Why do people buy a doll just to turn around and sell it?

if you've waited 7 months for a doll, it's quite likely you will either have decided you want a different doll by the time you get it, or you may have unexpected bills to pay and need to sell it, etc.

 

I think some times it's a matter of not seeing the actual doll in person before buying. Sure sometimes you can go to a meet up and see another person's doll and you end up liking it, and you might buy one for yourself. Most of the time (at least for me), you see what is on the company website or on photo sharing sites like flickr etc and maybe when the doll comes it's just not what you expect. It could also be a matter of an ultra limited doll that the person bought just to mark up the price for resale, which also happens in this hobby at times (look at some of the volks and soom limiteds that are hard to get).

 

I'm not a "bonder", so I can't speak to that... But sometimes, especially if you've been at the doll thing for a few years and know your own tastes well, you really can just tell from the start that a new doll isn't going to work out.

I've had that happen several times. You order the doll thinking it'll be great, finally get the box, open it and... Nothing. The attraction isn't there. Finally seeing it in person? The doll's a chunk of expensive resin NOPE.

In those cases, it just doesn't make sense to keep the thing around.

 

I just sold a limited WITHdoll myself. I just didn't fall in love with her and finding stuff that fitted was a headache. She was a 16cm doll, but at least I found out small dolls are definitely not for me.
I've also learned to wait and /really/ think before I buy because it's not at all fun to sell dolls. At least not for me. I kept her for a year and I gave her face up after face up, tried to sew clothes or even find ones to fit, but in the end it was just too much work and too little enjoyment.

I don't really get people who sell their doll the moment they have them though, but I suppose it's like @NY_Kitty and @elve said. Could've fallen out of love, or maybe selling a doll to pay bills.

 

Sometimes you see the doll in person, and realize you just don't like it. Or it doesn't work for your plans. Or maybe after waiting four-eight months for the doll, plans change or financial difficulties hit. There are loads of reasons.
I had one, I was so excited for, but the moment I saw him in person, I absolutely hated him. Sold him instantly, I didn't even want to LOOK at him or have him around. It happens. It sucks, but it happens.

 

It has happened more than once that I have ordered a doll and the moment it got there, I knew it wasn't what I wanted. I'm pretty decisive and if I know I don't want a doll, I'm not going to keep it. I'm going to give someone else a chance with it! I have a whole growing list of dollies I want, and I'm going to want some money back to spend on the next doll. If I really love the doll, I will know immediately, and will never let go of that doll!
I have had to turn around and sell a doll I really loved due to financial issues popping up. I got a really great deal for a brand new one later though, so it was no big deal!

 

With your example of the limited Sia fullset, Fairyland is really popular. If you think at all you're going to want the new limited from Fairyland, you've got to act pretty quickly. But you can also act knowing they have a really good resale market. So I think a lot of Fairyland limiteds are a safer impulse buy. I had this mindset with my Switch Soseo Holy ver., too. I did fall in love, but I know he'll sell pretty easily if he arrives and I don't like him. I think it's about claiming something while its available, in case they do become a treasured doll. And many people with these quick buys also put them on layaway, making getting fullsets a little easier, but also can lengthen the time it takes from order to arrival! Sometimes too long a wait has people aching for something else rather than remaining excited.

Even with how I feel, it's all very individual why people may be revolving-door-owners.

 

I'm gonna say the ugly word, "Profit"

Thought this is mostly for very hard to get, very limited dolls that only are sold in limited numbers or only sold in that country. Though without these resellers, a collector won't have a chance to get their grail doll and are willing to pay whatever price it's going for on the secondhand market.

 

I think for the most part owners have financial difficulties or maybe buyers remorse due to their finances. Yes, I think it could partly be due to making a profit. It could also be the non-bonding issue that makes owners sell their dolls when they get them.

 

I just bought a few Mirodoll bodies with the intention of hybriding for my Little Rebel boys and they just weren't as aesthetically pleasing for me as another body sculpt I'd gotten from them and so I'm selling one of them. I don't think I'll keep the other either but I might mod the ever living daylights out.of them if they don't sell. For.me it was just that they didn't work for the hybrid.

 

The difficult thing about this hobby is that, for the most part, you wait for months to see the physical doll that you're actually buying. Like some of what has been said above, sometimes by the time the doll finally arrives, your plans or tastes have changed. Sometimes things come up and you need the money more than a new doll who will cost you more money to customize. That's the other thing... in my experience, ordering a doll without a faceup is particularly dangerous because for me, it's hard to visualize what the doll could eventually look like. Then you have to wait even longer if you commission a faceup artist. By the time that everything is said and done, it's really hit or miss for me. Then I start to waffle about selling because I feel guilt that I've waited for so long only to be disappointed.

