How known is TOO known?

She's referring to economies of scale, not knock offs, I believe

 

You can't really compare this issue to branded versus non-branded things. A cast-resin BJD can't be compared to cornflakes or cleaning products. There is a reason why all BJDs are expensive and that is because polyurethane resin isn't cheap to produce and the artists and casters are paid according to their skills. Depending on which country of origin your BJD comes from, the artists and casters will be paid a wage based on their country's standards of pay and standards of living. It's well known that Japan has a high-cost of living, for instance, so the company can't scrimp on their workforce's wages and still expect to turn out a quality product.

The older 'pricier' companies are actually working at competitive prices; there are clear top, middle and lower range companies, (just like in any hobby), and these companies have prices relative to their nearest competitor. It isn't the same as deciding whether to buy Kelloggs or store-brand corn flakes.

The market is already quite big and there are new companies popping up all the time, so mass-production wouldn't really invite any greater innovations into the hobby at all. In fact, I believe it would allow for less experimentation because companies would just focus on what sells well and sells cheaply. I can't imagine a shoestring company like Mattel coming up with a mass-produced version of Soom Beryl; even with their collector Barbies, the doll has the same body as standard Barbies.

It doesn't necessarily bother me that the hobby is becoming more popular, I welcome more members to our community, but I am bothered by the notion that a lot of incomers seem focused on driving the prices of BJDs down. Yes, BJDs are expensive...but so are a lot of other luxury items we can really live without. I save hard to buy the dolls I want to buy, but I know the dolls are luxuries and I don't have a fundamental right to have one just because I want one.

 

This makes me wonder if an influx of new people will drive the prices up. A lot of prices (on the secondary market) are based on supply and demand. BJDs are hand produced and at the moment we see companies here and there struggling with the many orders they've received. How will they handle more customers?
More people joining the hobby also means more potential buyers for limiteds, which may drive prices up at the secondary market. There's a difference between being one of 10 interested buyers or one of 100.
I'm not sure, but I think someone else has mentioned this before in this thread.

 

Except in terms of many art objects, it doesn't make a considerable difference. These items are produced as art objects, and I don't say that as a matter of fondness, but in terms of the craftsmanship involved. Skilled labor costs what skilled labor costs. Supplies cost what supplies cost. Unless there is a considerable markup for pure profit -- and I am really not certain that it's as high as we are likely to assume it is based on the profit margins of goods that are less costly to produce and have a higher markup, but a lower price tag than these dolls, like many mass-produced dolls -- there's probably less wiggle room on pricing than we may expect.

For the art, or even the fine craft market -- which is more where I'd place BJDs, as fine craft in terms of production -- it isn't always quite as cut and dried as it is for items that can be mass produced on a large scale without a resulting drop in quality. It may not be a proportional drop in quality -- but there usually is one.

 

That's a good point, but I suppose the other argument would be that if the hobby got larger and more and more companies produced dolls, demand would be moved around a bit more? Who knows.

More competition for limiteds and second-hand inflation I can understand, but the main complaint being made was the price of standard dolls was already 'too' high. It seems to me that there are as many people with glowing reviews of Resinsoul (their very popular 42cm Bei costs $140), as there are for Iplehouse (a basic Tatiana costs $300) and Volks (an MSD Sakura costs $363.) I've not heard any bad reviews about these particular companies, or that Resinsoul is swamped with orders :s

 

I'm all for the prices coming down, I've put out quite a bit over the last year and done it cheerfully, but I still can't see lower prices as anything but a GOOD thing.

 

I would be very happy to see more people in the hobby ^_^ More dolly people to natter with = awesome.
I think, however, I would be very concerned about the demands laid on the companies. I worry when people are getting their Soom MDs and bits are missing, or they have two left legs... even things like the magnets being bagged rather than glued in now makes me wonder if Soom is just being weighed down by the amount of orders and is really starting to feel the pressure... ;_; I hope they are not over-working themselves to massive degrees.... ;_;
Things like the CustomHouse sales dolls (now rather notorious, unfortunately!) taking months and months and then some arriving and the owners being disappointed in their quality control... it makes me worry about the artists and developers... that they're just pushing themselves too far

 

Lower prices are great, don't get me wrong, but I would rather pay the existing prices than sacrifice the existing quality. I can't imagine anyone being over the moon with the quality of a $10 BJD.

