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Including cost of faceup on sale price?

Feb 17, 2021

    1. .
       
      #21 Gintsumi, Feb 21, 2021
      Last edited: Feb 28, 2024
      • x 1
    2. I absolutely agree! A artist facepaint or even a factory facepaint adds value. Period.
      If someone wants to buy a blank doll, they have that option too.

      And it is everyone’s right to price their own sale items as they wish. Choose to buy or not.
       
    3. Nope, I will also charge for it. Doing a face up takes time and skill to do and as far as I'm concerned, the buyer is going to pay for that time and skill. It's their decision if they want to wipe it or use it for their characters. Buyer is not entitled to a price cut unless you the seller guarantees it in the sale.
       
    4. I've been thinking about this the other day. I understand that there are faceups out there that cost the original owners hundreds of dollars and it may be tempting to want to include that in the sale, especially if that faceup is stunning. But as a buyer, I'm not interested in buying someone's character because I couldn't play with a doll that doesn't feel like it's mine.
       
    5. On the flip side, there are people that won't buy blank bjd dolls because they don't do their own faceups and don't want to go through the stress/energy of sending it out after the fact. BJD sales often come down to luck and patience in finding the right buyer at the right time in an already niche hobby.
       
      • x 5
    6. I've seen several dolls on the Marketplace I might have bought, except they were priced to compensate for the faceup. That's an immediate pass for me as a buyer. One, I don't know how well the faceup is sealed, or if it's stained, and I absolutely want to know that before I buy. Two, I'm generally not interested in keeping another person's character on a doll. I personally don't keep up with 'popular' faceup artists, so I have no idea what they charge or if the seller is even pricing it fairly. 99% of the time, I'm gonna wipe it and redo it myself.

      I don't ever plan to charge for faceups myself, whenever I get around to selling a few of my dolls. It's an expense I made knowing I might wipe it eventually myself. It would have to be a $500 faceup before I considered passing any of that cost on.
       
      • x 2
    7. I would definitely pay for a face up. I’ve noticed the tiniest details can make a doll go from appealing to boarder line gorgeous. Case in point I seen someone with the Enrill from little Monica doll. I would NEVER have considered his head but I’ve seen someone who has him had twins and his face up looks AMAZING!

      like straight up “I want his babies if he was a real person” amazing. A strange choice of words but yes lol
       
      • x 1
    8. You can, but for me personally: I don't buy faceups. I've never commissioned one, and although I've owned dolls with gorgeous faceups done by both factory and faceup artists (commissioned by others in all of these cases), I eventually wipe it and paint the doll myself. My characters are old - based on dolls I had a little girl in the 90s lol. Most faceups are simply just not at all what I'm looking for.

      Plus there's the bonding of painting the doll myself, and the gradual increase in skill at painting over the years that has me liking my own work a lot more now than I used to. I started this hobby as a broke college kid, spending into my student loans to finance it, and now I own a home and work from it, so I can afford to lavish 2-3 days on a faceup that I would have had to slap on in 30 minutes back then. It's a totally different experience, and because of that I don't see myself ever paying for a faceup done by anyone else.

      If a seller includes it in the cost I would probably ask very pointedly for it to be removed as part of the sale agreement.
       
      • x 2
    9. I would leave the face up and let the new owner decide to wipe it off or not. Because some jay have fallen for the doll because of the face up. I would even maybe recommend the original artist as well.
       
    10. As a faceup artist, I totally agree with adding faceup price in the sale price of a doll. It may be conceited from me, but I consider my faceups are worth it. If the buyer doesn't want it, they can wipe it or simply not buy it. I make nobody buy it.
       
      • x 4
    11. Personally, I wouldn't pay extra for the faceup. I have bought one of my dolls second hand, and she came with her faceup - which I removed ASAP. I had built the whole character for my dolls before I got them, so I wanted to get them matching faceup. But as a seller, you are always free to price your dolls just the way you want to :)
       
      • x 1
    12. idk.

      I like the idea of buying a doll who already has a face. Face-ups aren't a part of the hobby that interest me, I lack the courage and funds to send a doll away to be painted, and I struggle to envisage what different faces look like on different blank sculpt. I want the "oh, that person interests me" feeling off a doll, and then build ideas around it. I like the lack of risk that an already-painted doll provides.

      That said, there's some caveats.

      The first is (with respect) some face ups just don't look great. Sellers can't always tell (or, aren't emotionally objective about) the difference between a face which increases the value of the sculpt, and one that is ehh.

