My personal experiences with dolls buy at AlieExpress

[Fireball]

So what I'm saying is that at the consumption of three dolls a year one might as well buy a silicone doll which will last many years.

Four. Your nick contains nice word - Harem. This is right what em I building with WMDolls.
All dolls lasts in my harem until today, with no defects.
The doll, whos photos are attached at the beginning of this thread, is now almost 13 months old.
Im sure she lasts also many years as silicone ones, you mentioned. It is not just about use, it is also about care.

The human race is consuming the earth.

This is definitely true. We can not do anything else...

Thank you for your constructive words, not just a blind criticism.

[Anung Un Rama]

As a comparable this was the argument between Ray at JY and Ella. Ray had worked for international brand companies and was heading the company towards quality control suitable for international export production. But Ella went the other way wanting corners to be cut and dealing with complaints of quality as and when they arose, a policy not suitable for expensively transported and taxed dolls.


Harem

And this decision and policy is why JY Dolls, never met the required standard to gain accreditation as a TDF recognised and recommended doll manufacturer,

Quality control on quality products with a business and distribution network to ensure buyer assurance for premium quality dolls.

Ironically, the company Ray now works with, did recently gain TDF accreditation.

Interesting isn't it

Anung

[RGC_0767]

If you want to be as safe as possible, then order the dolls listing by the number of orders/reviews. On the top of the list you would find the one with 143 orders/ 64 reviews. I think anything more than 10 orders is safe to go, although I can't imagine why should a vendor sell a fake doll. B-grade, or high quality clone, maybe, but fake?

Having said that, I have my second doll stuck at US customs. Based on sample of 2, I recommend FedEx over UPS, which goes through different route.

I bought mine from AliExpress. It is my first doll. Probably my last. It is fun at times. I've had some laughs. It satisfied a curiosity in me to see how these things look with my own eyes. They are beautiful. It's up to us how we wish to make them look.
But I DID look at ALL the doll sellers on there. Also took note of the amount of years the seller has been doing business, and the feedback scores and reviews.
The knockoff dolls I am told will not last as long before trouble comes. But the cheap prices are good for introduction to this. The seller I bought from was very nice. Short on words, but came through quickly. I ordered the doll Christmas Day. She was shipped Fedex. Arrived on January 4th. The box did not hardly have a nick in it. Crazy as I was for a big dollar purchase, it was my first purchase on AE. Since I've ordered some other items too. Take chances on any online retailer. Amazon for me is King as far as speedy shipping. But their outlet is not that far from me.
To Canadians thinking of buying a doll on AE, just remember you will have to pay them for Customs etc. My doll was 700 CDN plus 170 to Fedex... done... 140 TPE WM Knock off.... she is well built for the price... not disappointed in what came in that box Just get bored of her.... She'd say the same about me

LuLu-Yellow-Mini.jpg

[shotdot]

Because international transport costs are high a doll for export has to be good. Dolls can be made more cheaply for internal consumption by cutting corners and relying on the customer to be the quality control assessor.

What "cutting corners" do you have in mind? Do they incorporate lower grade steel skeleton for a batch of doll designated as "low quality"? From the surgery pictures posted on this forum, it seems that you can easily find sloppily welded joints on an expensive doll. Or low-grade dolls are steel, while the high end are carbon composites? Just kidding.

For a vendor it is much more cost-effective to have one manufacturing pipeline, not two ("high" and "low quality") and segregate the output into two bins. Grade A snickers would be labeled "Nike" and sold for $100, while the Grade B ones would be sold as no-name $10 pair. Oops, I meant dolls, not snickers; but, seriously, this is how it work across all the industries, not just dolls. Besides, automated production lines spit out highly uniformed quality goods; it is a sign of malfunctioning, otherwise. Finally, difference between grades A and B is never obvious for an outsider.

As for quality control, I haven't seen any youtube inspection lasting more than 5 minutes. That would be like $1 expense in labor costs; how much reserve for cost cutting do you think is there?

[RGC_0767]

Because international transport costs are high a doll for export has to be good. Dolls can be made more cheaply for internal consumption by cutting corners and relying on the customer to be the quality control assessor.

What "cutting corners" do you have in mind? Do they incorporate lower grade steel skeleton for a batch of doll designated as "low quality"? From the surgery pictures posted on this forum, it seems that you can easily find sloppily welded joints on an expensive doll. Or low-grade dolls are steel, while the high end are carbon composites? Just kidding.

For a vendor it is much more cost-effective to have one manufacturing pipeline, not two ("high" and "low quality") and segregate the output into two bins. Grade A snickers would be labeled "Nike" and sold for $100, while the Grade B ones would be sold as no-name $10 pair. Oops, I meant dolls, not snickers; but, seriously, this is how it work across all the industries, not just dolls. Besides, automated production lines spit out highly uniformed quality goods; it is a sign of malfunctioning, otherwise. Finally, difference between grades A and B is never obvious for an outsider.