 

Well, as for me , I only sold 1 tiny doll and 1 mini doll ,the tiny one was because I waited for 6 months and each time i asked (at first they promised to hand the doll to me within 3 months)i asked "can i get my doll this month""yes of course",and after a few times i was not that happy (i don't care if they just told me ,well,you have to wait 6 months ,but each time they promised and failed..)and when I got him i was not interested in him anymore ,and as for me ,I believe dolls have feelings ,and if I don't love them and keep them around ,they won't be happy,and i will not play a doll i don't like,so ,my friends say,it's better to hand him/her to someone who loves them ,it's better,but I will not sell my large dolls because I love large dolls~(but I must confess when i first got Warren,I thought he looked different from the official pic and i am so disappointed,but after one month,when i got used to him,it's better~in fact some times it takes time to work with a doll-I mean take pics,cuz i believthey have spirits,a litttle crazy,and i am not good at taking care of dolls under 60cm and female dolls,i don't know how to dress them or how to put the posts)

 

I'm waiting on a doll right now that I'm probably (barring a completely unexpected turn of events) will be selling when I finally get it.

It was a limited doll, she looked super cute in the photos and looked a lot like my character. I asked the company for some blank photos but they didn't have any (but were kind enough to provide photos without a wig of the painted doll), so I went for it. It's been 7 months, people have gotten that doll since then, and in the arrival photos I can see that she's clearly not what I hoped she would be. There are no financial difficulties or anything of the sort, but she doesn't fit the character and keeping something like that is just a waste.

 

If you open a new doll and dislike it immediately (sometimes they look different in person to sales photos) selling as soon as possible while it's still 'new' will give you the best chance of getting as much of the sales price back as is possible on the second hand market. There's always the dilemma of - do you keep the doll a little longer and see if it grows on you? Or do you cut your losses and sell? I can see why people choose the later option, especially as the secondhand market is so slow (and tastes fickle) these days.

 

Thank you. If you hadn't said it, I would have. I've seen this time and time again. I've even participated when I really needed funds. And people ARE willing to pay more money for the limited popular brands even if you've got other dolls for sale at less than their original retail price. I've found that the "popular" companies always sell first and for the most profit. It's just the way this and every other hobby works. Artist dolls like Kaye Wiggs are a good example, too. Their aftermarket value is ALWAYS higher than their retail value, which kind of makes collecting them a good investment, if nothing else.

 

Sometimes urgent financial situations come up, sometimes you just don't bond with the doll, sometimes the doll looks completely different than what you saw online, sometimes you order a log time ago and by the time the doll arrives, you have evolved different tastes... there are many reasons for re-selling a dolly that I think are valid, though I understand the confusion behind it.

 

When I got into bjds I never ever thought I'd sell my dolls but I now know that sometimes you just have to either because you had to buy without actually seeing the doll and it turned out that the doll wasn't what you expected, other times because my aesthetic changed during the wait time and worse for me, something happened during the transaction that cast bad karma on the doll.

With experience I've learned to go to different resources to research a doll I'm interested in. You tube is especially helpful to me because I can see the doll in someone's hands, posing, and I can get a real sense about the doll's proportions plus investigate the doll's range of motion. Owner pictures are also extremely helpful. The photos found on a company's website maximize the beauty of a doll but they also cleverly hide hide problems inthe dolls construction. One thing I dislike a lot are super up-right postures. It's really hard to see how the neck comes out of the back in many of the companies photos. This type of aesthetic is sure to dampen my enthusiasm for a new doll!

Like others here have said, I once bought a popular body and then immediately sold it because I disliked it so much. Had I been able to see it before I bought it I would never have placed an order for it. It's awful to feel that way when the doll's are so expensive!

 

I have and its for several reasons:

-company customer service and wait times were so horrendous that I resent the doll by the time it arrived
-it looks different in person than photos and I don't like it
-it was a character I created to go with a friend's doll in a story we wrote together that fell apart and left negative feelings by the time the doll arrived and I couldn't see past that
-something came up and I desperately needed money more than I needed that doll.

 

Sometimes it's worth the struggle to make a doll work and sometimes it's better to let them go. As others have said, dolls aren't always the same in person as you think they'll be from looking at promo pictures, and after waiting months and months only to be disappointed, it might make sense to let them go when they're still in attractively new condition for potential buyers. I wasted months sinking money into trying to outfit my first doll after he was totally wrong for the character I'd envisioned, and in the end I sold him anyway. (The death knell was when my second doll arrived and even in the wrong wig and eyes was just perfect.)