No Full Payment Until Dolls are Done

I just wanted to mention that if what everyone is posting for BJD production costs is Dollshe's prices for casting services, that is not at all the bottom line for doll production since that is a service and Dollshe makes profit off of casting other artisan dolls (which they should obviously). I've researched the price of casting my own MSD sized doll and It is not unreasonable to hope for 100%+ mark-up beyond your own cost for materials.

As for buyer protection when it comes to paypal and credit cards, some credit cards offer better buyer protection services, BUT, those cards are usually the "higher end" cards that require yearly fees. As it stands right now, most "entry level" credit cards give you 90 days to charge back. If you think about it though, 3 months is really a pretty generous time period to decide, "hey my goods were damaged" or "hey I never received my goods".

This brings me to the next topic, and that is the wait for a doll. Frankly, in my own personal opinion, I consider waiting beyond 3 months for a doll to be a little ridiculous and I have made the choice to not order from companies who cannot give me a turn around within the time limits of my credit protection. You as a buyer have a choice to boycott companies that you do not agree with their order/pre-order policies. There are plenty of companies out there who will produce and ship a doll to you well within the 3 month time limit of your paypal buyer protection.

As for plunking down 100% payment before receiving anything, yes, that's an uncomfortable rock to sit on. As an artist who takes illustration commissions, I only require a partial but non-refundable down payment before I begin work. If the client flakes part way through the process I am not out for my time as I have the down payment. I feel it is a bad business practice to take 100% payment for a pre-order and not give a definite delivery date that falls within a three month period. At the time of pre-order the dolls have already been sculpted and the first set of molds made, so really there is no excuse when the doll is coming from a large incorporated doll manufacturer....but this is just my opinion....

 

Though I like the concept of no full payment before dolls are done, it would be a disaster. People would back out more and whatever.

Dolls are pre-order items. As with all pre-order items, they take time to make, especially if only made by 1 or 2 people with a backlog of orders. It's part of the hobby, me thinks.

 

I haven't gotten my first doll yet, I'm hoping she'll turn up today, but I will admit that I was nervous about putting any money down to start off with. I bought a BJD book for advice before my first purchase and I looked everywhere for owner pictures, reviews of companies and such before buying anything.

I probably would have been more comfortable with putting 25% non refundable deposit down, then another 50% upon completion of the resin casting process then the rest before shipment rather than 100% up front but this is a chance to build up some trust in this hobby and learn to trust my instincts.

 

I am very sorry, but in all honesty, most of the time I think doll collectors need be more virtuous of person, and have a bit freakin' patience for once. People on here are so very impatient for everything! We pay for good quality (assuming you are getting what you payed for, and not spending the most minimal amount for the lowest quality possible), and with that come production of each individual piece of art that we will receive. No one is making you pay for your luxury item, no one is making you use money that you should be saving for bills as you teeter on the edge of poverty, the money that you use to pay for a doll should be money spent responsibly, but never money that you needed so badly that the hand sculpted, individually made and inspected luxury art that you payed for must come immediately, or you sit at home and go ballistic while posting on DoA about the fact that your doll hasn't come by tomorrow...oi had to get that out. You should know that most doll companies are a wait of 1~2 months, if not more depending on the volume of orders and what time of year.

That is how it is, and frankly, for the companies sakes, how it should continue.

 

Yes, but you've only been a member here since August 2011. I'll be interested to see how you feel a few years down the track when either yourself or some of your close friends have been 'ripped off' by companies. If you read the original thread, this started with a discussion of a number of companies who have taken people's full deposit and not sent their dolls. The last time I checked, a friend of mine was still owed a fullset outfit plus money for face-ups not received by Charles Creature Cabinet and they were only sent their things after a year of waiting. Felixdoll, Unidoll, Happydoll, nDoll, Dollfair have just vanished owing people money. Latidoll was continually having sales and events while being massively behind and sending out faulty dolls (Soom is guilty of that as well). And part of the reason why people are bitter is because they did believe in the companies, did wait happily until they gave up. Customhouse may have finally caught up on their orders, but only because older customers found the email address of the consumer complaints organisation that was able to get them moving. In the meantime, they were able to watch people who had ordered a year after them, being shipped their orders within two months. Nice.

