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

I have lived in the US and Canada, USPS and Canada Post are worlds apart. I stopped buying BJD stuff and dolls online after moving back to Canada especially when I moved into a house instead of condo. Boxes are shoved into those small central mail boxes, oversized boxes are roughly shoved in the front door!!! In condos, we have 24/7 concierge service to sign for the boxes but not if you live in houses. Postage cost is extremely high for the service they provide, way higher than USPS because USPS offers flat rate shipping. Post offices in Canada mostly close on weekends and very few open after office hours. You need Fedex, UPS, DHL etc. Something is wrong with Canada Post, they don't seem to understand that the world is very much into eCommerce nowadays, even groceries is ordered online.

 

- Shipping fees!
I mean, it's kinda tolerable as long as the package stays inside of Europe but - oh boy - when it goes outside of EU... Ugh. Expensive. So... so expensive.


- How nothing EVER matches
I love hybrids but they are so difficult to match. And no matter how much you do research it probably ends up being the wrong color. Or the wrong size. Or the proportions are wrong.

 

Finding almost everything you need for a doll's outfit, but missing one crucial piece. Like finding the perfect pants that is what your character needs, but not finding a shirt that looks right, or vice versa. Happens to me all the time! Or having to buy from multiple doll clothing companies to put an outfit together, and paying for all those to ship. I love Alice's Collections, but even with all the choices, I still have difficulty putting together a complete outfit! Ugh!

 

Yeah Canada post is so frustrating. It's even expensive just to ship within Canada, it's so annoying! $11 to send a little bubble mailer of a 16cm plush to a city that's an hour away.

 

/rantmode on;

ZERO local bjd store. Yes zero!
Where I live, there's a small community of bjd owners and people who sell their dolls are even lesser compared to other countries.

Oh wait, there is one local "store" but she operates online and charges USD for products and shipping even for local customers. =\
Most of her items are made-to-order which takes over a month to be completed. Only after a few weeks did I realised she's just reselling for the creator who's based in China.

/rantmode off;

 

This ^^^^^
This makes it so hard to sell almost anything bjd related outside EU. Few buyers have backed off because the expensive shipping D: Spending 40-50€ for just a piece of clothing or head... It even bucks me to say to buyers the costs of shipping from here to their country

 

Just thought of another pet peeve: having difficulty finding doll clothes that match the clothes you imagine or want for your doll. Like yeah I could try making it, but I SUCK. I really want a kickass jean jacket for Dango ;-; and I want glasses that would fit her tiny face too! And a beanie! She's so tiny though. I worry I'll have to try making a lot for her or getting stuff commissioned for her when she arrives ;-; poor bby Dango


... Another pet peeve: figuring out the right name for your doll XD I have no clue at all what I'll be naming MDR Dango and just keep calling her Dango. But I want her to have an actual name from me and it's hard to think of one

 

Caveat: It's great I can afford the hobby, and I have the funds to get many of the materials and accessories I want.

That said, my current apartment is tiny, and there are very few places I can put my dolls that won't expose them to sunlight. Most of them have been in storage for years.

 

My kids think my dolls are creepy, and they hate seeing them- but they explained it is the "uncanny valley" effect: when something is very close to human, but not. Like when people see a dead person, it creates an uneasiness in most people. I grew up with dolls, so it doesn't bother me with them, but this explains the effect. People don't even realize it when they feel it. It is because these dolls are so realistic.

 

Okay, I've got a new small gripe that just came to me this afternoon:
I put in an order on Alice's Collection for a couple specific items because they fit one of my character's aesthetics. They were the right color, style and length...in the pictures. I just received them in the mail today, and...although one shirt works just as I hoped, the other, well....it was a lot longer than in the picture. It was supposed to go just below the pecks, but actually fits as a close to full length, to the waist shirt. So, yeah--a little disappointed with that. I guess I'll make it work somehow, or maybe tailor it in to be closer to the desired length when I get the chance, and access to my sewing machine. I was just looking forward to the pieces being perfect

 

I found one I never thought I would have:

When a seller backs out of a deal.

Oh holy I can't express just how annoyed/angry/hurt I am. This doll has been paid for since May. We had previously purchased a doll from this seller and it went flawlessly. We were told she would be available June, July at the latest and we've been patient while she deals with production issues. It was a great deal...but now it seems it was too good to be true.