I've got a Soom Glot coming and I've been watching this carefully. This is the first and last doll I will ever buy from them. The waiting time for an MD ridiculous and since Soom know that their releases are popular I find it crazy that they still have a wide ordering period for them. I can't see the situation with Soom getting any better, tbh.

I do believe Soom have over stretched themselves and I thought after releasing Cuprit they should have a break from their MDs and catch up with the dolls they'd already released first. I know someone who has a Heliot with one hooved leg that hasn't been drilled through all the way, so she can't do anything with him while she sends the parts back to Soom

But aside from Soom, are other companies under this constant pressure? There are mad moments when Fairyland and Luts have their biannual events, but those events are six months apart and they have plenty of time to prepare. I've never had a bad experience with Volks or Leekeworld either and I've placed orders with them during events.

 

I think about this also, and how it could impact on the hobby now and into the future regarding customer service and quality control.

 

answer C. is the best and reveals my feelings
but in my country bjd's never will be so popular. Child-like interests [and "dolls" are schematically in this part of the mind-chest in Slavic cultures] in adult life are considered as ridiculous, pathetic or in the best case as idiosyncrasy.
my mother helps me in my hobby [borrow money, admires my dolls [when I ask her to do this] but she thinks that I'm mad spending all those money on "dolls"... Usual comment: "Go, buy something for your daughter instead!"
>.<

^_____^

 

Same with Australia, although there seems to be a thriving market for newborns and Victorian childlike dolls because Australia is not noted for extending its horizons. (Don't flame me here, Aussies. ) BJDs haven't taken off here and are relegated to niche groups.

 

My experience buying from Soom was prior to their newer doll lines. I had gotten a doll through one of their unfinished kit events. He was slightly later than estimated, but not terribly so--just the typical sort of event busyness. It doesn't surprise me that they may be stretched a bit thin now as they seem to have several doll lines that people go bonkers for. Over the past two years I started buying more and more off the forum, so I have less recent personal experience with doll company customer service. However, it seems when reading through feedback and threads in the buying Q&A section, that a lot of complaints tend to center around special event times, or if a popular new line has recently opened up and there has been a corresponding rush of people ordering. Many doll companies are very small, so not being able to easily keep up with demand is unsurprising. I do hope that they are merely growing pains, however, and that given time companies will figure out how to handle the increased demand.

If the hobby continues to grow, it will be interesting to see how companies handle this. More LEs of limited number (rather than by order period)? Fewer events? More staff to handle the demand? Longer estimated wait times? Fewer/shorter order periods? It does seem that some companies can become victims of their own popularity. I do recall (in a fuzzy kind of way, since it was a while ago) other companies going through difficult periods--I want to say DoD perhaps, around the time they first released the DOTs??? Does anybody remember that for sure? I think I remember quality/customer service complaints, but that things have cleared up since, but I could be confusing them with someone else.

 

There is something I've been wondering about in the whole 'how popular is too popular' vein.....and only those of you who have been in the hobby more than a couple of years will be able to answer. When I first discovered bjds (on Arcadias' website) I had to find out where to get one.....I did not know about DoA yet....so I was Googling the names (which seemed like some type of crazy code language to me at the time...'Lati yellow';'Dot Shall', etc.) that they had listed the dolls by in their 'profiles'...I didn't have the slightest idea what I was looking for...I was just desperate to find them though ...but, what I was getting from Google was information about hiring a 'buying agent'or 'broker' to go Japan to buy the doll for you, that if you don't speak the language it can be really hard to communicate with that agent, certain sites were recommending that people just go to Japan to personally pick out their dolls. That almost stopped me dead in my tracks. The thought of paying an agent and not being able to be understood by that agent or (God Forbid) getting on a plane (I've done too much flying in my life...I'm still alive, I'm going to quit while I'm ahead) going to Japan to get the doll myself was daunting. Then little by little as I learned what it was I was looking for and realized that the posts referring to 'brokers' and such were pre-2005....and finally figured out what, exactly, the companies were and that most had English speaking sites,..I slowly, happily realized that I would not have to become a nomadic explorer to own one of these dolls. S0000---000, my question is this...do you senior doll owners who had to get your first dolls the old way....do you think that the growing popularity of the hobby has enabled you to more conveniently buy dolls now?Because, it would seem to me that if the hobby was still relegated to one specific area (Asia), there would really be no reason for the companies to even consider trying to cater to areas outside their own, with the added language and shipping issues.What do you think?