      The second is, I don't think people should be billing for the full-cost of the faceup as part of the doll sale. I can't really put my finger on why, I suppose it's like, this is a hobby which has costs, so when someone is selling a doll for cost of doll + import tax I paid + postage to and from my faceup artist + face up it's like, I feel like some of those are your expenses that come as an everyday part of the hobby. It's not my responsibility to recompense someone for the decisions they have made.

      Some of it is just, being a person who is proper broke - the idea that it's a hobby space where second hand dolls are worth more than new ones, with new ones costing what they cost, leaves a rather sour taste in my gut. Some of them are notionally ~rare collectables~, but a vast majority are just old toys, that a previous owner has put paint all over.

      I'd be OK with, like, "it already has a faceup +£30" - with a higher price for something really special (like, one of those terrifyingly gorgeous face-ups with layered freckles and a sense of skin that makes my heart go flutter-thump)

      There's also the practical aspect: if there's a doll which would have been within my price range, but its been bumped up to reflect the cost of the face, a lot of the time, that's just going to take the decision out of my hands.
       
      • x 3
    13. I love how this thread feels like a pros and cons list :3nodding: To me it really boils down to how popular the faceup artist or sculpt is, and how long I’m willing to deal with trying to sell the item.
      I believe in pricing in the way I would be willing to buy

      This is my personal belief as well, I call it the I want it now tax and personally would rather order new and wait than pay for the previous persons costs for their choices. Discontinued items I can understand paying over retail value since you can’t buy new.
       
    14. I'm also in the "it depends" category. It depends on my personal taste, especially when it comes to "famous" artists.

      I literally bought my KDoll K-Dei solely because he has a tianba faceup. I am a huge fan of tianba's work and getting a slot is very challenging, not to mention I am a nervous wreck when I have heads out in the world. It was the most logical solution to own one of their faceups and I paid more than the head alone would be worth. To me, it was a piece of art.

      Someone else may utterly hate the faceup and style. That's cool too! But because the faceup was included in the cost of the head, it probably prevented the faceup from being wiped. I think that if you're wanting to sell, but want to let that faceup be enjoyed by someone else, factoring it into the cost makes sense. If someone can buy a blank one cheaper, they will be less inclined to buy yours and wipe it immediately.

      I'm not a "character" person. I view all of my dolls as beautiful works of art that a faceup enhances. They most certainly add value, but beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
       
      • x 3
    15. I've bought dolls with faceups and I've paid extra for a faceup, possibly a poor choice to some, but to me it meant I didn't have to send out a doll for a faceup and deal with the scary possibilities included in dealing with shipping and customs a doll and still have a doll with a lovely faceup.

      I understand not everyone wants to pay extra for a faceup, especially if you always do your own faceups or have very particular things you want in a faceup. But I think it's just about the weird ways a seller and buyer need to match up in a niche hobby like this.
       
      • x 1
    16. I would like the option to buy with a face up. I don’t think it’ll hurt too much to try posting with an extra cost and then wiping it if it doesn’t sell. I always send my heads to get face ups done as I can’t even do makeup on my own face well!
       
    17. It’s clear that people value different aspects of a doll’s condition when buying and selling, and the fact is that there is no right or wrong answer here.

      I’m a faceup artist, and I always paint my own dolls. Every single doll I’ve bought with a faceup got wiped. Therefore, I usually avoid buying dolls if the seller charges for the faceup. I have no hard feelings about it, I just don’t want to pay for something I won’t use. But existing faceups DO have value to a lot of people. Plenty of people buy dolls just because they’re pretty in their current state. Not everybody’s out to make dolls of their characters.

      Don’t compare charging for the faceup’s value to charging for the original shipping. It’s not the same. When I buy a doll and pay for it to be shipped to my house, I’m the only person who benefits. But if I commission a pro to paint my doll, a future owner of that doll may very well love the faceup. Therefore when I pay to have my doll painted, it potentially has value to a future owner too, unlike the shipping I paid which NEVER has value to a future owner.
       
    18. I usually would add cost of face up if a well known artist did it. Most of the heads I’ve gotten face up service for have traveled overseas and face ups are high quality and very good looking. So yes face up cost would be added to it.
       
    19. I feel like it's up to your personal view, I wouldn't feel right telling people what to charge for their doll. If they find a buyer, I suppose everyone is happy, after all. However, I wouldn't factor the faceup into the price of dolls I'm reselling, unless, perhaps, they were the company/default faceup, since I don't expect others to care all that much for my own tastes. Likewise, I wouldn't charge extra for mods I did or such.
       
    20. I always think, when I sell, that make up is a bonus.
      And write, that I can leave it or wipe it off equally