Is Volks likely to ever switch to preorders only?

I don't know a ton about Volks, but I know they've been releasing dolls on preorder. Is there a particular reason they also release dolls via lottery instead of preorder? I tried so hard to get Kizuna Ai, both in the the lottery and the click war and it's still eating at me that I lost the lottery and the website went down right as I confirmed my order in the click war.

Now of course she costs double on the aftermarket, just like they always do. ;-;

Is there a reason that all of their dolls aren't preorder?

3 hours ago, DreamDollDesign said:

Is there a reason that all of their dolls aren't preorder?

The simple answer is no one knows the licensing details or decision making around these choices; except for the folks at Volks.

The more complicated answer is there are probably a lot of different reasons for this, including individual licensing arrangements with the IP holders.

Kizuna has a decent sculpt that is a lot like Arle’s, so she was probably fated to be expensive aftermarket. 

I was wondering if it might be a licensing issue but at the same time it blows my mind that they'd turn down more money. 

You're really right about Kizuna being similar to Arle. I thought maybe it was just me. That's worrying. She feels like such a pipe dream now.

8 minutes ago, DreamDollDesign said:

You're really right about Kizuna being similar to Arle. I thought maybe it was just me. That's worrying. She feels like such a pipe dream now.

When I saw owner photos, I felt some regret in not going for her. On the other hand Lina, Elsa, and Anna make me glad I didn’t. 

There are a lot of factors that affect a doll's release, the major players I can think off the top of my head are development and production.

Limited Dolls with a finite cap are a lot easier to control, compared to pre-orders.

It also makes it easier to pay out license holders in one lumpsum because you already have a negotiated quantity. 

Volks is still family owned, and it's not as large company as people assume. 

A good amount of their production is still done in house; and we don't know if they're operating at max capacity at the moment. 

Luckily the quantities of dolls produced have been higher than normal. The winning lottery odds have been more favorable than they were in the past. xD

Edited October 27, 2020 by Subaru

58 minutes ago, BeyondTime said:

When I saw owner photos, I felt some regret in not going for her. On the other hand Lina, Elsa, and Anna make me glad I didn’t. 

She was cute in promo pictures, but she really shines in owner photos for sure. I saw in another thread that you were really excited about them. I hope you were/are able to get them :]

 

33 minutes ago, Subaru said:

There are a lot of factors that affect a doll's release, the major players I can think off the top of my head are development and production.

Limited Dolls with a finite cap are a lot easier to control, compared to pre-orders.

It also makes it easier to pay out license holders in one lumpsum because you already have a negotiated quantity. 

Volks is still family owned, and it's not as large company as people assume. 

A good amount of their production is still done in house; and we don't know if they're operating at max capacity at the moment. 

Luckily the quantities of dolls produced have been higher than normal. The winning lottery odds have been more favorable than they were in the past. xD

These are good points, although it's still disappointing. I know it comes with the territory, though. Before I ever got into Vinyl, this was a big reason why I wanted to avoid it. Then it became obvious to me that this is becoming the case with loads of companies, so may as well just try my hardest to snag ones I really like. I've had horrible luck my whole life though. >>

34 minutes ago, DreamDollDesign said:

I hope you were/are able to get them :]

Winter, but we’ll have to see how they are released. 

8 hours ago, DreamDollDesign said:

Is there a reason that all of their dolls aren't preorder?

It takes much longer to release a pre-order doll (from reservation & down-payment period (a month or two), production, and final payment collection (few weeks) and distribution). 

So Volks probably wants to keep their customers interested/excited with some dolls that can be purchased soon after announcement.  (Excitement levels die down with pre-order dolls as you end up waiting a year.  Some people lose interest in a character by the time they are released.)

I also think Volks wants their customers to feel special, having "won" the right to get a doll or accessory by making quantities limited, through a lottery or smaller run.  (I do feel that Volks went overboard when they made a wig release a lottery...)

A wig?? Wow.

I agree with what you've said here, even though it's a shame that it has to be this way.

To be honest, if their preorders had limited quantity it would be a click war too, but it does seem like their production rate is not that high so we have to deal with limited quantity for everything. Somehow I feel like lottery is still fairer than most, because I've always lost out in click wars. 

Sorry for big word dump, I think a lot of it was covered already, but I still wanted to say something... I think people have a lot of misconceptions about how big Volks actually is. As people have said, the typical preorders take an entire year (or more in some cases) to fulfill - the one exception I can think of is the April release of Jupiter and Sakura (and sd17 Cecile and Williams) at the first online Dolpa, but that was an outlier (Sakura also didn’t seem to be that popular, which probably helped). 

