Why do people charge so much?

Yes, you are so right. And when I find a nice yarn, I need to get one ball in every color!! That happened a few weeks ago when I was in Austin Texas - a friend had to go back to the store as I only picked up 3 colors. She mailed the remaining colors to me!!!

Funny, I will buy a yarn thinking it is perfect, but once I get the sweater done, I HATE IT. And yes, something so plain and simple can knit up to be an amazing piece.

Hugs
Mary-Lee

 

No kidding! I just bought 3 yards of a burnout silk velvet in a paisley design I've never seen before, simply because I run a fabric index site (and peruse it often) and have never seen this particular fabric before ... and well ... it made me drool ...

YUP! Or, recently it's been "had that, never used it, so sold it on eBay and lost $" I've gotten so picky with fabrics lately it's not funny I guess since I made myself calm down on doll spending (bought 4 this year so far ) I've been trying to say fabric purchases are ok ... right ...

 

Now you have me wondering. Can I see your fabric index site?
Susan

 

I'll PM you the name - it's naughty!

 

I myself keep looking for low prices,
and honestly..i never bought any bad clothing like that.

I think mio and softly she walks and things like that are...
a bit over rated...simply just popular stuff.
It also has to do with what people are willing to pay.
As long as a couple of people keep buying 200 dollar outfits..
the prices will stay high.
Maybe even rise!

I am gonna start a clothing line myself soon,
i will release some things around Christmas.
I'm planning on posting in critique and asking what people think i should
ask for the shirts and the basic line things.

And i will probably ask a bit under that price.
Because i dislike high prices myself.

I simply want people to be able to dress their dolls like they want,
without spending a fortune on it...
i mean...shoes are expensive enough as it is :/

I am a little afraid people will judge my clothing as low quality because my prices are low.
But myeah...we will see when the time comes.

 

As an artist & sculptor, no one can pay me for the real time I spend on any one piece. And, because I need to make $, I am usually working on more than one thing at a time. In the cost analysis of my time & materials, the barest minimum is $10.00 per hour. Better materials (24kt gold, sterling silver, precious stones, etc.,) cost more, but it is the time spent making the item(s) in question.

Since this particular doll market is increasing in buyers, collectors, & the secondary market, prices are going to go up. When a "ceiling," the most any one is willing to pay for a doll and/or item, is hit, then prices will begin to drop. I saw this in the Barbie collectibles market of the 1980's-1990's.

 

Bingo!

I have been doing commissions for doll costumes for over 3 years, and I can tell you, that I am actually UNDERCHARGING for my time and materials. I am lucky if I make $10 an hour.

For example, I currently accepted a commmission for a very intricate costume, which includes a very detailed overcoat, vest, cravat, shirt and tailored pants. Because this particular costume is a replication of a costume from a very well-known character, the fabrics and colors have to be exact. I bid $200 for the costume, and just bought the fabric for it, which ran me $70. That leaves me with $120 for my time, and from experience I can tell you that the coat alone will take me easily 7 or 8 hours to do. You can do the rest of the math and see where it lands.

Most seamstresses on DoA undercharge. In lieu of comparing what you might pay for an off the rack item for yourself, compare it to what you would pay to have a seamstress make you a custom item, because that is in fact what is happening when you commission someone to make a costume for your doll.

 

I think it's harder to sew doll clothes than clothes for people, because there just aren't many commercial patterns that fit BJD's. I have bought a couple of them and they don't fit the dolls I have. I have to either tweak the pattern quite a bit to make it work or make my own pattern even before I can start to sew. This takes hours, sometimes, to get it right and make the garment. The reason commercially made human clothes are relatively inexpensive is that they are mass produced, with huge machines cutting out dozens of garments at a time from a template, then they are sewed together quickly, sometimes on assembly-line. If you are happy with simple inexpensive doll clothes, there are lots of people who make them, but if you want truly fabulous one-of-kind outfits for your doll, it will be more expensive. Fabulous one-of-a-kind human outfits are very expensive too.

 

You'll be amused to know that I spent the other evening looking up my favourite lace-weight yarns, to see how many colours they came in, and writing down all the info on index cards, for quick reference.

I know what you mean by thinking a yarn is perfect, but once you start to knit with it, the colour is wrong, or, if it's variegated, it pools wrongly, or you just hate the pattern that you thought you loved, etc. And then you have to make the hard decision about what to do with the yarn.

