off topic here, but it bothers me so many of us are dismissing OP when this is a great chance for us to provide information and correct any misinformation floating around the community. And we've done a great job of that so far! Still, it wouldn't hurt to show a little patience.

Anyway, OP, do collect other dolls because a variety in our collections makes things interesting and teaches us to appreciate the many differences between companies and doll types. But don't abandon BJDs -- stick with 'em, learn more about 'em, learn more about why things are the way they are. This thread has provided what you need to build an informed opinion of the business practices (and poor website design, hah) involved in BJD collecting, so keep an open mind and continue learning about the hobby. You have a lot of expectations that the BJD world isn't prepared to meet, but as you continue your ball-jointed journey, you'll be delighted by things you didn't even think to expect. (And that includes a possible future where websites have a better filter system. )

 

I think the reason for the hostile responses is because the OP was being hostile themselves, and could be seen as bashing the hobby itself. The responses would have a much different tone if they were just simply asking why things are done the way they are.

 

[MENTION=69431]Geekachu[/MENTION] (love your name, btw!) I know, and that's why I decided to say something. I was put off by OP's tone, too, but I realized the approach many of us in this thread took to handling it was only making it worse. I was thinking about this thread today and I remembered that the best way to remedy a hostile situation isn't with additional hostility.
It's natural to feel defensive when you or something you love is under attack, which is where the anger is coming from. but this is just a case of someone with bad/missing information reacting to a situation they don't understand. I'm not coming down on or blaming anyone for the tone the thread has taken, though! I dwanted to share my thoughts on how to best handle situations like this one in the future. I see conversations like this appear in the BJD Tumblr community now and again, and I feel like we as a community could benefit towards a more patient approach, that's all.
Anyway, like I said, I don't mean to go off topic, and I won't say anything else regarding the tone of the conversation.