Volks USA closes their doors 3/30/14 [Website to remain!]

Awww The Volks USA store was on my places to visit list once I made my way out to California.

To the people who are saying they are only open two days a week- the store is also where they store/ship items that are sold on the Volks USA site. The people who worked there were salespeople and fulfilled online orders (they have others help with just the on-line orders, but I had not had not met them).

 

I'm not sure if this is well-known, so I thought I'd mention it. Still super bummed about the store closing.

Well, here's to hoping that one day they'll be able to open another store here in the States! At least the website will still be available.

nooooooooooo local pick up was convenient for me!

Volks USA posted the following update on the site regarding there closure:

 

Updates Regarding the Upcoming Showroom Closure

 

 

There have been some changes to our closing schedule for our showroom! Please look forward to these upcoming events!

 

 

Showroom Event:

March 15-16, 2014 – 2 Day Closeout Sale

 

*March 15th (Sat): The last day for taking FCS

 

*March 16th (Sun): Final day for Tenshi-no-Sumika in L.A. Showroom

and Tea Party**

 

*Those who come to visit our showroom on these two days will receive a special gift!

**Mikey and a doll doctor will visit us from Japan and will join us at the Tea Party!

 

 

Web Event:

March 22-25, 2014 – 4 Day Closeout Sale on Website

 

 

 

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We would like to thank our loyal customers for bearing with us, and we apologize for any inconveniences due to these changes. Although we have previously announced that our showroom’s last day open would be March 30th, we will be moving the date to Sunday, March 16, 2014 in order to accomodate these special events to be held.

 

Additionally, we will be having a double release for our November 2013 and Dolpa 30 Collections! Both outfit collections will be available on March 8th, 2014 at 11AM PST. As with our previous releases, this will be in our showroom as well as on the website.

 

Please continue to watch our website and blog for the latest information!

There's a close out sale on the website? I thought it was staying open >_

I'm sure the sale is just to liquidate the stock they have on hand in the storefront and lighten their load before they have to move to their new warehouse. It's also possible that the website will get it's revamp right after the closeout sale. Volks has stated that the US website will stay, we're just losing the physical store.

It's too bad...I always wanted to visit there, but I just had no other reason to be all the way over there - I'm on the opposite end of the country.

 

I'm glad they will be paying more attention to their online store now as a result though. Every time I wanted to order something, at least one or more of the things I needed was always out of stock. Maybe now they can keep a larger inventory without the storefront to worry about.

☆☆☆IMPORTANT NEWS REGARDING LIMITED RELEASE DOLLS☆☆☆

 

Unfortunately, VOLKS USA will no longer be offering lottery and releasing Limited Editions Super Dollfie® and Dollfie Dream® .

 

On a brighter note! VOLKS INTERNATIONAL and our authorized dealer, WeLoveDolls.com will be releasing future Limited Dolls and taking Lottery Entries on our behalf.

 

These changes will affect the Hometown Dolpa Kyoto 10 Limited Dolls and all future Limited Doll releases.

 

If you have any questions regarding these news; feel free to ask us anything in the comments or shoot an email over to service@volksusa.com

 

No more lottery stuff from them....

Holy crap, that's horrible news! Why would you do that, Volks? WHY?!

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Edited April 11, 2018 by Guest

I don't believe that overstock/dropped preorders was a really huge issue- last I was there, they had just a couple. If they were to make them available on the web shop like Volks Int, they'd be sold by now.

 

To me it seems more likely they had to choose between scaling up staff to handle larger volumes of sales, or shifting business to the home office which already had capacity. Japanese businesses seem pretty risk averse, so I could see how they would make that call.

 

Still it's disappointing, Volks USA staff are awesome and very helpful in solving issues like Saber's broken shoulder piece. I don't look forward to working out issues like that with an overseas office :/

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Edited April 11, 2018 by Guest

Just saw that post....whattttt in the world ?

As much as I'm surprised, I'm not surprised...? With the downsizing from the store I had a feeling we'd lose more. I hoped otherwise, but wishful thinking is just that. I think the thing that threw me through a loop is that I suspected that maybe We Love Dolls would lose dealership rights. I was right about someone losing the event rights, just not the right someone. WLD may actually just still be going due to a contracted agreement. I think that'll be something to anticipate to stop in the future as well.

 

I'm starting to think this is all just a really drawn out prelude to Volks USA shutting down entirely.

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Edited June 1, 2014 by Guest

I'd say a big reason for the change is that people from the US buy from the international site anyway and also that the new office is probably very small and not able to fit all the limited dolls.

Simply put if the gain is not a certain amount higher than the cost then they really have no reason to bother to be in the USA. Import tax alone is one of the many expenses that come with running a business internationally. Competition wise? Of course they have had to deal with it, but their general market, the Japanese market still thrives and I think that's key. I can name quite a few BJD companies that have had business drop merely by the creation of the Soom's M.D. line. Volks gets the benefit of not only being the ultimate veteran in the business (establishing the modern ABJD is a pretty big deal), but by having a marketing strategy that no other one can compare with. Like any business currently the economy sucks, and it can make it hard, but as far as I'm concerned they are thriving. Get back to me when they resemble Custom House/Aidoll. (Disregarding their nonexistence isn't just fueled by competition wiping them out.)

 

Minor overstocks from unpopular molds happens. It isn't enough to kill a business. Though, VolksUSA was known to get old limiteds (or excess stock) shipped to them. I can recall more than a handful of times that a few peeps I've known would find out they had so-and-so mold just randomly in the store and so they picked them up. (Randomly noting that from something else you said.)