 

Yes, I have bought many yarns (if you don't buy it right then, it may not be there when you go back - if you can go back) that I can not use. Some will also worm when you work with it, or pull to one side or the other, thinking of chenilles.

Trial and error - mostly error at the beginning.

So some people think it takes one hour to knit up a sweater, but really it takes many years of experience.

Hugs
Mary-Lee

 

Dolls and cars are alike, hobby-wise... you buy an expensive car to keep, you don't want to put crappy parts under the hood, or crappy paint job on the side. While not always the case, more often than not, quality is cost.

You may buy low grade parts to begin with, but most of the time, you realize you can get better once you've bought the bargain pieces, and want to pay higher dollar for something that looks or functions better.

On the note of functioning and looking better with dolls, I think thats why Twiglimbs are so popular, even though the limbs are replacing very expensive doll bodies. They function better (and in my opinion look better) than the original body that the dolls came with.

Ok. I'm done thinking now. Off to work.
Keanna

 

That is a great way to look at it. As the owner of a 1967 Chev, making sure you have the right parts is paramount.

Great analogy.

Mary-Lee

 

Sadly, as an independent artist I know that I am unable to produce clothing like Volks or Dollheart offer for as reasonable a price since there is only one person working here in my studio. ME. And let's face it, Daddy needs to eat. lol
However, it is more the fact that mass produced clothing sets are designed by one person and sewn, packaged, shipped by many that makes producing for this hobby tricky. I see very reasonably priced 4-5 piece outfits from Volks for around $55-75 and who can beat that? But their outfits are almost entirely made from cotton shirt fabrics. Though there is nothing wrong with this and they fit great, if you want something specially made to your color/fabric choices you simply have to look into someone who might be more expensive. It's a 'get what you pay for' thing to me.
You might get a better price from a less experienced seamstress or tailor, but your items may not be sewn as well or may never arrive at all.

 

Recently I was finishing up a commission outfit and a friend was over, and asked how much I was paid...when I replied $75, she was shocked that I charged that much for 'doll clothes'! I stammered out a justification that probably did nothing to convince her... and then I showed her the inside of the dress, the accessories I included, the patterns I made, and calculated the time invovled...then she seemed to 'get it'.

Like other seamstresses here I think I do end up undercharging for my time. I like my clothes to fit well (so many ebay outfits I see are "SD size" which is sort of like one-size-fits-nobody) and that means drafting a new pattern, or tweaking a preexisting pattern. Oftentimes also I end up making a muslin mockup of the outfit to make sure I have the fit right. And THEN I can finally begin to sew.

When you buy a custom outfit from me, or from many of the other talented people here on DOA, you are getting custom-fitted haute couture, not off-the-rack. You are paying for our sewing time, sure, but also experience, deisgning 'eye', and the time spent shopping for fabric and notions, pattern drafting, draping, etc. So to continue with the real-people clothing analogy, yeah, you can go to Wal-Mart and buy yourself a polyester dress, that might fit, that might hold up through a wearing or two, and pay $12.99. Or you could go to Paris and order a made-to-fit-you designer dress for $1000, of hand-embroidered heavy luxurious silk, that would last you forever. (Not to say that my creations are comparable to designer stuff from France, but you see my point! ) (Just an aside, for you seamstresses: there was a recent issue of Threads magazine that opened up a Chanel jacket and showed all the little designer details that makes these jackets so incredible, and expensive. Wow!)

 

I can't understand why large companies and websites expect *so* much for their clothing, after all most of it will be made by machine, en masse, and therefore not cost much (with the except of certain outfits) esp. not in the quantities that they'll be producing them in.

Handmade items I can see why people who charge quite a bit (altho. it depends). Time is worth quite a lot. I make my own doll clothes and am going to be selling them soon, I haven't got set prices yet but I am going to be making a range that is organic, therefore the price will be higher than normal because of this.

Look at it this way, time is money. I work all day every day except Sundays. So finding time to make doll clothes to sell is going to be tight. I get paid around £7 where I work, therefore if I spend 8 hours on a dolls outfit not only do I need money to pay for the materials I have used, I also need money (profit) for the *time* I spent making it - time which is my "time off" from work (after work, lunch breaks, days off, etc.) which could be spent doing something other than sewing!

