Resale Overprice (foreal)

Just going to throw my two cents in because I noticed this in the MP recently and though it was a bit crazy.

I just recently bought a Glot Fullset (clothes, wig, wings, hooves, box included) with Soom faceup and blushing for $630. She would've been about $660 including shipping from US to Canada but I've managed to arrange a pick up instead.

While I was looking for my Glot I noticed a seller who is selling an unblushed, un-face upped Glot fullset with the same parts I'm getting (plus the paperwork and eyes) for $900.

I find that a bit ridiculous to be honest. I know blushing adds on cost, but to have an unblushed doll selling for $300 more than a blushed one is just a bit overkill on the price. I mean how much of a profit are people trying to make here? To top that off, shipping isn't included. I'm also pretty darn sure that the eyes would not be worth $300.

I know that the prices on a discontinued or limited doll are bound to be a bit higher than usual, but that much higher? Maybe I just haven't shopped around the MP enough but I've seen two or three Glot sales that I've looked at that had the price at around $650 and most of them were blushed.

It's possible that I've just come across an extreme example of overpricing dolls, but I just still can't believe its that much.

 

I can actually understand this quite well- you don't get a chance to see any kind of owner photos before you order a Soom MD, and often their photos are heavily shopped... but if you don't buy them right away from Soom you may miss out on a doll you really liked, or have to deal with the hassle and cost of picking them up secondhand. They can also take quite a long time to ship, especially if you put the doll on layaway. In the 4-6 months it takes for Soom to deliver even a doll paid immediately in full a lot can change... someone may have lost a job and need to recoup what they spent on a luxury, they may realize they prefer a larger/smaller size or different sex, or they might just change their mind and not like it much in person. I know some people also buy full dolls planning to sell some parts when the doll arrives because they either don't have enough posts to open a split or can't find other people to split with before the order period is closed. Maybe some people do intentionally order Soom MDs with the sole intention of selling them for an inflated price as soon as they arrive... but I think more often than not people are just taking a risk on a doll they can't see owner photos of and won't receive for months. To be perfectly honest, I have a Glot and don't quite like her as much as I did on the Soom website. I like her enough to keep her now that she's here, but if I'd been able to see owner photos before committing to the purchase I might have ended up deciding not to get her. She's cute, she's just not entirely what I'd expected.

 

This is a really good point. I guess its more sad that so many soom dollies do not stay with their original owner. But then again, they are in such high demand they find a home almost right away! ^_^

 

I'm basically echoing what others have already said, but to put it, perhaps, another way...

On another forum for doll collectors (of a different kind of doll entirely), I've often seen new collectors asking "how much is this doll 'worth'?"

This question almost always applies to dolls on the Secondary Market (which is what we're talking about here). The simple answer it this is always that it's 'worth' what you (or anyone looking to buy it) are willing to pay for it. Some dolls that are hard to find and very desirable will easily go for several hundred times the original retail price. Others hover & cap at about 1.5 times original retail.

The basic principles are always the same, even with BJD's, as discussed here. Can you easily find the doll elsewhere? If so, how much will you pay to buy it from the other source?

If someone is selling a BJD that is no longer available from the original manufacturer and they're charging several hundred $$$ more than the original price for that doll and there are a number of people who are ready, willing, & able to pay that price, and then they do, then that is how much that doll is worth. You might scoff at what someone is asking you to pay for a doll, but if the seller can find someone who won't scoff, then clearly at least one person thought the doll was worth that. If this happens several times over with the same doll, but perhaps from different secondary market sources, and/or with the doll being purchased by a different buyer, then that's the going rate for the doll. It's really that simple.

And, like others have said, if no-one feels the doll is 'worth' that price, then it won't sell. The seller will lower the price until someone buys it, then that becomes how much that doll is 'worth'. I've seen several posts in the MP where a seller indicates they've lowered the price on whatever it is they're selling, but people rarely complain about a doll they like being "under appreciated" by being sold for less than retail, less than they think it's worth, etc.