In most countries - I'm not sure about China, but there is a LEGAL requirement for goods to be shipped within a reasonable time. I believe it is approximately 2 months. Companies that take 12 months to ship goods are acting outside the law and it is a legal requirement to offer their customers a full refund (not less 25% or whatever they want to charge).

I've been on the receiving end of nearly losing my money with Felixdoll and customhouse, it is not pleasant. Only the fact that my Australian bank allowed a chargeback after 3 months enabled me to get my dolls. Try waiting months on end for a company that refuses to respond to you and pretends you don't exist. And for the record, I don't pay for my dolls with "money I should be saving for bills" nor do I "teeter on the edge of poverty" instead I sit very comfortably in my paid off house. I find that comment extremely rude. I do however expect that when I pay for an item, I will be shipped that item, and not when the company feels it will get around to it, rather I prefer it to be shipped within the legally mandated time. Now I avoid companies that don't meet those standards.

 

Owch, that's a lot of BH to read through.

This is exactly why we have feedback thread for companies now. To check if they are good with delivering doll out in time. A smart person would research everything about the company they are ordering from before sending them their hard-earned(Or not) cash.

My opinion on the OP is that sometimes it's not possible for smaller doll companies to have the number of Dolls already made. Pre-orders might be the only way from some companies to get started producing the dolls. These dolls are not cheap to produce!

Every BJD companies out there are not like Volks or Luts.

 

Basically this. A partial sale just isn't financially feasible.

If you look at it from the company's point of view, if they make a bunch of dolls and no one wants them, it's lost time and money for them and they're more likely to go out of business, ironically. So a pre-order prevents a customer from flaking on a sale and keeps them in business. I guess it's just up to the business to keep their word. It's too bad OP has so many bad experiences in the hobby.

 

I feel like we as a community, many of us artists ourselves, use the whole "it's an artistic process" as some sort of trump card to excuse all kinds of sins from companies. Are dolls pieces of art? Of course. Does that make a company any less of a business that is trying to sell consumers products? No. I feel like if anyone has a problem with the way things work in this community i.e. wait times, prices, the way we pay, the community just tells them, "Well, don't be in this hobby" or " Don't give that company your money" like that's the end of the discussion.
I feel like they're's this blame culture on the consumer, instead of the community banding together and saying, "Lets support these businesses so that they thrive, but also demand change for practices that are detrimental to us as consumers."

I've seen a lot of "Well thats the way it is, deal with it" replies on threads all over DOA. Maybe what the OP is suggesting won't work. But I don't think we should poopoo all over it and then leave this discussion at " This is how things work, so we won't change it." I think the OP's point was that we as a community should work together to really help each other as consumers, and leaving feedback is a valuable start, but lets take it further.

 

I have been in this hobby for over six years and I have never been ripped off by a company, although I did encounter a flakey buyer. Yes, a few companies have disappeared of the face of the earth, but considering how many doll artists there are, it's only a small percentage. We could compare flakey companies with flakey buyers. Both exist, but in both cases the majority of companies and buyers are trustworthy.

When I read this thread, it's almost like we're being overrun by criminal doll artists who are out to steal our money, who are cowards, because they let us pay for any risk they might take, and whose business practices are uncalled for. That's not fair. It is terrible when you are a victim of malpractice (I lost several hundreds of dollars when I bought a sideboard that never arrived, so I know how it feels), but I think the majority of the companies AND buyers are doing a good job. Most are a pleasure to deal with and by singling out the negative experiences, we don't do them or reality justice. Instead, we are panicking and undermining the trust that is necessary to keep this market functioning.

About the estimate profit these companies make:
We're basing our presumptions on a few figures we got from the dollshe-craft website. As long as we don't have our own doll shop, and don't know how many customers and business transactions we're actually talking about, we're not in the position to make an objective statement on the matter.

 

Or if you have a problem with the process, you could just not pre-order anything and only buy dolls after they are in stock.

