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AliensOfGold
2 hours ago, Katsudon said:

Probably, if he's not going to do a long preorder period like resin companies do, an answer might be to keep making the dolls until they take more than x amount of time to sell out, as a way to gauge demand. 20 minutes is not a big window to buy a doll. 2 days is. (But then again, a month of preorder time would be the easiest way to know how much demand there is. I know he did preorders before, but they were very short: 1 or 2 days, sometimes just hours

If it means the slightest amount of extra work for him and his employees then he’ll never do it, but whinge about how the customers are killing his employees forever on social media.

 

He should do preorders for high demand items. People know how to wait.

He should bring dead stock back on occasion with plenty of warning for those that want to purchase. Maybe even preorder.

He also should run his business like a sane person and stop attacking his customers at every opportunity like a child. 

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Plumo
1 hour ago, AliensOfGold said:

If it means the slightest amount of extra work for him and his employees then he’ll never do it, but whinge about how the customers are killing his employees forever on social media.

 

He should do preorders for high demand items. People know how to wait.

He should bring dead stock back on occasion with plenty of warning for those that want to purchase. Maybe even preorder.

He also should run his business like a sane person and stop attacking his customers at every opportunity like a child. 

I waited for 2b for 2 years because of so much trouble they had, I was never angry, it was a shipp that sunk, corona that started,  I was fine with 

Also I would wait for pre-order for + year, it would give me some time to save money, better than he start selling and you have 20min to order (I wanted Lelouch but I was in a plane for 30hs )

 

Also, for the last sentence, yeah LOL  

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Courtmom
1 hour ago, Plumo said:

I waited for 2b for 2 years because of so much trouble they had, I was never angry, it was a shipp that sunk, corona that started,  I was fine with 

Also I would wait for pre-order for + year, it would give me some time to save money, better than he start selling and you have 20min to order (I wanted Lelouch but I was in a plane for 30hs )

 

Also, for the last sentence, yeah LOL  

Literally though. 20 minutes to grab stock is INSANE, and he gets all grumpy when scalpers snag some? I mean be realistic dude! Half the times you put stuff up your main ppl purchasing aren't even AWAKE. Of COURSE there are gonna be scalpers! He'd probably have less scalpers if he was more lenient on his windows! If it wasn't such a mad grab, scalpers wouldn't even care!

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BeyondTime
10 hours ago, Meowjima said:

It fell through with CJ

What happened with CJ? 


The difference between Dollfie Dreams and Heroin? Heroin is illegal, Dollfie Dreams probably should be.

“Empty wallets, full hearts.” That’s probably an apt description for the effects of DD addiction

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jazijaz
20 hours ago, Courtmom said:

Okay but lets think though, Volks has had dolls that expensive, but you get A TON MORE STUFF.

 

I am honestly kinda over the prototype garage. TBH I am kinda over Smart Doll in general. Danny seems great and I do like how he treats his employees really well. But the fact that he is only making stuff for himself now is kinda annoying. Like don't make a company if you won't at least *consider* what your buyers want/say. I would love to see more boys. He could have taken over and made that market, but he just keeps making more and more girls and I think, after almost SEVEN YEARS he would have refined or made another body for the girls at least...

I've been waiting for the boys since forever! but I remember reading something he said a few years ago, that he doesn't like or enjoys boy dolls. He created the boys because of demand so I give him credit for that.

Personally for me, I can't do something if I just don't like it no matter how much other people love it. Every person runs their business differently, I don't think we can tell him what to do or how to run his business. He listens to input but in the end he does what he thinks it is the right choice.  I understand the focus mainly on the girls because there's the demand, it still seems like girls are more popular than boys in the vinyl community and if something doesn't sell like hot panckaes he will not put that much interest in that particular thing.

I'm eyeing his social media like a hawk in case he drops a boy someday though...despite not enjoying them I think he did a great job with the body and faces. I missed the sale of Suzaku 😢

Something I admire - yes, admire!- from Danny is his sincerity, I don't think he is a bad person, other doll creators are just quiet, he is one of the few who actually interacts with his customers and speaks up his mind, this will make many people mad but hey, you can never please everybody. I have no dolls from Smart doll - yet. I'm waiting for one and have my eyes on a couple of girls and boys, of course.

