The Facebook debacle & other issues

I’m sure there’s a bit of stirring the pot, but he didn’t need to engage the trolls. It only made people with legitimate concerns more upset, and the trolls more delighted.

Criticism or not, just run your business the way you want. There’s no need to make several blog posts and vent on social media about it.

I know you shouldn't try to analyse a stranger's behaviour online, but from some of the things we know about his past I'm not surprised about his reactions. There's a number of possible issues arising from a child being sent into foster care because the parents "wanted to focus on building their business" (loosely quoted from himself in some interview?): trust issues, a feeling of abandonment, a need to "prove yourself worthy", emotional neglect causing an inability to regulate emotions.  

At the same time, by his age (50ish?) you should maybe have made that internal journey and healed some of the past. 

I don't know, maybe I'm just rambling off the top of my head because of some personally enlightening discoveries in my family history. Thanks for not being judgemental. I'm kind of almost in a mourning phase, if you will. I associate my SmD dolls with so many happy memories, it's difficult to reconcile all of this.

@belpita

I get what you're thinking. Shoes behaviour is very much a sign of something being wrong because of his upbringing, but it also doesn't excuse his actions. It's predictable because those methods sadly often work, and because of the inflexibility of a mind like his.

My ex is older than me and should have been much more mature and willing to self-reflect than what he actually is. But considering what kind of environment he grew up in, it's no wonder he turned into an abuser who takes 0% responsibility over his actions. I've been going through a journey of sorts after I left him, during which I also realized many things about my family of origin, including how toxic they actually are. The mourning phase that followed was a rough one (and I'm still not fully out of it) but seeing things in new light does give us the advantage of recognizing toxic behaviour in other people earlier than in the past. 

Edited August 14, 2022 by Audra

Yeah, I get that. I have also realised some things about a family member, which helped me better understand and process things that happened in the past. I can’t say I am willing to forget or even forgive, but it really explained so much and made it easier for me to create a safe emotional distance from them (while still maintaining a civil relationship due to other “obligations”). 
 

A lot of it is seeing the patterns of your own reactions and just not…well, react to the manipulations. 

12 hours ago, belpita said:

At the same time, by his age (50ish?) you should maybe have made that internal journey and healed some of the past.

Easier said than done, a lot of people never manage to do that and come to the end of their lives saying to themselves "that life made no sense..."

breakin news.    seems on twitter, shoes posted about smart doll code named London, and someone commented they had their order canceled  they idk why also something about their mother gettin their money back etc. 

2 hours ago, DollyDearest said:

breakin news.    seems on twitter, shoes posted about smart doll code named London, and someone commented they had their order canceled  they idk why also something about their mother gettin their money back etc. 

I don’t like to talk about other people but I noticed that was the same person who told Danny about how they wanted to cancel their option head order because another head was restocked and he then announced option heads weren’t noobie friendly anymore.

 

im assuming they’re banned and don’t know it now

3 hours ago, SweetTeethz said:

I don’t like to talk about other people but I noticed that was the same person who told Danny about how they wanted to cancel their option head order because another head was restocked and he then announced option heads weren’t noobie friendly anymore.

 

im assuming they’re banned and don’t know it now

could be.  idk

9 hours ago, SweetTeethz said:

I don’t like to talk about other people but I noticed that was the same person who told Danny about how they wanted to cancel their option head order because another head was restocked and he then announced option heads weren’t noobie friendly anymore.

 

im assuming they’re banned and don’t know it now

I can understand this, though. Well, partly. I mean, I understand that the administration around cancellations takes time and resources. But I don’t think the solution is to ban someone forever. It would be much better to just deny them the cancellation with reference to a rule about it somewhere.  

I think that Smart Doll doesn't do that (= refusing to cancel orders) anymore because then people will do chargebacks through PayPal and/or their credit card companies. It's a lot of hassle for SmD to deal with that. 

I remember back in the day when “chaos” was only available in the physical shop and how much Danny agonised over putting them online, asking us customers for advice on how to proceed. 
 

In the end, perhaps it just created more of a hassle than an income? 
 

