Things that annoy you... *Rant Thread* - pt.2

I would love to see more BJD YouTube channels. Honestly, I used to make videos pretty often, but school got in the way and on top of that they become more like work than fun trying to put a new one out every week. Since then, I've had a new job and grad school start so there's even less time. Still, I'd love to get back into it! Hm...just need to find something to talk about...

The wait times are definitely a painful thing. They're so long, but maybe I'm a little spoiled since I either buy things in person or order off of Amazon and such so the waits are very short. Sure, I've gotten used to the long wait times over the years, but they're still a pain.

 

- When people use the #bjdsale tag on a doll that is not for sale on insta
- When they use all possible company names as hashtag while they are not related
- Photoshoots with dolls without faceups, but you know they haven't had a faceup, ever, it bugs me?
- Shaggy wigs
- Wait times past 8 months
- Elitism, but also the other way around (being looked down because you wanted to spend more on something)
- Companies that don't list their doll sizes with their lines, I want to know if they are 1/6 1/4 1/3 you know
- When people don't want to disclose a sculpt or where they got an item
- When people mark up items

 

-“Cutesy” reviews. I get it. The item looks great and is pretty cute on your doll and now you’re really excited about it. But the incoherent emoji spam? Really? It’s an Etsy review, not your personal blog. And while it’s better than nothing, using lots of “cutesy” language and emojis means it’s really, really hard to understand. And I don’t mean general excited posts or anything on your own platform. Just the areas that are dedicated to feedback of an artist.

-Combined scale doll lots. I’m not buying two msd and two sd wigs in the same lot. I have no use for literally half of what you’re selling. Either list separately or make a note if you want to split it up, especially if you’re pricing high.

-random garments in lots. Play line toys are great and many of the clothes are quite pretty, but that’s not what I’m shopping for. If it’s not made for bjd, please quit trying to sell it as one. Or at least be honest on the origins or give some very good pictures. If nothing else, knowing the brand will give a far better estimate on fit than just eyeballing it.

-People who buy from known scammers. When someone has a documented history going back years of scamming people, they’re probably going to do it to you too. All buying from them does is encourage them to keep going and showing off how profitable it can be to encourage others. Even though they shouldn’t be scamming in the first place, the fan bases and knowing customers that think they’ll get lucky are at least a little responsible for enabling them. Obviously if you didn’t know, you didn’t know, but if you do and buy anyway, then it’s at least a little on you.

-People selling bad supplies and not checking them. Not completely a bjd thing but I’m annoyed. I bought a box of supplies at a yard sale and was really excited to use them. The tacky glue was completely dried up, the paint brush was dried solid, and some of the paint pens were dried up. I got some hopefully useful supplies, but I’m still disappointed.

 

Right now: SHIPPING.

Not just the fact that rates have gone up a lot and that for places like Mandarake and Yahoo!Japan I'm basically forced to wait with purchasing anything until I can get enough items together (in Mandarake's case from the same store since they don't hold things or combine orders from different stores, which is another small annoyance of mine) to ship in one parcel so I can justify the shipping cost, which means that there will be more customs fees to pay too.

Also per July 1st there will be new regulations meaning that EVERYTHING coming from outside the EU gets slapped with 21% VAT plus customs&handling fees (it used to be that parcels below 22 euros in value were exempt from fees).

Worst of all, parcel service in my country (PostNL, the Netherlands) is a mess and an absolute JOKE right now, much worse still than it was around last Christmas time. So many parcels going back to sender because they no longer automatically get a domestic tracking code, the international code stops working when the parcel enters the countryparcels with fees attached go straight to pickup points these days and apparently PostNL regularly "forgets" to notify recipients that their parcel is at a pickup point and fees need to be paid, with the result that after a week, the parcel gets returned to sender. I've even read complaints about parcels going back and forth multiple times>.<. Also their customer service is really hard to reach and pretty useless, basically blowing off valid complaints with standard responses

I currently have a body, a huge order with multiple dolls and an order with some eyes all stuck in this mess, the first two parcels having been underway since late May. The seller from the body has already gone ahead and opened an investigation with their parcel service, the chinese dealer I got the multi doll order from is still holding off with "shipping is delayed and unreliable because of the pandemic, please wait a bit longer, we'll issue a mail check". It's a nightmare, I've had a lot of dolls incoming over the years and none have been this stressful.

 

Do you (or anyone else) have any idea how sellers could help y'all out in managing this? When I looked into it a bit, I read something about an IOSS .. which now I forget what it stands for .. but it's something that would help bypass the customs/cost while letting the seller handle it. BUT it costs sooooo much money! Basically makes selling as a small business from outside of EU into EU totally prohibitively expensive, or a poor experience for the end customer

I honestly have no idea about the fairness/legality of the idea, but I was thinking like.. could small businesses offer coupons to EU customers that offsets VAT, or is that a big no-no? I don't imagine too many people have enough clarity into the situation yet, but I'd be curious if anyone's heard if people have been brainstorming how to help with making this not be a total blow to the art community/small businesses.

 

@maxxxamillion From what I understand sellers from outside the EU need to register into the EU "one stop shop system" (crappy translation from Dutch, I haven't been able to find the proper english translation yet) in order to offer their buyers the benefit of paying the VAT/fees at the moment of paying their order. I think that's the IOSS you mentioned. I have no idea how difficult that will be for sellers or how expensive, but it looks to be the only way. We will have to pay the fees no matter what though, the benefit we get from buying through registered sellers is that we won't have to pay the extra handling charge that we have to pay if the fees get charged after the parcel enters the country (4 or 7 euros in my country depending on if you pay online or at the pickup point). On the flip side, that new handling charge is less than the current one and we're already used to having to pay fees for anything worth over 22 euros, so when it comes to dolls at least I'm not sure if the difference will be enough to deter buyers. For small things it will be annoying though, shipping for anything outside the EU is quite steep already. I hope these new rules won't cost you too many customers!

