Thoughts on the changes on reborns

Opinions? Thoughts? What do y’all think?

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What are the changes? I don’t have any dolls to sell right now so I haven’t been looking

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He did away with the silver membership. Now only free and gold are available. You can pay $1 a day to “showcase” your dolls. He also did away with the tab that showed more for adoption. There might be other changes too but those were the ones that stuck out for me.

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Wow. Guess if I come back to making reborns I won’t be selling there, I can’t afford the gold membership.

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Funny thing is… lots if people are complaining about the doing away with silver. Dave said… there was only a handful of silver members… hmmmmm. Looks like a lot more than a handful to me!

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I thought most people were on silver! That’s the only plan I’ve ever used. Sad to see it go

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It’s going to make newer sellers more hesitant to try it out because of the higher price point, there’s no way to try and see if you like it when you’re on a lower income like I am. Good thing I probably won’t be making any more dolls, most of my sales come from reborns.com and now I can’t afford to sell there. I may sell my paints and leftover supplies now too, since there’s no point in returning if I can’t sell.

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I don’t think the new site is up and running yet. @Marissa can give up details, she is the creator of the new site, she is a member here.

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I am a silver member. Or was a silver member. I tried gold once. I didnt notice a difference so I dropped back to silver. I dont have enough sales coming from there currently that makes me want to buy back in at the gold price. Of course this could change but for now, I will have to see how it goes.

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@Marissa Marissa, we need you!

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I don’t keep my membership throughout the year. I try and list on reborns only when I have at least 3 dolls ready( which is like… twice a year :wink:) I did gold because I only pay a couple months a year. I don’t know if there was a difference between gold and silver. :woman_shrugging:

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I don’t really see a problem with gold, as if I sell a doll or 2 in 3 months I have paid it back versus fees on ebay and Etsy. One or an other for me it’s about the same.

Edit to add : it’s never free to sell. Even my website store is 20$a month.

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But that was the point, Reborns didn’t eat additional 10% as Ebay or Etsy. This is why pricing on Reborns were less comparing to Ebay or Etsy.

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Not everyone has the extra income to pay with no guarantee of a sale. The silver was a stretch for me, so i definitely can’t afford the gold. Doesn’t matter though, I’m done reborning I think so it doesn’t affect me now.

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I never saw a difference personally between the 2. I wasnt getting sales on either and its been that way for awhile on there. Years ago your doll didnt sit long on that site. Maybe a week at the most for most dolls. Now they can sit there for months at a time. For me since I dont seem to be getting sales there, it is almost worth paying the higher fees on other sites if they sold and will move. Of course this will be different for everyone. I’m on the fence about what I will do. Paying $20 a month and not getting sales might not be worth it. I can put that $20 towards other fees whether it be Etsy or Ebay.

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But what if you are not selling? Some people pay the monthly fee and dont get any sales from his site. Versus say they go to Ebay and dont have to pay anything up front until the dolls sells. The fee may or may not be the same depending on how long it would have sat on Reborns. In the beginning his design for that site was to have a place for artists to come and not have to pay hefty fees like Ebay and Etsy. When I started it was $4.99 a month and my dolls sold quickly. Now it’s up to $20 and there is so many dolls listed that the sales are almost non existent.

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Great point @Kate!

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There is a free membership, and the difference between gold and silver was not so high.

I sell handmade things online for a decade now and there is always a fee somewhere. I have search for almost every market place and reborns.com is one of the less expensive.

There are always places like Kijiji here, (maybe Craiglist equivalent?)

I agree that’s not easy, myself struggle a lot : you pay 20$ I pay 26.50$.
But there is a cost to sell. Everywhere.

Now the low market those days is another thing ! That sucks !

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I wouldn’t really consider the free membership to be anything honestly. The only way for people to see anything when you are on the free membership is if you give them the link to your nursery page. That defeats the purpose of his site. Nobody is going to browse around (which is what the buyers do) and see your doll with the free one. So I dont personally consider that a membership.

It costs me nothing but the PayPal fees to sell on my website and also Facebook. Etsy is a very minimal charge up front and Ebay is free up front. There is a huge difference in paying up front with no guarantee of a sale versus choosing another option and paying once the sale is made. The second option is probably what most people are needing.

I’m not trying to change your mind or your feelings about his site or the changes he has made. I’m just trying to point out that this whole thing that he has going on right now was not what he had made me (and probably a lot of others as well) believe when I started listed on his site 5 years ago. That he was offering a cheaper better way to sell so that us artists could keep more in our pockets instead of having to pay all these fees. His fees have climbed so much recently that he’s almost right up there with the others. And this is just the monthly fee. You will also probably need to pay the extra $1 a day to "showcase"each of your dolls so that they are actually seen. Now we are talking much more then the $20 fee. :wink:

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