All of this really is part & parcel of collecting anything with fluctuating availability. The cold, dispassionate truth is that if you have a hard time with this, then you either should stop collecting anything that is not always readily available (which seems counter-intuitive to the instincts of most collectors, really), or always be ready to purchase anything & everything you might want to own when it's at its lowest (original) price.

 

One thing that continues to boggle me is the number of posters in this thread that seem to be ignorant of how investments and collectibles work. In general, what makes something collectible in the first place is scarcity and a tendency to appreciate in value. Go to any newsstand and you will find a section of print magazines that are 'price guides' for anything from comic books to baseball cards.

Dolls are not cars, they don't accumulate mileage. They are not tissues, you don't blow your nose on them and throw them away. As with any collectible, condition factors in heavily to value, and obviously a fullset that has been kept in its box will, in general, outprice a doll that has been played with extensively. However, the argument that a doll is 'used' and therefore should be cheap sounds ridiculous to anyone that has been a longtime collector of most anything. Would you go into an antique shop with that argument? No, you would not.

If you don't like how the system works, don't participate. There are plenty of standard releases that are available all the time at their retail price.

 

An item (in this case a doll) is worth what a collector is willing to pay for it; no more, no less. I have sold dolls (non BJD's); sometimes for a little more than I gave, sometimes I have taken a loss.
At times, a collector is wanting to take a risk and buys a limited doll to resell it at a later date at a profit. This is by no means foolproof as the doll could end up being a less popular doll and thus sell at a lower price and at a loss to the seller.

What does irk me at times (as it defies my sense of logic) is when I see an item (whether a bjd doll or antique/vintage doll from and antique shop or ebay, for that matter) for sale...again and again, for months on end. It doesn't sell, yet the seller seem unwilling to lower the price.
If an item doesn't sell for the price that is set, it is normally a sign of too high price IMHO

 

There seems to be some blending of two very different situations, here. A limited doll is limited... you EXPECT the price of a new condition doll to go up, or at least you should, once it's out of production. If you can't buy it retail anymore but can only find it on the secondhand market, the market sets the price.

The other situation is with standard releases. And yeah, I have literally laughed at listings of an easily-available standard with a long list of defects that ends with "so I want to get what I paid..."

For a past limited I can't buy new, that I really want, sure I'll pay whatever price I can afford if I find one secondhand. I'm actually amazed at how little some limited dolls appreciate in this hobby. But for a standard I'm not going to buy a used one for more than new + shipping would be from the company unless there's some spectacular artist's faceup involved, and it had better be in new condition. I might be willing to add a SMALL amount to the price for the convenience of not having to wait... but if the price is much higher than retail I'll just buy a new one! Doubling the price of a rare limited=reasonable. Doubling the price of a standard=good luck with that!

 

I can understand this too, but I sold my Glot quite quickly after recieving her. I have been pretty patient waiting for the majority of my dolls, I don't actually mind the wait, but waiting for Glot was stressful and not the fun anticipation I thought it would be. I got fobbed off a few times when I made polite enquiries and I didn't enjoy the experience at all. When she arrived I was relieved, but also so disillusioned because the doll was cute enough, but not exactly what I had expected. I persevered for about a week, in that time getting a face up for her and trying to bond through blushing her, but in the end I was so disappointed with my Soom experience that I decided to sell Glot and decided there was no way I was getting Soomed again.

I sold my Glot for more than I paid for her (she went for $650, if I remember correctly), but that was the after-market value at the time and it covered the fees I had to pay to release her from customs and the cost of the lovely face up she had from dusky, among other things. I intended to buy another doll with the proceeds of her sale and that doll cost exactly $650, so I was keeping the money in the hobby, rather than selling something over the odds to make myself a profit.

