It frustrates me too. It makes me feel like they’re talking advantage of the people who don’t know much about reborns. Many people could easily assemble one themselves, but don’t know about the pre-painted kits.
I feel the same. Like they technically aren’t doing anything bad, it just feels wrong. I could understand offering it as a service, but I couldn’t feel right making such a big profit off of it.
I’ve only sold one pre-painted kit. It was the Princess Pug kit, but I only sold her for $100 to a family friend (I could never bond with the pug baby). I spent about $75 including shipping to get the kit, 3lbs of the glass beads and body. I also threw in 2 outfits. I made a $25 profit off of her…was that too much to charge?
Other than Hamlet’s head (for myself), I haven’t done anything else with pre-painted because I can’t say I made it and I don’t like that. At least with Hamlet, I did paint his limbs, but I will tell anyone interested that I didn’t paint the head.
Absolutely not. I was talking about a local lady who is selling them to parents as Christmas gifts to parents for $250-$300. And I don’t believe she even weights them.
Oh no! I couldn’t sell them for that much unless I completely rooted the animals (not counting the monkeys)…that would be worth that price.
I don’t know how to feel, cause I did get a little duped myself on a Fauna…I paid $130 for her including shipping (before her pre-painted kit was heavily discounted). She did come with a little box opening with 2 outfits, a pillow, and a magnetic pacifier. I could have put her together myself for less, but at least she wasn’t $200.
I snagged mine on sale for $19 a good while back. It was a blank kit though, and I’m planning on practicing fantasy painting on it. I’ll probably still sell it for less, because I can’t imagine what I have in mind for painting will take as long as a regular reborn.
But is there much difference between offering it as a service and selling them already made?
Does it just bother you to think they are taking advantage of customers’ ignorance?
To me, it would only matter how honest they are.
Unfortunately, saying “I made this” can be very vague and leaves that idea up to interpretation.
I knew a family that was selling tooled leather belts at craft shows, very eye catching because they were colorful. When asked if they “made” them, the answer was always yes, and people rarely questioned that. But when one person flat out asked if they were pre-made tooled leather, they reluctantly admitted they’d only painted them. The giveaway to the person who had asked was that they thought the belts were too affordable to be made by a local family from scratch. Maybe if the price had been higher, they could have gotten away with allowing that person to think they were actually tooling and cutting the leather by hand, from raw materials to finished product. I’m sure most customers wanted to believe they were getting an entirely handmade item rather than just embellished. And they were allowed to think that.
It was dishonest, and I lost respect for them and was no longer interested in their products.
So I think it really does matter how honest the presentation is.
They probably are getting a lot of buyers who don’t know how little of the finished product is handmade.
I have no problem if they are honest. This lady is just selling them as handmade and making over $100 just assembling them and lying about it. I just know how tight Christmas can be and a lot could be done with that extra money. I mean, with $250-300 you could get a decently nice reborn.
And what I meant by offering as a service would be the supply cost and a little more for assembly. It’d probably take me half an hour or less to assemble. Maybe $20-30 for that fee. Being completely upfront about where the materials came from and what the cost was would be the only option that wouldn’t make me feel bad
I see what you’re saying. Probably having them made up in advance helps with getting impulse buys, but overcharging for what they are isn’t very ethical.
Some of them do. Not all. But some are prepainted and prerooted. I’ve actually expecting one in the mail on Monday that was prepainted and prerooted but I paid to have an artist put some extra work into the paintjob, adding lashes, and to assemble it for me.
It did start with factory painting, but it’s rather unfinished if you are detail oriented.
And I really didn’t understand the pigs untill I saw @YelenaRey’s that stand up because of an armature inside. She also has put her own artwork on the factory paint.
The animal kits need details to go from cute to impressive.
The only time it bothers me is when someone is dishonest and says they made it when all they did was assemble it, throw a bodysuit on it, and then threw a price tag on it. It feels a bit wrong to me as they could be taking advantage of people who just don’t know much about reborn.
That being said. I also feel that there are some exceptions to selling a prepainted for $100 or more. For example, selling a piglet with rooted hair, or selling a monkey that comes with accessories such as clothes, diapers, and bottles.
Is not making the leather belt but only painting it really any different than us saying we made a reborn when we didn’t make the sculpt? I don’t really see it as dishonest although when people ask me I do tell them I don’t make the parts, I just do the painting and rooting.
In every area of marketing, people, and companies, charge whatever consumers are willing to pay.
Thank you for your kind words. I always put the honest listing that I paint on top of the factory paint, modify their prepainted spots to make them unique, varnish them, root them, gloss their eyes and noses, put the armature.