 

As Witty stated:

"it's an artistic process"
"Well, don't be in this hobby"
" Don't give that company your money"
"Well thats the way it is, deal with it"

Most of these are prevalent in this hobby. Merely because that collecting BJDs is a luxury that many cannot afford. (My own friends and family has persuaded me not to start collecting once I told them the price of a none limited basic doll.) Doll-ownership is not vital like housing, food, basic clothing or healthcare. IT can be an investment yes, but not vital.

It comes down to a choice of the individual who willingly spend their funds on a BJD. Any indesition on part of choosing a doll is regarded as a "Wait and think about it more" Or "Go with your feelings" or even "You don't have to have this doll."

I came to regard as the waiting/hunting for my favorite sculpts as being part of the hobby. Even a rare one on the secoundhand market is like the "Great Hunt".

PRe-orders come and go, but there is allways a chance that the doll you are looking for will come up for sale again later.

 

do you know why doll makers will never make you pay only a fraction of the price before making the doll? because lots of buyers cancel the order and the company is then stuck with a bunch of dolls. which is why iplehouse has started selling lonely heads and changed their layaway policies!
granted it sucks to have to rely only on the maker's word when you pay a few hundred dollars on something and have to wait for months on top of that, but they can't just rely on the good will of the buyer either! >.< lots of buyer don't keep their word and don't pay in time, or at all.... it can put the company in trouble!
however, if they see they have too much work and it will make production time longer, they SHOULD warn us and possibly close orders for a while.

 

Oh Let's see:

Loss of time making the doll. (Time = $$$)
Loss of pay for the people who are making the doll. (Emplyees =$$$)
Loss of materials for making the doll. ( Resin = $$$)

I'd say "Yes" there is a loss, a significant loss. to the resources, time and pay for the doll company if they don't get payment for the doll then the company's employees or even the price of the material's they used is a Loss.

You would rather like it if one by one small doll companies went bankrupt just because they couldn't afford to continue making dolls?

Or

Want to see a more bigger mark up on dolls that already cost hundreds of dollars? Then no one but the super rich could buy them and they still would go out of bussiness simply because they wouldn't sell enough to keep the company afloat.

 

The arguments to this debate had been put forth and explained buy many different people and different views.

If you don't want to pay full price for a pre-order doll, you don't have too, it's as simple as that.

If the company practice does not allow for your "ideal" form of running business, then too bad for you, no-one's gonna change company policy.

If you feel that you are entitled to rant and snit about how "Unfair" the business practice is for some doll companies. Then that's fine, just don't expect lots of other people to agree with you.

 

I don't see how Iplehouse has any loss there either, mostly because it's usually limiteds people didn't pay off and for one who backed out of a deal you have three new people who will gladly take the doll.
Especially because the doll is finished and for everyone who wants such a doll but doesn't want to wait long it's the perfect deal.

Just look what happens when Soom has cancelled layaway dolls on sale, people snatch them up right away.
It's basically like selling 1 1/4 dolls (price-wise) instead of only one.

 

Which is not true or else Iplehouse would not charge a restocking fee. Instead of selling two dolls, they are selling one doll twice. That may look like a great deal (133% of the retail price for one doll!), but the time and costs spend on selling one doll, storing it and putting it up for sale are related with costs. So selling a restocked doll is costing more than selling one doll in one go. Therefore a restocking fee is charged to minimise the loss.
Running a business may at times work counter intuitive, but that's how it works sometimes or otherwise clothes stores wouldn't dump or destroy last season's clothes in order to make place for clothes of the new season. It's more cost efficient for them to get rid of the "old" clothes (which are brand new, but out of season) and focus solely on the in season clothes sale than to store the "old" clothes or try to sell those clothes at low prices.
Now BJDs are not clothes made for a few cents, but the manual labour involved in selling, restocking, and selling again still costs money. Hourly wages are going to be hourly wages and you can't outsource your office personal to a low wage country unless you want to move your whole office to another country. Storage space also costs money and the same goes with storage space as with the office and office personnel.
I can't say a company like Iplehouse is making no profit of restocking fees, but it is untrue to say that the whole restocking fee is profit.