He also said that his customers are 80% from overseas so that means like only 20% japanese people buy his dolls. I wonder how it is for Volks, they never share such details so another thing I like from Danny is his transparency. 

Edited by jazijaz
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Courtmom
19 minutes ago, jazijaz said:

Something I admire - yes, admire!- from Danny is his sincerity, I don't think he is a bad person, other doll creators are just quiet, he is one of the few who actually interacts with his customers and speaks up his mind, this will make many people mad but hey, you can never please anyone. I have no dolls from Smart doll - yet. I have my eyes on a couple of girls and boys, of course.

And I don't think any of us hate Danny or don't admire him- I don't at least- I just wish he actually did listen to us. Or at least spent more time in debate about products before dangling them in front of us only to snatch them away. You say he interacts with us, sure, as a person. But I have seen time and time again where he says they're making something and its going to release on such-and-such date, and then radio silence. You never hear about it again.

 

My husband brought up a good point to me, saying that Danny is just a guy with a hobby who sells the extras, and I think that sums Danny up perfectly. Do I think that he should still make boys because they could help him corner the market? Oh heck yes. Do I think that his preorder windows need to be longer? Even more so. But at the end of the day, I feel like my husband is right. Volks is a big company and Danny is just a guy making stuff he likes and he sells the extras.

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Yumeiro
2 hours ago, jazijaz said:

Something I admire - yes, admire!- from Danny is his sincerity, I don't think he is a bad person, other doll creators are just quiet, he is one of the few who actually interacts with his customers and speaks up his mind, this will make many people mad but hey, you can never please everybody.

He also said that his customers are 80% from overseas so that means like only 20% japanese people buy his dolls. I wonder how it is for Volks, they never share such details so another thing I like from Danny is his transparency. 

If only Danny realized that he can't please everybody... He is free to speak his mind, but it will come with consequences! He shouldn't "attack" or punish people for not agreeing 100% with everything he says or does.
I understand that many companies prefer to be quiet than risk putting the company/company image at risk with personal rants or unrelated opinions.
(I don't know what volks would gain from letting us customers know what percentages of their customers are outside of japan. So that example is more a fun-fact than transparency)

So while I question this sincerity of his that you speak of, about him being open and speaking his mind is not the issue - It's nice to have an insight into how companies work, after all - it's how he does it that matters...
And the way Danny operates leaves a lot to be desired, in my opinion.


So, back on topic...

1 hour ago, jazijaz said:

I understand the focus mainly on the girls because there's the demand, it still seems like girls are more popular than boys in the vinyl community and if something doesn't sell like hot panckaes he will not put that much interest in that particular thing.

Well, when there are no vinyl boy dolls, then what else can you do but go for the girl dolls? So of course there will be demand for girls when girls are the only choice.
I don't know how well vindoll does, but I'd hoped Granado'd make some a more "generic SD sized body" in their vindoll line.

I'd really like to see some male resin sculpts remade into vinyl. I think they'd sell well!

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Courtmom
27 minutes ago, Yumeiro said:

Well, when there are no vinyl boy dolls, then what else can you do but go for the girl dolls? So of course there will be demand for girls when girls are the only choice.

His big excuse was no one way buying them. Dude, half of the ones he was selling were bodies only and lets be honest, most of us do not have the skills to do faceups ourselves! On top of that he wasn't selling solo heads either! And the boys were just the one sculpt, where as the girls were at least 6 or 7. I honestly think if he put in the same amount of care and time- or hired someone who would- then they would sell really well.

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BeyondTime
3 hours ago, Courtmom said:

Volks is a big company and Danny is just a guy making stuff he likes and he sells the extras.

Volks started out as a mom & pop toy store that wanted to bring joy to children. They started making dolls after the company president’s wife said to him “I’d like to see some little girls in the store too.” They’ve grown into a good sized company, but at its heart there is a family that really wants to bring joy to people. I’m not saying they aren’t trying to be a successful business too, but there is much more to their motivation than just cash flow. I think that makes a huge difference in the attitude of the company leaders and employees.

They’re also located in a region where “old” businesses have been around for more than 1000 years, so they like to think of upholding that local tradition as a goal for the company. XD

It would be both sad and funny if what your husband said turned out to be true. Danny needed to buy X dolls from Obitsu in order to make a custom Mirai, so he sold X - 1 of them to defray the costs. XD

 

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The difference between Dollfie Dreams and Heroin? Heroin is illegal, Dollfie Dreams probably should be.