 

they are specialty items. simple as that. you pay for rarities.

 

I have to say I agree with Moggie, Gayle and Naiara here in combo. I think they all hit points I see everyday from both a seller and a buyer's end.

As a buyer, I find myself saying "That is WAY too much for that!" if it is mass produced clothing items since I know that the seller pays far less then the asking price to get it made and never touches a sewing machine themselves (ie. H. Naoto or BTSSB). On the other end is Volks company collections or Delf company pieces which are mass produced, but are very reasonable in price. I have purchased some pieces from Volks Personell collections etc. since I can't even make a t shirt for less then $12 myself. lol
Personally, I am still choking on the fact that I recently entered (and won) the Volks lottery for the H. Naoto MSD Channel set which cost me a cool $237.00 after taxes and shipping. I bought it mainly to see just the quality of an outfit that consumers feel is worth staying up all night on the AE for. lol But I am sure I will love it. I had better after shelling out that kind of money for it. Ouch!

As a seller, I understand compeletely how one's time, effort and creativity factor into the cost of the garments. However, I am often told I undercut my work and could be charging a lot more for the detail, design and fabric choices often lost in translation in my photos. I don't feel that way though. Since the day I started sewing for bjds I told myself that I would not become one of those designers who people felt they had to fight with high prices on Ebay to own. I want everyone who enjoys my work to be able to afford it. In my opinion, if I am not sharing my talent with people who appreciate it, what is it really worth? But that is me. The most I have ever charged for a complete outfit was around $160 and that was a month's worth of sewing and design.
Most of my complete sets (5-7 pieces) run about $95-120 on average and I think that is fair.

 

I've had this debate and converstaion many times. In fact if most of our dolls cost less than $20 worth of the resin they are actually cast in, but we pay do ungodly much because someone had to spend hours sculpting and making a mold, and all of the dolls are hand cast (with exception that there is some machinery operation within volks), sanded, and put together. Takes a crap load of time....

As far as clothing, I hate paying high amounts for stuff, but as long as it's quality I will love it and eventually get over it. While I am a seamstress, working so small for dolls frustrates me to no end, so I don't do it, though people are apparently going to start helping me out with that... What gets me a little annoyed is when i see seamstresses just beginning to make doll clothes and how much they charge when their skill isn't quite to the level it needs to be. ie you pay $20 for a top to find uneven stitching, fraying seams, and possibly uneven sleeves, and it did not appear like this in the photo provided. No I haven't had that happen but i've heard...

faceups and aesthetics... >.> okay i feel like there are a few people out there who charge way too much considering of professional grade sealers like the companies use are not available to general public (okay i don't care what some people say, volks faceups are NOT sealed with MSC, the stuff they use is far better along with all other companies, especially dollzone).
My faceups are cheap, because i use model master's sealant, and i charge more for my materials than my actual time. I feel like my skill has only recently gotten up to par enough to raise my prices a little, but i still have issues like little dust specks or tiny bits of lint that WERE NOT there when i sprayed getting stuck under my sealant, so until i find somehow that i can get this NOT to happen at all, i'm not gonna raise my prices becaue sometimews i can't get it off and if its' under the top layer i'm not gonna whipe a whole faceup i've been working on for a day.

 

Gawd that must be frustrating Mel-mel. I only do face ups and tattoos on my own dolls as mu skill is midrange at best. I can't imagine doing it professionally.

 

I don't think it's really a matter of people charging so much as it is people devaluing the worth of the work people put into their products.

This hobby attracts a lot of underage people who are not financially secure. While they may have a doll, the costs of maintaining one is just as expensive (your mileage may vary). If it wasn't for the fact that I saved a small, tidy sum before I bought my first doll, there was no way that I could have gotten involved in this hobby. If it wasn't for my part-time job in college or full-time job now, I couldn't afford these luxury goods (and putting it on a CC and paying it off for the next five years isn't something that I would want to do).

Since others have already pointed out the reason behind higher prices (correlating with higher quality), I should also mention that there are people who do charge an outrageous amount for their goods or services that are substandard. I've received the impression that there are a handful of people who would like to make a quick buck for services/goods that were produced with hardly any effort just, so that they can buy another doll.