As for quality control, I haven't seen any youtube inspection lasting more than 5 minutes. That would be like $1 expense in labor costs; how much reserve for cost cutting do you think is there?

Agree on the YouTube analysis. There is one thing that has been going on in North America since the early 20th century. It is called Greed and Profiteering. Everyone is all for free enterprise until the competition smashes the hell out of 'em. Then they cry!
I've lost my job because of the Asian market. Am I pissed at Asians? NO!! Pissed at the people in power who make greedy decisions based upon their own "Legacy" and lousy trade deals.(Piss poor run companies as well) Not gonna go political... just throwing my 2 penny in. Oh wait!!! In Canada we got rid of the penny, but not electronically. They round up or down, whichever. Millions of Transactions daily for money that no longer exists There ya go... it's Called Capitalism!!

[haremlover]

The five minute "quality control" videos you've seen will represent only the happy-go-lucky end of manufacturing if without proper production line engineering. They are in effect final inspection for anything obvious. A company farming out quality control to customers will simply send out anything that looks OK and probably half the time customers don't complain even about something that should have had attention at the factory. That's how and why some products can be made cheaply cutting corners.

Jinsan have two production lines and WM uses both. They have two factories.

On of the reasons why unashamedly I support and encourage people to look to Joyce at OR to buy dolls is that I know that she does not sell to the Chinese market - her main business being the high quality expectations of Japan. For that business to be reliable she must personally only use the production line not catering for the Chinese market. Which production line an OR sculpt might come from if ordered through YL or WM I don't know, but there are clearly possibilities for such a doll to have come from the other factory. I have in my possession a doll not made to Joyce's standards and which was not ordered through Joyce.

There's quality control and quality control. There's the sort of production line that puts anything together and if it passes final inspection, great. On the other hand proper quality control is much more expensive. Supply of components - check quality before assembly
Assembly of skeleton - check joint tightness
TPE - check composition, check temperature. Double check
Mould - check for wear - check for assembly - check for proper positioning of skeleton before casting
Pouring - check for bubbles of air
etc etc etc

Money can be saved by leaving out steps of quality control. Proper quality control costs employees, costs money.

So yes the Russian Roulette of AliExpress will give outright fakes as also it will give second production line products made to cheaper specification, and from that you might strike lucky - there is a risk.

When you buy from a TDF vendor from a TDF manufacturer, extra stages of fallback are introduced. Some vendors receive the doll and then send it out, themselves performing a quality check on the way. I used to do this with Domax latex inflatables, and my quality check was necessary. If not, and the doll is shipped direct, you have recourse to the forum where a vendor nor manufacturer wants a bad name. So from vendors you should get first rate service in repair or replacement of a doll with a material fault. Meanwhile the TDF accredited manufacturer knows that enough business comes through reputable vendors and their TDF reputation is at stake, to jump to and service any replacement request required, without hassle.

I know an AliBaba seller and she's great and the UK fly-by-night vendor who was banned from the forums, and who Phil at The Doll House and I bailed out one of his customers, used to buy from her. I've helped out a couple of times with her customer difficulties and know that in terms of business these people skate on thin ice. If there's a problem, she's buying cheaply from whereever - from which business funding replacement dolls isn't funded - and her profit margins on the cheap dolls are so slim that she's put to great pain if something goes wrong. It's simply bad business but the way in which much Chinese business is carried out. It creates much misery all along the supply chain.

The low quality production lines offload risk of finding something not right within the production line and having to scrap the product onto the customer who either won't be aware of the risk until it's too late, not complain about the defect, or find shipping back to base uneconomically expensive. Such manufacturers are exploiting the customers, the customers taking the risk in return for the lottery of getting a good product cheap.

Interestingly she used to list separately dolls from WM factory no. 1 and WM factory no.2. Perhaps that says something.

She's selling 165 dolls for in the region of $650, and WM dolls in the region of $1000 whilst a company that manufactures to quality standards, Climax, are still $1600 or so, all with around $350 on top for shipping.

That says something about quality, and about the sort of quality difference that one might expect from the two WM production lines, one for the Chinese market and the other for availability for export to reputable vendors.

She doesn't carry OR dolls. That's because they are manufactured at higher quality than the cheap production line dolls sold to her.

She's part of an industry of resellers continually armtwisting manufacturers to sell at lower prices, which they do to keep turnover going, and who cut corners in order to make it worthwhile.

From my point of view, getting a doll not made up to standards is a pain. Either the TPE falls apart and splits when you're not looking, or joints necessary for posing are too loose to pose or too tight to use, or nails fall off, or the skeleton breaks.

It's for this reason that if one can afford just one doll in one's life I advocate getting a better quality doll and supported by the quality control and customer service provided by a reputable supply chain.