With Soom limiteds I think there are some people who buy with intent to scalp, but most people buy a sight-unseen doll based off heavily-photoshopped promo pictures and extremely hyped up anticipation as soon as Soom release teaser pictures, knowing full well that if they miss this opportunity they could never find this doll at a reasonable price again, and when the doll arrives they're not as in love with it as they were at first. I'm unsurprised that many of these people choose to sell and recoup their losses - particularly if they have just seen another Soom limited that catches their eye

I agree with this also. No one owes anyone a ridiculous deal on something that is pretty expensive to begin with.

If you treat a standard doll well, you can expect to get what you paid for it. If you treat a discontinued standard doll well, you could expect to earn more money if you choose to sell it. If you treat a limited edition doll well and have all it's accountrements, the price goes even higher...however the market can only stand so much. If a doll doesn't sell at the astronomical price the seller has set, the seller has to recognise the wisdom of bringing the price down a little to an accessible level. This is how market value works.

 

This. Thank you. The "I'm his third or fourth owner, he is yellowed a bit and he has a wig stain on his head and two of the fingers on his right hand have been broken but I've glued them so you can't hardly tell and there's a big chip out of his ankle but I think he's worth what I paid for him which was (doll price) + (shipping) + (customs)" dolls. Get real, people!

The other peeve for me is people who bought a big name faceup two years ago and want to recoup that full price after describing all the worn spots on it. I'm not interested in paying big bucks for a name face-up in any event-odds are good it will be worn and wiped within a year at most at my house. But to expect to recoup your original cost on a face-up that is no longer pristine is exceedingly unrealistic.

If I were ever to sell one of my crew, who are for the most part readily available, I would not expect to get full original price. My dolls are taken care of, but they're working dollies (pattern models). I'd be asking about two thirds original cost. And I would never pay full new cost for an available standard doll-I'd just as soon wait a bit and buy it new and sniff those new resin fumes!

But this is just me. I can do my own face-ups and I can sew my own clothes, so as a rule I'm primarily interested in naked resin as opposed to a doll with a face-up and a bunch of extra clothes thrown in. More often than not, the clothes are not to my taste and I think the owners would be better off splitting up those components and selling them separately.

As for SOOM, the marketplace seems to have settled somewhat over the last six months. Some of the monthly dolls who weren't quite as popular are selling for very reasonable prices. It's possible to put one together that you missed without paying 3 times over the original price. I agree with those who said the big churn with the Soom MDS is because you have to buy almost on faith and you might not like it once it's actually there. I'm not seeing what I would consider scalping.

 

While I agree with the rest of your post, I've found that this isn't really the case anymore. Three or four years ago? Absolutely. But as bad as the economy is and as soft as the market has become as a result, unless the doll you're selling is a hard-to-find favorite or the current hot-ticket "flavor of the month", you'll be very, very lucky to get back your investment. It's a lot more likely that you'll have to mark it down well below retail to sell it in any reasonable amount of time.

 

These two statements say it all.

1. If the economy is rough, that will basically effect 'EVERYONE' including doll collectors, if we're now looking at this
economically now, and not just morally. If your dolls aren't selling well and you NEED the money, do you think of a 'monopoly' now or do you reset it back to just a simple 'sale'. Honestly, I'm not a 'flip' seller so I wouldn't know. It just seems as though in order TO sell, if one simply can't afford your prices, than you simply HAVE to lower them.

Here I agree with Juno. They're right. Apparently Soom monthly dolls have been known to have poor quality. And since they're in demand, they're value in my opinion lessens because they're not rare and they will probably get a TON of resales.

I guess some feel like they are the ONLY sellers in the world, and that someone won't look elsewhere for something that apparently gets a lot of sales. Won't someone just go someplace cheaper though? I'm really curious.

And lastly 2: Not to make this sound rude. But out of general curiosity, do people get involved in this hobby and say aloud:

"I'm going to become a doll collector to resale dolls at triple their original selling price."

Because if you say that, and be honest, you're a shark, not a seller. Are you truly interested in the hobby at that point?

Because I figure that someone who was would understand how it felt to love something but not exactly be able to afford it?
And maybe even remember that I'm sure someone outstretched their hand to them, being civil.