This also isn’t just a Volks thing. These dolls aren’t easy to produce, and I don’t know any other producer of large dolls like this that can make every single one to preorder that everybody has a chance at. Smartdoll definitely can’t, their limited dolls seem to work as capped (Ie first come first serve) preorders that sell out very quickly. Azone also do that, and I have seen them sell out within a minute of the preorder starting. Azone (and obitsu) also do sometimes do the type of preorder where they fulfill every order and everyone gets one, and those ones also typically come out a up to year or so later (sometimes more) just like Volks. For limited releases, most resin companies allow a preorder period with all dolls made to order, but those are typically naked wigless dolls and almost definitely don’t see the numbers of a typical Volks preorder. I also rarely if ever see a resin company do a preorder for a fullset that didn’t have a quantity limit. The lottery method also isn’t some wacky Volks thing either, it’s a very common sales method in Japan for limited items that (theoretically) gives everyone a fair chance. (a lot of concert tickets are sold the same way. I only got to go to MagicalMirai in 2017 because my friend won tickets while I didn’t - one person could enter for a max of two.)
 

If Volks suddenly decided to do preorder projects only, in my personal opinion that would be...excruciating...? Call me impatient but I couldn’t deal with having to wait a year for -every single doll- and the production could and would easily get backed up unless they really did only do two a year. Either way it would mean a lot less actual releases, and I would personally rather see more characters made than more of each of them. Plus....the releases throughout the year are tied to the Dolpa events (not that there have been any proper ones this year unfortunately, but still, the online ones count).
 

A few years back Volks actually experimented a bit with Dolpa release methods - Kagamine Rin and Len were able to be preordered at the Dolpa venue with delivery a month or so later. But, according to a fan survey about Dolpa, Dollfie fans vastly preferred being able to actually receive a doll at Dolpa rather than having to wait for delivery even if it was guaranteed, so they returned to the traditional method of line lottery at the venue. (Tbh it probably didn’t help that apparently so many people flaked on their Rin/Len lottery entries (and maybe even the Dolpa preorders as well) that they stayed in stock on the international store for over a year after their release and actually used to sell under their RRP on the aftermarket because of it)

 

To expand a bit on Azone's releases, everything they release is a "pre-order", but they have two types. 

Most of their licensed character dolls are what you would consider a normal pre-order, where there's a set reservation period and then delivery several months later.  They can typically fulfill all orders placed.

Azone's original dolls, however, are typically a different type of pre-order.  The reservation period is limited by the quantity that they can produce, and delivery can be in the same month or not too long after that.  The quantity is much more limited, as the turn-around time is short, and they can't adjust production much from what their original estimates were (production is likely in progress before opening up pre-orders).  Stores get limited allotments that they can offer for pre-order.

From time to time, Azone does release some of their original dolls in the "normal pre-order" method, and they usually mention that specifically.  In those cases they do fulfill all orders placed in the reservation period, and the release date is much later, like their licensed character dolls.

@Monty Thanks for sharing that! It explains a lot. I guess considering how many products Volks pushes out, both resin, vinyl, and otherwise, I thought they were bigger than they seem to be. And I totally understand what you're saying about how horrible it would be to have to wait a year. Personally I'd be down if I knew I was getting it eventually for a noninflated price. But I can see where people would hate it. It certainly wouldn't be fun and I think excruciating is a good word for it.

In that case, it would be nice to see a way to cut down on the amount of scalpers that are able to get multiples. I've seen a little evidence of that on eBay. But realistically, I know there's no real way to track that or stop it outside of what Volks already does.

@nanika Your first example is the exact kind of pre-order I was thinking of, but like Monty explained, I ca see where it would be too much on Volks, so I get why it doesn't work that way.

On 10/27/2020 at 2:39 PM, Subaru said:

There are a lot of factors that affect a doll's release, the major players I can think off the top of my head are development and production.

Limited Dolls with a finite cap are a lot easier to control, compared to pre-orders.

Dear God, 100x this. Seems like we have some newer people who didn't witness the Great Body Drought of 2012.

In late 2011, the preorder dolls were Saber Extra and Saber Alter V2. Keep in mind, the only Sabers with that head we had before this were the original Blue Classic and the original Saber Alter, both of whom were basically elite DDs at the time. Seeing the OG Saber Alter go for $2000 wasn't unheard of.

So suddenly we had coveted dolls released, which was rare at the time, and they were preorders. Plus it was done in conjunction with Type Moon's 10th anniversary, so that drew in a lot of Type Moon fans into the hobby. This preorder was HUGELY popular in a way I don't think any preorder has been since.

And Now, just for flavor: Extra and Alter V2 were among the first to use the DDIII body, which probably meant new production lines at Volks and absolutely meant new quality control.

Volks was so overwhelmed with orders, they literally did not have the resources to keep base bodies in stock. If I recall correctly, 2012 had some of the lowest lottery win rates, too, probably for the same reason.

It got so bad that people were able to charge $100-200 above retail for a standard base body. It was insane.

Also, Volks had originally listed the turnaround time for the Sabers at around six months, but they kept getting delayed and delayed and delayed until most people got their orders around the one year mark. That one year till delivery tradition we see now for preorders? That started with the Sabers. That's Volks saying "Never Again."

Not only that, but Volks has a lot of going on besides new releases at all times - Dream Choice, multiple physical stores, and for resins - FCS, all those special member-only events, One-Offs... I wish they would do more preorders, especially for dolls I want, but I don't think this is a viable option for them.  I also wish they would *finally* host a Dolpa or Online FCS in Europe, but this is even less likely...