^^^^^ This. I see some of the same names cropping up on 'collector' groups 'begging' for dolls they 'sadly; missed out on only to see that same person selling that very doll in another group/page.... like they think we don't all join many groups not just one. That's why I'm glad I have my 'no scalpers allowed' trusted collector group on FB.... we get dolls for each other....
I have also been just a "watcher" even after I signed up and too am not very talkative and didnt feel the need to contribute because I simply enjoyed reading about other people's posts which made me feel not alone in my collecting. I understand now the importance of contributing. On another note, I also live in Florida and can relate to the bug/light/ heat issue.
Lol Starry Solo! And I thought pins were too expensive... Haha! But at least I can buy dolls online at retail. Can't do the same for pins with very few exceptions, by the kindness of people on this forum like Speezard
I would just like to point out to everyone (new and old collectors alike) that scalpers are not necessarily new people; it's wishful thinking to assume all scalpers must be new because there's no way they wouldn't have gotten caught if they'd been scalping for a year or more......I know plenty of well-respected, high up collectors on that page who scalp frequently and are never maligned by anyone for it because of how long they have been "collecting."
when I read about people having an amazing time at the disney store with opening the store and getting a cute little key and meeting others from the forum. I feel like ariel I wanne be were the people are! I wanne see them buy stuff. (lol) I want to be part of their world. But i can't lol maybe i should find Ursula, give her my horrible voice so i could teleport to the uk or the US with every release
To be honest, I don't drive myself crazy over scalpers. They exist and they're not going anywhere. I'm certainly not going to go out of my way to help them, but it's kind of a waste of energy to get so paranoid or angry about them like some people do. And I would never go so far as to ask anyone to "prove" they're a collector, this is a doll forum not a police state.
But I totally agree with your point--- because I too have seen people, not necessarily here but on Facebook sometimes, who are very vocal against scalpers, practically to the point of calling for a witch hunt, who then turn right around themselves and try to sell their dolls at the same going rate as or even higher than eBay — and no one ever says anything about it. I often wonder, am I really the only person noticing this? And this sort of thing will occur directly after a release with new dolls too, so it's not always someone selling off their collection. Sometimes the dolls are sold at retail but just as often it's at an increased price. It all seems a bit hypocritical to me. There seems to be a very fine line between 'scalper' and 'collectors who resell,' and I can't figure out how people arbitrarily decide who is who.
On the other hand, if there weren't any resellers no one would be able to get past releases they missed. So we also have to look at ourselves--for all the complaining we do about scalpers, we are complicit if we buy from them. Scalpers will continue to sell as long as collectors buy from them, so if you purchase a doll from a reseller above the retail price then aren't you contributing to the problem and just as responsible? But people aren't going to stop buying dolls secondhand -- people want what they want (and I include myself in this) so all the grandstanding and "principles" go right out the window. And I also have to mention --- having talked to other collectors, nearly all of them have let it slip that they have resold a doll at some point for some reason or another, and I wouldn't be surprised if reselling by actual collectors happens more frequently than by pure scalpers.
Also, people do buy doubles, sometimes to have one to debox or trade or because more than one person in the family collects, and as long as they are following Disney's rules of one per person, two per household, I am personally fine with that (with the exception of something like the Wedding Doll with an extremely low LE number) because they are still keeping to Disney's policy. It's the people that try to circumvent the rules and go over that amount with 3 or 4 or 5 or more or people who really have no interest in these dolls at all and just buy to sell off immediately for a quick profit that I don't like, because at that point, I'm sorry, but you're just being a pig. Still I don't let myself get terribly stressed over it, because it really is pointless to do so. There are so many people reselling right now that eventually most of them will just give it up because they won't be able to make any money with it. Just look at the past releases -- some of these I've seen for retail or slightly below retail which means resellers are losing money due to fees and such.
My Elsa is also waiting to be scanned and its been 4 days now.Yay, blast off for the LE Cindy....My Anna still sits in a dark dusty corner of a warehouse awaiting to be found so her label can be attached and sent.
If you resell, you have to increase the price or you lose money. Here is what I mean:
My stores had Cindies still left. There were people on FB who wanted a doll and missed out. So I offered to buy a doll and send it to them. There were people in Australia who wanted a doll. With the rate of shipping internationally and paypal fees the total cost was near double. I felt bad that it cost so much, but I was just trying to help. Another person was in the states and had the nerve to say I was trying to scam them. I almost cursed them out. Since there were Cindies left, I was just trying to pay it forward as someone local sold me an Aurora at retail. Sometimes it feels like a lose-lose situation.
Oh I totally understand that -- I see people reselling for cost plus fees and shipping and I consider that selling at retail. I was referring to people who try to resell at way over cost one day (not including fees and shipping and such) and then are complaining very loudly about other people being scalpers the next. I was just trying to point out the hypocrisy of it all.
Hah yay! Glad to meet you too! I was surprised it was so easy to get the dolls this time round, I was expecting to get there and have missed out already.... I'm glad we got our dolls! Which number was yours? I'm curious if the dolls from a store come in numerical/consecutive order or not...
My favorite is the "needing to sell for emergency" reason then the next week asking for specific dolls.
Contrary to some posts I've seen here, these dolls do cost real money to produce. After the prototype work is done in California, there is a significant amount of work on each of these that can only be done carefully by hand, one stitch or rhinestone at a time. Making a line bigger is not simply waving a wand and making it so.
Additionally, as anyone who owns more than a few of these can attest, these dolls take up space. Increasing an edition size or sitting on unsold dolls is going to be difficult to accommodate.
In looking at how Disney has experimented with edition sizes over the years, it seems pretty clear that numbers aren't fixed and they're kind of constantly experimenting, but the high edition size of Wedding Rapunzel isn't necessarily the answer.
To be honest, I don't drive myself crazy over scalpers. They exist and they're not going anywhere. I'm certainly not going to go out of my way to help them, but it's kind of a waste of energy to get so paranoid or angry about them like some people do. And I would never go so far as to ask anyone to "prove" they're a collector, this is a doll forum not a police state. ...On the other hand, if there weren't any resellers no one would be able to get past releases they missed. So we also have to look at ourselves--for all the complaining we do about scalpers, we are complicit if we buy from them. Scalpers will continue to sell as long as collectors buy from them, so if you purchase a doll from a reseller above the retail price then aren't you contributing to the problem and just as responsible? But people aren't going to stop buying dolls secondhand -- people want what they want (and I include myself in this) so all the grandstanding and "principles" go right out the window. And I also have to mention --- having talked to other collectors, nearly all of them have let it slip that they have resold a doll at some point for some reason or another, and I wouldn't be surprised if reselling by actual collectors happens more frequently than by pure scalpers.
I'm glad to hear someone liking Cindy's box. I actually love it in person and was so surprised by the tie in the back.
If I had to complain about ball gown Cindy, it would be that her neck is really long and skinny, making it a little odd, and just too much glitter on the chest.
Thank you very much amm3 for the infoThat usually means that the DS created the shipping label but it hasn't been scanned by UPS yet. I wouldn't worry yet-- for my last order it was nearly 3 days between the time they generated the label and the time it was actually scanned by UPS.
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