I'm sure not everyone who 'oversells' is a horrible person... So what is their real reasons for doing it.

 

I find it hard to believe that anyone would get "into the hobby" for that reason...and truly, if someone's motives from the start are to buy a lot of something & immediately re-sell it at a higher price, then that person would more accurately be called a dealer (this is what standard retailers do, after all; they buy at wholesale, then sell at "suggested retail", which is easily 2 or 3 times what they paid for it), or if they're buying at retail & selling at an even higher price, then yeah, they're a scalper or a shark or whatever other unsavory word you want to tack onto it.

I'm not sure where any of this is coming from at all. Sure, I would want to help people with whom I share a hobby, but since when is anyone obligated to offer BJD's as charity?

As has been said before, these dolls are effectively collectibles, and like other collectibles they may increase or decrease in value. The ones that have a more limited availability are more likely to appreciate (become more expensive)... that's how it works, plain & simple.

Yes, the economy is rough for everyone, so collectibles across the board aren't appreciating as much as they might have previously because the prices are ultimately set by the buyers. A seller whose goods aren't moving is going to lower the asking price if they really want the money rather than the goods, very plain, very simple.

And "overselling" isn't about being a good person or being a bad person; like I just mentioned, it's about wanting to have the money rather than the goods. Maybe someone has unexpected medical bills, home repair, they need to buy a plane ticket to see family, or any number of other reasons--maybe they just want to buy a different doll. This isn't about being virtuous, it's about having a saleable commodity & taking a very reasonable course of action with it.

All of that said, I have noticed that people at my doll meet will mention dolls they're thinking of selling & offer them to people at the meet for slightly less than what they'll ask on the MP--but the difference is small, maybe 10%. That's pretty much the extent of a "helping hand" that I think is reasonable to expect w/anyone selling any goods; to offer a slightly smaller price for someone you know in real life than you would to someone who's just contacting you because they want to buy whatever it is you're selling.

 

IMHO, it depends on how long someone is waiting on this one. If something doesn't sell in a day, that isn't an indication of very much at all. A few months? Yes, the price may be too high. Thing is, people don't have to do anything. It may be foolish, or they may have other reasons for leaving things as they are.

...since when, exactly? Because other than the usual 'my doll arrived with a broken hand, I had to ask them to send a new one' sort of problems I hear about pretty much every doll company on the board, I haven't seen this, so I am incredibly curious to know where you're getting that from.

You really, really need to look at how supply and demand actually works, because... this, what you are describing, it is not it. It isn't based on fixed quantities of anything. There are not, for instance, a limited number of iPads being produced, but there were still people paying absurd prices for them upon release because there were a limited number of them available right then and the number of people who wanted the items was higher than the number available.

I have an LE of... I think there's 29 of him? I don't recall off hand. It's a fairly small edition. He was released in the first week of October and the edition still hasn't sold out; he can still be had at retail direct from the company. There is a small quantity of this doll out there -- if his edition hasn't sold out yet, and they didn't premake the dolls, that means there are even -less- of him presently than his total edition number, and he's even more rare! ...which doesn't matter worth a hoot because it's pretty obvious that not a lot of people are terribly interested in this doll even at his base retail price. A base retail price that's lower than most of the blank Soom SG MDs, actually, though faceup, eyes, and wig are included in that price. He actually is lovely -- he's just really not everyone's cup of incredibly weird tea. He's actually awesome enough that if I could afford to, I would get a second one to paint up a different weird way since I have two ideas for the one I have and I'd love to be able to do both of them. (Woe. Too many other shiny things out there in the world.)

The MD dolls everyone can't stop complaining about in this thread, though, apparently are a lot more people's cup of tea. Hundreds of Heliots sold at retail, by contrast, for twice the price of the doll described above with wig, faceup, and eyes added in, and still significantly more blank. I'm reasonably sure there were at the very least 5x as many Heliots ordered just by people on DoA as there are in the full edition of the other, if not more than that, and DoA isn't representative of the total number of dolls ordered, either. I'd be completely unsurprised to discover there are over 500 Heliots out there, in fact. That there are at least over 100 of them, however, has not prevented people from wanting one.