“Empty wallets, full hearts.” That’s probably an apt description for the effects of DD addiction

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davidd

Seems like this topic started out as a discussion specific to offerings on the Smart Doll Prototype Garage, but morphed in to something more like the general The Facebook Debacle and Other Issues topic.

 

Facebook Debacle topic

 

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BeyondTime
1 hour ago, davidd said:

Seems like this topic started out as a discussion specific to offerings on the Smart Doll Prototype Garage, but morphed in to something more like the general The Facebook Debacle and Other Issues topic.

At least part of the discussion relates to why the garage exists in the first place, but we are wandering a bit far afield and that’s not fair to people who want to talk about the garage releases. 


The difference between Dollfie Dreams and Heroin? Heroin is illegal, Dollfie Dreams probably should be.

“Empty wallets, full hearts.” That’s probably an apt description for the effects of DD addiction

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Plumo
2 hours ago, davidd said:

Seems like this topic started out as a discussion specific to offerings on the Smart Doll Prototype Garage, but morphed in to something more like the general The Facebook Debacle and Other Issues topic.

 

Facebook Debacle topic

 

Well, it is kind of related lol

 

8 hours ago, Courtmom said:

And I don't think any of us hate Danny or don't admire him- I don't at least- I just wish he actually did listen to us. Or at least spent more time in debate about products before dangling them in front of us only to snatch them away. You say he interacts with us, sure, as a person. But I have seen time and time again where he says they're making something and its going to release on such-and-such date, and then radio silence. You never hear about it again.

 

My husband brought up a good point to me, saying that Danny is just a guy with a hobby who sells the extras, and I think that sums Danny up perfectly. Do I think that he should still make boys because they could help him corner the market? Oh heck yes. Do I think that his preorder windows need to be longer? Even more so. But at the end of the day, I feel like my husband is right. Volks is a big company and Danny is just a guy making stuff he likes and he sells the extras.

I totally agree, and I don't hate him either, I just wish he would not throw a fit with his customers, but yeah, I respect and admire the way he build a company here in Japan, especially for him not being japanese.
I was just.. startled with the prices... 
 

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Nines
8 hours ago, BeyondTime said:

At least part of the discussion relates to why the garage exists in the first place, but we are wandering a bit far afield and that’s not fair to people who want to talk about the garage releases. 

Whoops, sorry about letting my grunt out of topic here. 

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jazijaz

hey hey there's no need to get ..err..upset? 😁 all opinions are valid, I'm not telling anybody how they should think, I was only stating how I think.

@Yumeiro Some places have that warning saying that they can cancel or deny selling their products to someone for whatever reason and I think he knows he can't please everybody, hence all the warnings everywhere on his site. I'm not saying I agree with his choices but it is his business, not mine.

Demand is how much a doll sells. He has released full boy dolls before that didn't do well on sales, according to him, and I remember that he received a lot of negative comments with Eiji and Spike (I'm not sure about the other boys because I was absent from the hobby after that) so maybe he doesn't feel confident with male dolls yet. Last time he shared a boy doll collab so it's a good thing that he's willing to go that far in order to give us more boys but even now with DDs, boy dolls are still not as popular as the girls because this hobby (anime, anime dolls) are catered to men, of course things are changing slowly, we just need more time.

BJDs are not exclusively anime dolls so there are more choices, more variety in dolls and buyers, BJD boys have always been very popular and in high demand, I would say that even more than BJD girls.

@Courtmom yeah, I never said he was perfect ^^ but most people start their small businesses that way, creating what they like and selling it. I think his company is very new compared to Volks. We all start small.

@BeyondTime sorry for getting out of topic too 😅  it was the boy doll comment that got me started. It would be nice to see boy dolls offered in the garage sale, the price is a nah for me 


 

 

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Meowjima
On 7/15/2021 at 8:50 AM, BeyondTime said:

What happened with CJ? 

'Culture Japan' idn't take as well with Japanese audiences, nor did the whole Mirai Millennium spinoff.  

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sumdude

Prototype wise I just noticed that SMD is selling "prototype" Chaos painted heads in a more expensive listing than usual. Yay for blind box prototypes!! (Some people got Mirai and Kanata again)

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