I’ve noticed so many people are selling blank kits on Reborns. Com . Is everyone giving up? Sales are so bad. What are everyone’s thoughts?
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I’ve been thinning my stash, selling BB kits dirt cheap to get them out of here. Reborn sales are ridiculously slow, can’t see spending 2-3 weeks painting and then watching them sit there unsold for weeks at a time.
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I know, I can’t figure out what’s better, selling BB cheap or sculpted ones at higher prices, neither are selling 
They are selling. I see the number of dolls selling on reborns.com going up and down every day. So somebody’s buying them even if it’s taking longer.
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Yea, but mostly at the lower prices. Under $200 even. I don’t see to many higher end dolls selling much. Just silicones and pickles 
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Some quick research I put together.
Sales on reborns dot com for May 11th and 12, which was Mother’s Day weekend in the US. This is just dolls, I counted manually and skipped anything except dolls.
TOTAL DOLL SALES: 62
BREAKDOWN OF SALES:
silicones: 6
vinyl: 56
dolls made from Bountiful Baby vinyl kits: 20
toddlers 23 inches or bigger: 4
fantasy: 2
now I don’t have the prices for all, but this is my best guess for VINYL dolls that I think sold for more than $300 USD before shipping based on their kits, size, and quality. We already know silicones are selling at much higher rates so I won’t count those. A lot of these I know sold for more than $600, the toddlers were probably closer to $1000 each, I just don’t have access to the data:
41
budget, preowned, or “booboo babies” I would guess sold for about $300 or under prior to shipping: probably about 15
So of the dolls that sold this weekend probably 15/62 were priced very low, so 25% of sales were in that category, but 75% of sales were better.
I wish I had more data to crunch, I know this isn’t a full picture, at all! this is just a quick rundown of the data I have access to. Someday I’d love to look at more data, someone sponsor me to do market research pleaseeeee 
Edit: Since the hypothesis from Rosa was that “most” were selling for low prices I erred on the side of assuming the prices were extra low instead of extra high, so this is where I landed based on my opinion. I used to look at the “sold” category for reborns on eBay every night to fall asleep, and now I look at the “sold” part of reborns dot come a lot instead. I think I have a decent understanding of the prices, but I’m sure someone like Dave would be know better
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More data!
Rosa is right that the percentage of kits being sold is going up. It has doubled if you compare the last 30 days to the last 2 years.
I’m not sure exactly what this means. A lot of those sales are for retail price or under, but then some are for market value which is a lot higher.
Why sales of kits are up: My guess is that people are looking to buy more things second hand because thrifting is a lot more common / accepted / cool these days. There is more trust in buying secondhand items over the internet than there used to be. I also think that eBay has fallen out of favor so more people are using reborns dot com. It seems like a lot of these sales are for sold out kits - those are going to people who are specifically looking for them, not just people who want discounted kits.
Why listings of kits are up: I think people are selling off some of their kits because they would rather use the money they’d invested for other things. There are a lot of reasons for this, it could be people want to sell off kits they don’t care for in order to buy different kits, people who are retiring, or people who need the money because they are struggling financially.
What do you all think?
Here are the charts
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Than you for this. It shows sales aren’t as bleak as some people think.
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Pretty bleak for me!
Great research! Thank you!
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I might be wrong, but I think assumption that Pre-owned dolls are less expensive than new listing is not exactly correct. Yes, they are slightly less expensive than the original owner paid, but mostly they are high end dolls, so comparing to the newly listed of same kit, but not painted by the high-end artist, they are more expensive.
I know that many dislike pre-own section, but I love it as I can see the high-end work there.
I agree in general, sorry I wasn’t clear, I didn’t include the expensive looking pre-owned ones in my category
I didn’t include ones like these: ShieldSquare Captcha
but I did include ones like this ShieldSquare Captcha
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Hang on 2 am edit, I want to be sure we are understanding each other.
I think people are more likely to be comfortable with buying a brand new blank kit from another artist in 2024 than they ever used to be. Like, lots of people used to only trust the dealers because it felt sketchy to buy from individual people instead of businesses, but that sentiment is going away. PayPal has helped people trust the each other.
Remember when it was a big deal to that you would a credit card online to buy CDs from indie musicians on MySpace? Now that’d be nbd. I feel like we’ve seen these shopping habits evolve over time.
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Oh, I was not referring to the blank kits. I was talking about pre-own high end completed dolls.
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Okay cool then we are on the same page 
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I used to sell my dolls very quickly now i have ones that have been listed for a year and my Quinbee should have sold she’s been on for over 4 months so I agree
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Been thinking about selling some of mine I have kits dating from 2008 long sold out kits
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Ooooh. Yes please. But I hope you wait til between the rose and dotwe shows and I hope sales are good at the show so I’ll have plenty of dolly dollars for more kits. 
It will be awhile I need to do inventory. But I have about 6 big totes and a bunch of boxes. I have cut way down on painting, I seem to be a hobby craft hoarder. Been working into 3d printing lately
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