This is where it's all just... completely falling apart, I'm sorry. There are plenty of things I love but I cannot have them. There's probably at least two or three things I see every single day that I would very much love to have, things that would make my life easier, or things I actually need that I cannot have because I can't afford it. I am not entitled to have things simply because I want them and neither is anyone else. Seriously, I learned this lesson when I went to the toy store with my mother as a very small child and she told me, "No, you can't have that, we don't have the money for it." Did this stop happening somewhere along the line?

Because by this logic, someone should lower prices to an absurd degree just to make someone feel happy fluffy and have everything they want. It goes both ways into unreasonable territory. Tell you what -- go into a collectibles store and try this. See how far you get. Why is it somehow different when it's an individual? Plenty of stores sell LE dolls, or special editions long sold out -- and they tend not to do it for the original retail prices in many cases unless it's a poor selling item or they'd had it for years.

 

This has already been said, but I don't think it's being understood. A seller does not haveto do anything. Dolls are a luxury item, and while I know people can and do sell them to cover other expenses, speaking for myself I typically sell them to pay for other dolls. This grants me the ability to sell them at my leisure, and I am therefore free to choose a price that I'm comfortable with and wait. If your desire for the item I have for sale exceeds my desire to keep it, then you will pay my price. If I decide I want to move it a little faster, or I feel my price is completely out of joint with fair market value, then I may adjust it. But I am not obligated to do anything. I am not a charity, and my morals or lack thereof are entirely between myself and my Mother.

Says who? I have three of the little darlings and they all arrived in perfect condition.

If there's someone selling an item cheaper, then by all means you should buy it at the lower price. As an enthusiastic bargain hunter, I encourage it whole-heartedly. However, if I'm the only seller that has what you want, then all the cards are mine and I set the rules of the game.

Oh yes, definitely. Would you like to count my teeth? Floss while you're back there, won't you?

I remember exactly how this feels, because there are still things in my life I can't afford to have. However at no time has it crossed my mind that I am entitled to have those things or that someone else is obligated to either give them to me or take a loss on them in order to make those nice things cheap. Instead of whining, I take it as inspiration to work hard to earn and save the money necessary to have the things I covet.

 

This is interesting.

You know I REALLY really don't like scalpers. But if I was selling a limited I would not lower a price for another collector if I did not personally know or have some familiarity with them. Why? Because if I give them a big break and immediately they flip the doll for the real market value (what people are willing to pay) I look like the fool. Yes that has happened to me in the past with Living Dead Dolls and it was infuriating to see the doll I practically gave away marked up to a crazy amount of money a few weeks later. I thought the buyer was sweet and desperate for her dolly! I guess not.

For some people getting a higher price for their doll means they can buy another doll. Maybe even an expensive dream doll. The forums suggest that this is the case most of the time. People want to free up cash for other doll goodies.

If the second hand price is absurd to you it is within your power to refuse to pay it. You made a good point that you will take your business else where and I agree 100 percent.

One method I have found useful is WTB threads. It seems that most of the people who have contacted me this way are very reasonable about price mark ups. They appear to be more interested in getting their doll a new home rather than inflating the price to something NUTS. I could just be lucky but there are people out there willing to sell limited dolls with a very small mark up!

 

More power to anyone who can turn a profit out of their hobby, I say. If people are going to get annoyed by the sellers selling dolls at a mark up then you HAVE to get annoyed at the market forces that allow them to do so. I.e. the individuals who can afford to throw lots of money down on a doll they want. And I just can't bring myself to hate on one of the lucky people who could afford to buy a limited doll on the second market, congratulations to them. As much as WE ALL know what it's like to love something and not to be able to afford it, it doesnt make me bitter to those who have the joy of being able to afford it.

