What size BJD is most popular by number sold?

I think it's a bit harder to see what sells based on numbers alone since no one really releases that info, but if you look at independent creators and what they're making, I'd say 65+cm dolls are the most popular. Most independent heads seem to be made to fit 70cm dolls like Soom or 65cm dolls like Switch. You can also see the transition from 60cm to 65+cm reflected in how Souldoll culled their Double line and kept the Zenith while transferring their more popular Double heads to that line years ago. In addition, lots of companies are now updating with new 65-70cm scale dolls, but not their 60cm anymore. So I think the bigger dolls are selling more. I do not know how that would compare to minis, but I think minis are steady sellers at the very least because they're also popular among independent creators.

 

I'm active on a number of BJD facebook forums, and minifees seem to dominate the conversations. But 65cm and taller males are also the rage right now. The 60 to 63cm male dolls have lost popularity in favor of their taller brothers, which irks me, because I don't like the taller boys, and it is getting nearly impossible to find boys in that shorter range. I personally have a solid collection of boys at 62cm.
Also, going by the clothing sellers on sites like Etsy, it is dominated by clothing for minifees.

 

Female dolls it's definitely MSD and smaller, male dolls it is SD and up.
You can actually see that the ratio of female vs male changes the smaller the dolls get. Big dolls are nearly always only male (like 75cm female? Good luck finding that), while smaller dolls are often nearly always female. That's also why owning MSD or YoSD boys is a nightmare, you barely get clothes for them

But which size has been objectively sold the most throughout the years is hard to say. It's true that the standard 60cm has somewhat fallen out of fashion, at least with guys. Usually they're 65, 70 and nowadays often even 75cm tall. Girls 60cm is still more popular but people definitely lean more towards smaller ones there.

 

It's important to keep in mind that those of us on DoA (primarily western, English speaking community) are likely to have different preferences from other cultures. Minifee clothing is pretty common on Etsy but you'd be hard pressed to find any in places like TaoBao, for example.

 

This. 75cm guys are becoming crazily popular over there too, while they're not really here.

 

I have noticed this! The "big baby" size (chunky mini dolls like DearSD) seem to be really popular for the market buying on Taobao, and I haven't seen as many of those in my (limited) experience in the English-speaking community.

 

I would guess 1/3rd scale dolls are the largest number sold, followed by mini, then tinies. My intuition says tinies would be bought the most because they're often cheapest, but intuition isn't always correct.

I'm basing my guess off the number of current sales threads in the marketplace. The largie subforum has 53% of the sales threads, while mini has 29%, and tinies are 18%.

 

I think that is 1/3.
But when I try to find something for my dolls on internet… I find difficult to see 1/3 accessories.
1/4 is more common.

So maybe 1/4 is more common, it’s more easy to craft a sofa for 1/4 than a 1/3… and instagtam is full of fairyland dolls. There are more practical.

 

Gotta agree with others here who said minifees and the 70cm+ crowd for the boys. Mature minis are also growing in popularity from what I've observed, so that could give more support to the 1/4 scale in general.

Mind—my preference in general is 65cm+ for boys and 60cm+ for girls (although I'd love to see more 65cm+ girls—especially when they're getting into the 70-75cm range). Sadly, however—what's popular for the girls is the cutesy wide-eyed youthful look (see Fairyland and Volks), and not the more mature, sexy femme fatale or strong warrior woman. So, if I were to give popularity depending on geography in respect to MSD-scaled dolls—I'd say Fairyland minifees for the west, and the more Volks-like MSDs for the east.

This is from my personal perspective, and not based off actual numbers. Minifees seem to be everywhere, including the WTS markets I've searched through off-site.

 

Minifees may be very popular in Western markets but they don't seem to be popular at all in Asian markets?

I don't think I've ever seen stuff, like clothes, for Minifees from Japanese, Chinese or even Korean clothes makers? Also never really seen any for sale secondhand in my local doll community or on major Japanese secondhand doll sites like Dollyteria and Mandarake.

What I've noticed in Asia is the rising popularity of anime-style 1/4 dolls and artist heads for 1/3 and 70cm+ boys.

 

1/4 is the most popular size in where I'm currently at, by far. It's not uncommon to see accessory listings for 1/4 dolls being sold out while 1/6 and 1/3 are still available. 14mm eyes are also frequently sold out with 16mm usually following if there's also an option for that size.

 

I've been curious about this too. I think 1/4 is what I notice most. I see where people are coming from about Minifees as well. Might be cost and what collectors are able to find here in terms of clothes and accessories.

 

I don't follow many doll owners, stores or other sources as reference for having an opinion and it's true that the numbers will change drastically probably depending on which market is considered (worldwide, asian, european, etc.) but I just wanted to note that, looking at the number of doll profiles in this forum, one could draw some conclusions.

• 66cm+ Dolls 2473
• 50–65cm Dolls 6074
• 40–49cm Dolls 5207
• 20–39cm Dolls 2138
• ~20cm Dolls 1052

Based on those numbers, the 50-65cm mark looks like the most popular one (though very close to the 40-49cm category), at least in this forum.

 

That's a good point. Does also follow a sort of value idea still. Even size itself can be of some value due to space and such.