ETA: He could add something about final sale, no returns, but maybe PayPal doesn’t allow that? And I remember him being hesitant to invest in their own payment system, which is understandable. 

Edited August 15, 2022 by belpita

3 hours ago, Eiko82 said:

I think that Smart Doll doesn't do that (= refusing to cancel orders) anymore because then people will do chargebacks through PayPal and/or their credit card companies. It's a lot of hassle for SmD to deal with that. 

It seems to me that refusing to cancel would just increase the likelihood of chargebacks. 

I hate to sound like a bit of a spoil-sport but now that we are delving into order cancellations from the buyers sides and concequences for them ... want Details. All of the Details.

Any company has the right to get a bit hissy about sudden order cancellations. I think we've mentioned it in this thread a few times already that for instance AmiAmi has limited patience for cancelling orders, and also Volks has slowly shifted their pre-orders from just order, to a partial down payment on order, to full payment on order, and even the last few lotto's I was in required full payment just as a participation deposit.

Doing a intentional chargeback is pretty much the last resort in my opininon, for instance Square enix is fairly draconian about those, you only need to do it once.

In terms of the SmD shop offerings it seems fairly straight forward buying in stock stuff, so I cant fully wrap my head around getting buyers remorse about things between ordering and the order being packed for shipping.

the option head thing is a bit ... well... difficult, when the heads alone seem to cost 75-80% of a fullset doll, as far as I last checked, or understood the thing correctly.

In this situation I can understand getting a little miffed if something you wanted more popped up in the meantime. Then again how was the initial approach done to trying to change the order, just a "yo dewd..." twitter/instagram DM, or a hat in hand email to the customer service -- I can still imagine it going badly either way though.

 

1 hour ago, BeyondTime said:

It seems to me that refusing to cancel would just increase the likelihood of chargebacks. 

That's what I meant. I think that in the past, Smart Doll refused to cancel orders which led to a lot of chargebacks. I remember Danny complaining about people doing chargebacks a couple of years ago and how much of a hassle it was for his business. 

So now, if they even suspect that a customer might complain, they simply cancel the order and put that customer on the banlist. 

I can’t say I fault him for that at all and I do think that PayPal is so buyer focused that’s where they get the money from.

 

really wish there was an alternative to PayPal I’m sick of Danny sure but sick of PayPal even more

I decided for the time being to refrain from buying from CJ. 

Really like the Smartdolls and never regretted purchasing them. But I am a bit done with his trashtalking others based on no valid reason.

Hope he can at some point gives updates about his new products without rants, thrashtalk, insults etc. 

Because there is no problem with (most of) the products itself. 

 

 

 

 

Edited August 15, 2022 by Rajke

If something like that happened where I ordered a head but then something I wanted more came in stock, I would just put up a sales post for the first head I ordered and see if I could sell it to someone instead of trying to cancel the order.

21 hours ago, SweetTeethz said:

I can’t say I fault him for that at all and I do think that PayPal is so buyer focused that’s where they get the money from.

 

really wish there was an alternative to PayPal I’m sick of Danny sure but sick of PayPal even more

Yeah, this is the one area where I can't gripe. Most businesses hate using PayPal for this exact reason, but unfortunately, there are very few international secure money transfer services that also offer buyer/seller protection. Necessary evils and all that.

If I may be so bold, I also think part of the problem is trying to appeal primarily to a western fashion doll audience with bjd-adjacent products. Those of us who have been in the resin/DD hobbies for a while understand things like wait times, custom orders, the differences between purchasing parts/accessories and buying a fullset, etc. Western fashion doll audiences that haven't been in our hobby for very long don't have the same frame of reference. Like, sure, you may buy a fashion pack or two, but for the most part, you buy a Barbie from Target, it gets shipped in the next day or two, and it arrives as a full doll with everything you need. It would be easy for a customer used to that kind of business model to experience culture shock once they dip their toes into our side ("What do you mean this clearly labeled expensive option head doesn't come with a wig/eyes/clothes/body" sort of a thing).