 

I don't mind if BJDs become well known and super popular... I will still buy the artists dolls and maybe get more dolls that might be cheaper due to popularity.

I'd always thought BJDs were cool just for being what they are... rather than "different". Why is it so important for some people to be seen as "unique"? Do they realise that's the desire of many other people thus making them one of many?

 

It would have positive and negative effects. Some things out of stock even more, but maybe stock ordered in more too. Lots of great new buyers and sellers and not so great lol. In the respect of "Everyone has one"... not really important. We'd get haggled less and I personally get into something because I enjoy it for one reason or another. Just like us DoA members have many reasons for spending our money on resin, the influx of people would come with their own reasons too. So I couldn't care less if it's unusual or if its common really.

 

It really doesn't matter to me. I've never based my collecting choices on what's hot or not. Besides, I don't really think that national or international exposure of these dolls would skyrocket them into mass popularity. In general, they have an aesthetic that not everyone is going to find attractive. While such exposure would certainly increase interest among some people, others will be actively turned off.

Right now BJDs are the "hot" item in the doll world but not every collector is buying them. Sure, there are always a few people who have to follow the trends without really considering whether or not it will be something they'll enjoy for years to come but that never affects my personal choices in what to buy.

 

I agree with those who have said that wild popularity of bjd's would throw a lot of cheaper dolls into the market, substituting quantity for quality. Imagine ball jointed Barbies taking over the world...

 

Coming from collecting other types of dolls, I really see BJDs as just coming full circle back to the antique jointed dolls with the aesthetics of today. I'm so thrilled that younger people are enjoying the dolls and bringing in new collectors to a hobby that seemed to be dying out with those under a certain age. I see it as the direction many who made artist dolls, be they porcelain or vinyl, are going in also because these are dolls that actually invite play and interaction rather than having a doll that is barely more than a figurine standing around. What I wouldn't have given when I was a child *coughfortysomethingcough* years ago to have had a doll that could pose in endless ways like a LittleFee or a Puki Puki!!!! I love that the popularity is growing and that we are seeing not only BJDs of the Asian aesthetic but also those that reflect other cultures and styles.

I do worry that the companies holding events like the Customhouse BOGOFs are killing the secondary market for their dolls, unless of course, the new dolls that you are basically getting half price aren't of the same quality standard of the older dolls. I mean, really, after you've bought a doll for half price from the company, why on earth would you pay the original price on the secondary market? It happened with another popular porcelain doll line and the deep discounting killed it. Now you can't give the dolls away.

As far as companies like Soom taking on too much work and lengthening the wait time...I really don't care if I have to wait. I don't bother asking when my doll might be shipped. If it takes 6 months, 9 months...so be it, as long as I get a high quality doll that I'm proud of in the end. I look at these as artist creations, not mass marketed dolls and I don't want my doll hurried because I'm nagging them. Artists are not always the best on the business end...but I adore their creativity.

 

I think it would kinda ruin the hobby because people would just be buying them because they saw them on tv, and it could become dangerous in the sense of people creating cheap knock-offs and more scalpers. In some ways it could become more dangerous to take dolls out because people would have a better idea of thier value and try to steal them.

 

I just saw a comercial for ball-jointed Barbies a couple days ago. I could only laugh. It's more of their answer to Liv dolls than BJDs, but still. It's already happened, but the quality is terrible.