Pre loved dolls on reborns.com is killing our market

What are your thoughts?. I personally wish it was a place for artists to sell their creations only.

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Yeah I agree. I remember seeing Dave say he didn’t want items to be marked as “sale” because it came off as a cheaper looking website, it was meant to be more of a high end shop, but now it’s half used dolls. I think those shouldn’t hit the front page just like alternatives aren’t allowed to.

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I agree! I used to be able to sell a doll in 3 days max. Now I have 3 that have been sitting for a month. Featuring does no good because it only lasts a few hours before getting bumped by other features listings. But Dave doesn’t care. More money in his pocket.

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Maybe you all should start posting your thoughts to him in the comments section there.

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I agree that the website isn’t the same as when I first joined. I think it should be only for new dolls sold by the Artist. And I also do not like all the confusing filters. Having so many pre-loved dolls filling the front page gives new dolls less exposure. I have nothing against pre-loved dolls or selling them. I just don’t think they shouldnt be sold together, like you wouldn’t go to a Macy’s to buy used clothing. Reborns.com she be for New Reborns. This is JUST MY OPINION.

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I agree. What really grinds my gears is the fact that he justified his rate hike by saying that he gave the dolls so much more exposure than an artist could get on their own.

Then, in an effort to combat scammers, we worked overtime telling people all across social media groups that Daves site was the safest place to buy dolls without worries of being scammed. We advertised the hell out of his site and were repaid by the site becoming a huge pain in the neck to navigate and having to compete with a massive amount of “pre-loved” dolls.

I don’t expect the site to change, I’m not a fool. I’m fully aware that his profits are the only thing that matter to him. I just wish that we could organize an alternate site to compete with his. We’ve seen how powerful our own word of mouth advertising can be. Imagine if we were to take even just 50% of the artists with us to a new site. (Or even just those that use this forum!) How many potential customers would we get? Brand new, higher quality, artists creations could generate a lot of positive buzz in reborn collecting communities.

I liked the idea of artdollery, but it was flawed. The name was too abstract sounding and did not stick in people’s minds as well as reborns. Also, the few dolls that were available there were priced for the more discerning collectors.

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I totally agree with that.

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I did the math:
it’s 10/14/21 1:30 am
29 were sold in last 24h
24 - new
5 - pre-loved

So, pre-loved sell was less than 18% (17.24 to be exact).

I will try to do this calculation every day for a week to see if preloved dolls really killing the market.

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I bought for 4 months and bought feature credits each month just for an extra chance at selling so that’s 120 plus 40- $160 and I haven’t sold one.
I’m going to reopen my Etsy today, why not.

ALSO- REALLLLLLLLY doesn’t help when your customer uses your original photos to sell the pre-owned doll. I’ve had this happen twice. Can’t watermark so I can’t prove they are mine.

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I guess we all need to get a sign or pillow with our nursery name on them to put next to the baby when photographing that says Baby and original photos by X Nursery.

I will say I have listed on Etsy now as well and China crap is killing the market over there…

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I agree! Preloved babies may not be over selling new babies but they sure are taking up all the feature space! It says 15 hours average for feature babies, I bet mine won’t stay on there for 4 hours today. It’s already spot 4 and I just did it.

I think the market is being killed by to many newer artists, to low priced babies so competitive as hell or forcing us to lower ours to make a sale quickly, and preloved babies!

I have never had babies sit and not sell, I have since the beginning of summer. They move a little but nothing like it used to.

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But they are undoubtedly crowding up the site. New dolls don’t get much exposure anymore because of the used ones. Also, I would suspect that a lot of the actual adoptions are a result of that particular seller advertising elsewhere. Since there’s no way to know what led to an adoption it really doesn’t make a difference what the adoption page says.

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Etsy sucks too because it’s overrrun with China knockoffs. I have mine cross listed on Reborns and Etsy. Both are nothing but crickets. :woman_shrugging:t2:

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That makes sense. Even if new dolls outsell the used, the site is flooded with so many used that exposure is not what it was, which is frustrating. I listed a doll a few days ago that was bumped from page one within hours, when it used to sit there for a day.

Maybe the issue isn’t really the pre-loved dolls, but more of the fact that reborns is so crowded these days. We would have reduced exposure even if there were as many new artists suddenly signing up. That and all of these options to check that people don’t know how to use.

I sold 2 recently and haven’t bothered marketing outside of there, so there is hope if you wait a little longer. I will continue with my membership for now. I’m not really going to reduce my prices in general, but will try to up my game with photography… which I suck at, so we will see how this goes. :grin:

One thing is for sure: Dave is not going to help us with this, other than removing filters if someone can convince him to. (I think an improvement would be having them reset when someone leaves the site and returns at least). He is perfectly happy $$$$$$$$$$$$$.

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The pre-loved have always been there, we just didn’t know it. But I will add to the complaint that dolls are moving off the front page at a record pace. The other day I had one on the front page for a whole 3 hours.

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Dave said he would remove the photo if ANYTHING says your nursery name Anywhere in the photo :frowning:

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When you go to edit dolls, and on the top for the feature section it says “dolls are staying on the front page for an average of 15 hrs” when and where? One I feature one I see it on the top scroller and then it’s gone somewhere into that scroller thing I guess. I’m not doing the feature any more.

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Really ? Even a pillow?? The whole reason he said he didn’t want logos is so everything would look good and uniform. What will a pillow in the background do that looks bad?

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Yes, a forum member actually made me a pillow with my nursery logo on it and Dave posted that anything at all showing a nursery name the photo will be deleted :frowning:

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And it’s really weird he won’t allow watermarks- is there ANY artist who is against watermarks?

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