In a way, I think Smart Dolls have the potential to be an amazing bridge to introduce fashion doll hobbyists to the bjd hobby. Unfortunately, that means you're going to get the occasional annoying customer who can't read the fine print (or, in Danny's case, the extensive monologue of print). Doubly unfortunately, Danny seems to be incapable of separating out annoying customers from dissatisfied ones who have genuine quality control problems that need fixing.

2 hours ago, fishbuttz said:

I also think part of the problem is trying to appeal primarily to a western fashion doll audience with bjd-adjacent products.

The western hobbyist probably isnt the issue, since that was the goal from the start -- an easier to aquire, more available product for people outside of japan.

I mean people were happy in the early days (Well, apart from me ofc... boycotting all things smd since day 0 and all---), There was discussions, there was feeling of the fanbase of actually getting what they wanted if they asked ... and then it all sort of went up market for the lack of a better description.

and somewhere along the way the "I can do no wrong" mentality kicked in, with various results.

Dejavu again so keeping it brief...

 

 

Edited August 16, 2022 by finnleo

I don’t suppose it would ever occur to Danny that people probably don’t even read those descriptions just from the sheer amount of verbal spewage in them. Folks tend to have short attention spans and if they’re seeing a page’s worth of description on one item, the most it might get is maybe a cursory skim-through, if even that. I’m here to buy a doll, not read a friggin’ textbook! 😏 I, for one, could not give two shakes of a rat’s ass about his holier-than-thou elitism disguised as “backstories”.

If this guy would just cut out all the unnecessary snark and keep it short and to the point, maybe he’d have more luck getting people to understand what he’s actually trying to say.

Assuming he even knows what he’s trying to say… 🙄

3 hours ago, Stormlight said:

I don’t suppose it would ever occur to Danny that people probably don’t even read those descriptions just from the sheer amount of verbal spewage in them. Folks tend to have short attention spans and if they’re seeing a page’s worth of description on one item, the most it might get is maybe a cursory skim-through, if even that. I’m here to buy a doll, not read a friggin’ textbook! 😏 I, for one, could not give two shakes of a rat’s ass about his holier-than-thou elitism disguised as “backstories”.

If this guy would just cut out all the unnecessary snark and keep it short and to the point, maybe he’d have more luck getting people to understand what he’s actually trying to say.

Assuming he even knows what he’s trying to say… 🙄

textbook. hehehehe    more like war & peace with smd's    as for attention span, tryin have ADD. 

3 hours ago, Stormlight said:

If this guy would just cut out all the unnecessary snark and keep it short and to the point, maybe he’d have more luck getting people to understand what he’s actually trying to say.

Assuming he even knows what he’s trying to say… 🙄

Yeah, I've said the same before.
It'd be so much better to have a "read more" or a further elaboration for those who like to read his nonsense. Keep things short and simple, then a "continue reading for more info.". If he's so keen on people reading up before a purchase, then shouldn't he make sure it's actually worth reading?
I guess it feeds his ego, knowing he gets to hold people hostage for a min. with his fan-fics, I mean, customer guides.

7 hours ago, finnleo said:

(Well, apart from me ofc... boycotting all things smd since day 0 and all---)

Do tell more 👀

1 hour ago, ragnamuffin said:

Do tell more 👀

Some hyperbole, considering thread participation, but --

I've gone over the most major gripes throughout the thread, but it boils down to the whole starting point.

Being shown how to make these things to a rather detailed degree by two parties, being declined production of a mascot character, then shooting off to make their own doll with a proposed animatronic body that ultimately ended up being something of a bait and switch (Buyers of the original batch of mirais were told they were supporting development of the animatronic frame, as far as I know no-one has come forward that did they get some kind of compensation when the project was cancelled), for which bait and switch making a "inventive" body frame that featured third party upgrades to existing products (the ballcap spine was a known upgrade to DD2's, and Azones).

The later revealed DigitrevX connection makes the early days even more eyeroll-worthy.

In fairness there is a japanese robotics engineer on twitter these days that has a dancing azone-50 bodyshell working off a lead, but thats today, and that was then.

2 hours ago, finnleo said:

 

The later revealed DigitrevX connection makes the early days even more eyeroll-worthy.

 

The what now…?