 

@ShuriTigerH Thanks for sharing what you know! Yes - what you're talking about is definitely the same as what I've heard is the IOSS. The fees are enormous! Like 1000 to register, plus a yearly fee of a few hundred dollars, plus a couple more dollars per product sent. I hope someone can correct me & that my learnings are indeed incorrect - but for right now, it looks like something that only well established businesses with a (somewhat) guaranteed level of yearly earnings would be able to cover for their customers.

 

When I’m selling a doll and the person is spamming me so much and doesn’t seem to understand what I’m saying and keeps bugging me after I tell them I can’t do what they want immediately because I’m busy. I try to be really attentive to sales and respond but some people are really odd and like I have had someone beg me and message me as if this sale doesn’t happen this moment it’s over or something. Idk maybe that’s just me being newer to selling but I do really try to be nice and give as much as I can but sometimes I’m not available instantly.

 

Oh, do I ever agree with this! And not just Iplehouse. Granado has at lease five adult male bodies in the 60-75cm range and the head size/neck size makes a difference! Please please please give the size body the head is designed for in the description.

 

It is definitely not just you! People seem to think that just because they have time that the seller does as well. Like oh you are selling something so you should be available 24/7. It is frustrating. I give people 24 hours to respond unless I see they read the message then I give 12 because life happens and not everyone can respond the second they see a message. After that I message one last time then move on.

My new rant is people that message saying they are interested and want to buy your doll when clearly they have no intention of buying they just want to pick your brain because they are "new to the hobby and can't decide what they want" I don't mind helping people out with any info I have or point them in the right direction for info I am not sure about, but this one person messaged every person with a doll for sale in a certain group saying they were interested and made everyone uneasy and we all compared notes. Do people think we don't talk?! I had a bad feeling about her and as of yet she has bought nothing but wasted a lot of peoples time only to ghost out on them. There is more to it than that but I will leave it at that.

 

Is coming into the hobby late something I can be annoyed about?

I've seen pictures of BJDs for years but only recently got to a place where I could have/afford them and I have a short (but growing) list of grails that aren't available right now haha

A handful are made by someone who does pre-orders, so I'm waiting for his next one, but at least 2 are ones I'd have to buy second hand to get at this point (which I don't mind, I just don't know where all to buy second hand, and it makes me kinda nervous to do it)

And secondly - elitism in the hobby. I have 2 Smart Dolls and a handful of other store bought dolls, and I fully understand they are not BJDs, I never call them that. But when someone on Instagram noticed I was getting interesting in buying legit BJDs they sent me a nasty message telling me I can only love one style doll, or the other, not both. Like, why spend your time sending me hateful messages I'm just going to ignore, simply because you think I can't happily own different styles of dolls?

 

I would definitely ignore that comment, it is ridiculous to say you have to love only one style of doll, sounds like an idiot who just likes to spread negativity. I personally wouldn't even take a comment like that seriously, and block block block lol.

 

I ignored them haha didn't block - but I do plan to if they message again or comment negatively on any future posts.

My dolls make me happy, and I fully respect they're different and act accordingly. I just find it weird how angry some people get about it - I don't come across it often, most people seem to have my mindset of if it makes you happy let it be.

Part of me thinks they just wanted to pick on me because officially I'm new to the hobby, and my instagram is very little (less than 100 followers) so I may seem like an easy target - but I've gone through enough to not be effected haha

 

That person is an idiot who is absolutely not representative of the hobby or general attitudes within it. Especially considering how many BJD owners also collect other types of dolls. There's a ton of crossover between different elements of doll collecting, and only morons want to exclude anyone for doing the same thing as nearly everyone else but themselves.

 

I follow a few people on Instagram who have many styles of doll, so I know there's crossover - and luckily I've talked to many nice people, and have actually read forums on DoA for a while now (only made an account recently though), so I already had a good impression of doll collectors, I just ignored the message from that person.

And since then, I've had many nice conversations with others who have both dolls, and nothing but sweet comments on this site, so I know it's a rare thing to get someone that mean

 

Taobao resellers on etsy! Some of them list items I have found for less than a dollar for over 20! They also list them as handmade. There are SO many shops nowadays that are reselling or even drop shipping. It makes it hard to weed them out and support actually handmade goods.

 

When the Etsy algorithm has no earthly idea what you're looking for, no matter how you word it. The item either doesn't exist, or the maker has named it something so weird that I will never be able to find it.

 

I dont know if this is a peeve or just my thinking being weird, but I get slightly annoyed when people do splits and the coa goes with the body and not the head. Its completely irrational, but I always think of the doll's personality coming from the head since it's so unique, while the body is usually just a generic extension of it. I totally get that the bodies can be more expensive than the heads but ehh, my thinking is just weird. :/

 

Not being able to find the right wig or eyes for the doll. I get frustrated when I have the perfect doll in mind but for some reason the wig I want does not exist, then I have to request custom made wigs but for some reason that also does not work so I have to wait months to be able to find a wig that I like.
Also, all the weird shops on Etsy that have expensive shipping and crazy amounts of doll wigs and eyes and clothes. I am too scared to order from them because I don't want to wait that long and not be the right sized clothing or wig.

 

when the Etsy algorithm has no idea what you're looking for, and somehow ends up pulling up things that aren't anything I'd ever ask for - doll bdsm-type stuff, or eyes too big for any of my dolls, or what have you. And there's no way (that I've found) to tell the algorithm "Do not show me this thing again!"