She's lied about what happened with the doll and now she suddenly received it but in bad condition.

This is a seller we previously backed when someone was going to do a paypal dispute because they hadn't received tracking. We stuck up for her when the buyer was ready to do a paypal dispute and in essence put our names on the line and now we end up with the short end of the stick.

 

(This is completely a "You knew before you bought her", so it's more a little grumble than a rant)

Damn you, slim MSD, and your unrealistic proportions. I love my Resinsoul Ya/Rong but she's skinny enough to make scale knitting a real pain. Some doll clothes I can just grab a woman's pattern and roughly shrink it down to 1/3 or 1/4 - knit an aran weight designed for 6mm needles on 2mm or similar and the proportions work. I do that for Nina and she's wearing a tent, so everything needs to be re-written especially for her.

 

My biggest pet peeve is probably people outside the hobby asking why I collect dolls. Like, I don't know, why do you make quilts? Why do you do sports? Why do you do any hobby? I don't mind people asking what I do with them, but when they repeatedly ask why or call it a waste I can't take them seriously.

 

It bothers me when companies only have highly stylized photos of a doll or a bunch of pictures all from the same angle.
I just want blank front, sides, and back, preferably in all available resin tones. Maybe a couple unflattering up nose shots for good measure.

Though, the thing that probably most bothers me is when someone is asking for pictures or other references to BJDs representing people of color, someone usually trots in like "How about this dark elf/blue demon/horned purple thing!" as if that's somehow related to a Black collector looking for examples of Black dolls or someone wanting to shell a realistic POC character.

 

Most of my pet peeves have to do with communication in the Marketplace. If I didn't feel DOA's MP wasn't the safest way to sell (and buy) a doll, I'd have stopped using it altogether (and I have friends who did). One gripe is getting low-ball offers. I had one person offer me half of my asking price on some doll shoes and they wanted me to pay shipping, to boot. Why don't I just pay you to take it off my hands..... I didn't tell them that, but I really, really wanted to! LOL

I also don't like it when people ask if you will hold a doll or item for them without a deposit or payment. I learned my lesson on that way back when I started out in this hobby.....

Something I've experienced (about a dozen times) in DOA for the past year and a half or so is that a prospective buyer will start the ball rolling on purchasing a doll or doll item that I have for sale and then just disappear off the face of the planet! Literally, even! I've had 2 people who have not returned to DOA after initiating a purchase with me! Other times they just stop replying to Conversation posts and go on their merry way like they never talked to me in the first place. From simple "how much would it cost to ship to (fill in the blank)" with no reply after I researched the information for them all the way up to a couple where multiple promises of payment were made that were never received.

I could have lost a sale on a doll recently because one customer kept me hanging for 2 days which meant I had to keep another prospective buyer hanging during that time - only for the first prospective buyer to tell me she'd bought another doll in the meantime..... It doesn't take more than half a minute to shoot someone a PM.

Most people selling on the MP try to give the best customer service possible, but we're just individuals - some times I think as buyers we forget that. It's what I call the pedestrian syndrome: we all complain about pedestrians who walk out in front of our cars in a store parking lot - and as soon as we park our cars and get out we do the same thing.

 

The ugliness of people's attitudes around standards of beauty. Really child-like head sculpts with hyper adult bodies. Beards on said child-like sculpts. The lack of diversity among collectors (and the lack of people interested in addressing it.)

 

Buying a doll that you think will be Perfect for this a character plan, just for it to arrive and it not be, leaving you to struggle to figure out What To Do

 

I'm so there with you, @NamelessPierrot - I probably went through 4 MSD sculpts before I settled on my SD girl for my character (I really wanted her in MSD - LOL). I recently got a long desired OT doll as a birthday gift from my husband and.... I'm not bonding with her at all. What To Do, indeed.

 

Postage costs! I'm debating selling an MSD, and then I looked at just what Royal Mail wants to ship a parcel to the US... I'm thinking that might have to be a UK only. When you compare what the Royal Mail wants to ship things out of the UK, compared to getting things shipped in... (On the same subject, the fact that the online calculator and the machine at the post office frequently give totally different results, so you can't actually know until you go to post.)

 

Things that annoy you~ when you get a new doll and realise there is a small noticeable factory flaw. Eg pieces don't fit together right, scratches. It's not much but some slight flaws are more noticeable and annoying!