 

As I said. I'm surprised, but not entirely. I'm prepared for their complete removal from the USA, and honestly? I'm okay with that. To me, a company taking the steps to keep making the dolls I like is more important than making the actual process of acquiring them easier. In fact, I'd encourage it. As just stated above, we buy from the international site anyways.

I agree with most of what you said Gunter but the downside is sometimes due to the lottery you cannot give Volks money even if you want to. I have gotten unlucky on so many lotteries through them I cannot ignore the significant amount of money they didn't end up getting from me. I would love to see them move to a pre-order system maybe for more releases. I think they are able to manage this model better, the Miku sales went very well. They don't have to make extra then and they sidestep a great deal of the scalpers.

Though I appreciate the agreement, I disagree that they need to change their system. I just can't get tired of this argument. Excuse incoming wall-o-text.

 

Just because they didn't get it from you doesn't mean they didn't get it. This all rolls back to how the Japanese market works, and that's truly the only market they care about. Japanese hobbyists are all about the rare and OOAK. The struggle, and the pride of having something like that. So the idea of handing it to them easily really sort of goes against Volks ongoing and most success business model.

 

The idea that Volks should care about scalpers is always a funny point to me. I feel like somewhere along the lines people forget they are a business. They don't care if people feel left out, or people buy to simply resale. Why should they? They make their money. As a company, much like my beloved Nintendo, they fake interest really well though so I can see where folks get confused.

 

Turning over to all or nearly all pre-orders would not only make the task of staying up with their pace of doll productions hard (I would like to point out they do everything in Japan and thus their business is forever limited in speed and size), but would severally take from Dolpas and the like. You'd also have the challenge of FCS having to slow in production as well and each of those are truly OOAK. Overall? I think the occasional is okay, but the majority of the time definitely not. Quality over quantity is always my preference. Plus I like to fight for something when I really want it.

 

But disregarding this sort of off topic ramble, explain to me how this explains the closing of Volks USA? This is essentially an issue that people have that applies to the entirety of the company. It isn't like the lottery system was only available within the USA. I feel it all seems quite pointless to point this out as a major reason they closed their doors. If I had any guess the fact they had to adhere to our terrible exchange rate is a far better reason.

If this is about the option to enter the lotto for dolls, I believe this will make it fair for everyone through the international channel. We've always had an advantage here, having our own pool for lotto girls but not everyone had the same opportunity. In actuality, I think having only one pool for all dolls is better for everyone.

Truth is I don't really know why - and I don't think anyone knows why (or maybe ever will unless we get some sweet insider information) as to why this is happening. I would love to know why, even if it is bad news. Maybe it isn't bad news? But it is hard for me to not think of every single reason regardless of how small it is to maybe play a contributing factor.

I realize that they didn't get the money from me but they could have gotten my money on top of whatever they had already sold. I am well aware the Japanese market is quite different from ours but the doll hobby isn't the same as it was six years ago, and that is a fact. Even the Japanese market has changed. I would like them to move closer towards pre-orders (personally, for multiple reasons) but also because I think the scalper market does cause other more unsavory markets to effect their bottom line...and other companies.

What does this all have to do? I think it comes down to almost always money - they are losing it somewhere, we don't know where, and it is our guess as to where they are losing it. Something somewhere is causing them to decide to make this move.

I think Volks makes a certain number of dolls, and that's how many will be available for lottery, etc. If they made and sold as many as people wanted, they'd have to make up for that by making less of something else... like, say they release 4 limited dolls at an event, with a total of 400 dolls (random number here) made for sale. And 1000 people wanted to buy the dolls... sure they could make 1000 dolls instead to meet that demand. But then where does the time and resources to make those extra dolls come from? They'll have less time to make new dolls for the next event, and the one after that, and so on. I can't make my thoughts that clear, I hope this makes sense. One thing I like about Volks is that there's always a new exciting thing being released. Most companies have a regular stock and I don't check up on what they are doing very often if at all. I dunno, I've come to enjoy Volks's way of releasing things, even if it means I can't buy everything I want.

I guess that much is true, since they have this system, they can always release something pretty quickly.

I think in the end Volks' business model less resembles that of a typical product-driven business and more like an event-driven business.

 

Think of a theater or stadium holding concerts, plays, or sports events. They will often *under*price tickets to induce a sold-out show as often as possible. That competition for seats is seen as part of the experience, and the energy of a large crowd a positive part as well. Yes, there are scalpers out there, but once the tickets are out of their hands the theaters/stadiums have their money and can't do much about it anyway.

 

Volks' product releases work in a similar way, except that they're typically under*produced* instead of under-priced. This leads to two effects: the experience of getting the item essentially becomes part of what you buy, and since everything is limited it lets them constantly experiment with what they sell, leading to each outfit etc. having a degree of novelty.

 

Apparently this sort of event-oriented business model is more common in Japan than in the West, though I get the impression Volks has kind of turned it into an art form more so than even many Japanese companies. Still, to the Japanese they probably seem like a slightly over-the-top version of something they see often. Outside of Japan, and particularly in the US with our "But we want our stuff and we want it naaaooo!" attitude, it definitely seems a bit bizarre at first glance.

 

I personally have kind of come to sort of like Volks' model, mostly because of the variety and novelty it allows them to provide. But I can see how it would be a bit of a struggle to get traction for it here, especially since for the resin BJD front there are plenty of other companies that use a more standard, familiar business model.

 

However, I will say this: Volks, if you intend to hold click wars online instead of lotteries, you had *better* use a system that won't let people buy stuff that's already in my cart!