I reckon people are turned into horrible misanthropic sharks because of all the whiny entitlement regarding luxury items ^_^

It's such an esoteric hobby it would be hard to become a shark and take the deep interest in current prices and market forces if you werent somewhat interested. And like Starzzz points out, that's what dealers do and I've never come across one who wasnt already into dolls. I'm not saying no one's ever come across BJDs from the outside and said, hey I'm gonna make a profit out of this community but I don't think it happens a lot and the people selling dolls at a markup in the marketplace are guilty of this.

And how about the many people making a profit out of the doll clothes and accessories the make and sell on the marketplace?

This. It's simply not possible because of the limited nature of a lot of desirable dolls. Even low prices wouldnt make everyone happy because of the fact there arent enough of the dolls to go around!

ETA:

Great point. One seller alone can't fight the market. If there was ever will to change it would have to be across the board.

 

Oops double post! Please ignore!

 

Economics lesson time:

Supply and demand curves for perfectly inelastic supply and normal demand:

(graph from Wikipedia, applies to limited dolls only)

In the case of limited dolls, we can assume that the quantity is fixed regardless of the price. This is represented by the blue line, that shows quantity (horizontal axis) cannot change regardless of the price (vertical axis). The red curves represent market demand, i.e. the cumulation of individual demands. Any point on the curve represents the quantity desired at a given price by the market, so, as you can see, at high prices, quantity demanded is low, and at low prices, quantity demanded is high, as you might expect. The point at which supply and demand intersect is known as the market price. As you may or may not have noticed, this price is determined solely by where the demand curve intersects the supply curve. The demand curve can move, depending on changing demand, but the supply cannot change.

This means that your demand is the sole deciding factor of what price the doll eventually sells for. So, as many have mentioned before, it's the buyer who eventually sets the price. The seller can decide to 'set' the price however he or she likes, but the final price is dependent on how much a given buyer is willing to pay.

For all dolls:

Basically, I don't think any doll can be considered 'overpriced' if it eventually sells. Even so, the only person affected by the overpricing is the seller, because he or she is stuck with something they, presumably, so not want.

For the buyer, they have the absolute freedom to choose whether or not to buy the doll at any given price. Unlike a seller who doesn't make a sale and gets stuck with stock, a buyer loses nothing from not buying (except, for some people, apparently, some of their happiness).

Someone buys a default El for $1000 from a seller. It's not overpriced, since the seller's price apparently matched with the demand of buyer.

A default El sits on the marketplace for months at $1000. It's overpriced for that market at that point in time.

As far as the sale of luxury goods go, 'morality' does not figure at all. As I've said, a buyer is not damaged by being unable to purchase a resale doll (or any doll for that matter), so no harm is done to buyers or potential buyers whatever the price sellers set it at. I do find it annoying sometimes when I see obvious scalping, mostly along the lines of 'I could buy an SD for the price of that naked Teenie Gem, and clothes, and shoes, and maybe a new wig too', but when I think about it, they're pretty savvy investors and I envy the fact that they have to money (and patience, when it comes to Soom MDs) to flip dolls for profit. It's kinda anti-social behaviour, yea, but, it takes all sorts to make a world, yea?

 

These are hard time economically and no on is forcing you to buy a doll if you think the price is over-inflated. There's a few dolls I'd like to own, there's many I don;t because I won;t pay the price asked for by some sellers. That's my choice and if someone else comes in a must have it and is willing to pay the inflated price... fine got for it. it won;t change my core values and what I think a fair price should be.

So I won't get this doll. It's not the end of the world and there are so manymolds out there, you are sure to find what you want. elsewhere.

If you MUST have it and have a budget, stick to your budget and wait... wait and wait some more. Maybe you'll get lucky maybe you won't. But as sure as no one can force you buy a doll oer the limit you've set yourself, you can't force a seller to lower their asking price... you can try... but if you have your budget I am sure the seller has one also.