Best wishes

Harem

[haremlover]

I have just received response from Sam:

Yes that ID card is for Chinese market use .

So congratulations to all those having got a doll with an ID card. She's guaranteed a Chinese Special made more cheaply for the Chinese market. The comments in my post above apply.

Best wishes

Harem

[shotdot]

You imply they use sonar or x-ray machines to catch defects in the skeleton and voids in the TPE layer? I doubt it. This is not an aircraft production, and if the product were to fail no lives would be lost, no lawsuits filed.

Do you have a video link which shows that hypothetical elaborate quality control process? I would imagine that for a high end manufacturer there is an incentive to produce such a video to warrant their exorbitant prices. They can always rebuke "it is a trade secret", of course, but this is not a convincing argument.

OK, Jinsan may have more than one line, which is the sign that they have high production volume. However, I don't believe they would intentionally made them different. It is much more cost efficient to collect the bodies coming from the two identical autoclaves, perform the binning inspection, and then make the final nail attachment, painting, coating, and so on differently depending on what quality bin they put it, but I doubt they bother doing that. It is even more cost effective to have identical assembly lines for all the dolls, then segregate them at final inspection.

[haremlover]

You imply they use sonar or x-ray machines to catch defects in the skeleton and voids in the TPE layer?

No. I do not imply that. Please read my post again because clearly my writing is difficult to understand.

The brand has two factories. They are separate. You can draw your own conclusions and be happy about your personal choice but as a matter of Occam's Razor we see two lines of product at two different price levels intended for two different distribution networks coming from two different factories. One distribution network is local and where transport of a faulty product back to the factory isn't expensive, and the other distribution network which requires that products are good enough reliably for them not to have to be shipped back as international shipping is killingly expensive.

The bottom line of this thread is that access to the Chinese market dolls exists through AliExpress and other sellers, and that such dolls may be outright fakes or they may be genuine brand dolls made for the purposes of and the quality and price required by the local market. These dolls are cheaper than the cost price of dolls sold internationally to reputable vendors.

There is a caveat. From time to time I suspect that it is possible for apparently reputable vendors to buy dolls from among the local market dolls, making extra profit or bringing extra discounts forward. Clearly that would be wrong and if discovered be cause for any such vendor to be banned from TDF. It is, however, for that reason that I suggested the Transparent Provenance Assurance system https://www.dollforum.com/forum/viewtop ... 87&t=93077 so that people can track orders of their dolls through vendors back to the manufacturers. Not unlike the ID card that WM has instigated for the local market.

Buying local market dolls presents a risk or risks

and if people are happy to take such risks, great. My personal experience of that doll is having a dead-loss waste of money, a doll which I have no pleasure in using, it being grossly inferior to the genuine doll, and which I cannot resell.

Best wishes

Harem

[Fireball]

Buying local market dolls presents a risk or risks

and if people are happy to take such risks, great. My personal experience of that doll is having a dead-loss waste of money, a doll which I have no pleasure in using, it being grossly inferior to the genuine doll, and which I cannot resell.

This photo displays unfinished treatment after wire cut of the neck, when removed from mold.
This is not a "risk", this is just unfinished work...

[haremlover]

Yes - that's just the point. It's unfinished and intended so to be good enough for the Chinese market to meet a price.

The TPE has split under the armpits and at the vagina with next to no use by the previous owner and it's a doll that I paid £800 second hand and which I cannot sell onto anyone else, a total loss. The TPE is harder than Joyce's production line genuine doll and feels like a lump of rubber, not a person, next to one in bed.

The bottom line is that this Chinese market doll isn't good enough and is a dead unrecuperable loss to me.

It raises the issue that adverts for second hand dolls should be required to identify the source a doll originated from in terms of its vendor. I for one will never be buying a second hand doll again sourced from the Chinese market pool of sellers.

Whilst your experience has been eminently satisfactory for you, my experience is that it's not recommendable for everyone unless they're willing to take upon themselves the risks.

It's a bottom line of "Walk in at your peril and with your eyes wide open". You trade risk for price. That price can be expensive if risk is against you. It would be irresponsible to recommend to others that there is no risk. Generally one gets what one pays for.

Best wishes

Harem

[Fireball]

Yes - that's just the point

I do not rate such problem as bad one, because this can be very easily fixed by the user to 100% invisiblity...

It's unfinished and intended so to be good enough for the Chinese market to meet a price.

Dear Harem, I like your posts, you are an intelligent man, but this time I must disagree.
Why do you think, that China is some kind of sewer, where can be selled primarily waste products?
Why do you think, that cheaper product must be aslo worse?
Generally I dont understan that. But here at TDF I do...

[Poradicus]

I think Fireball you are missing the point. After getting to know this forum for a couple of months, I have to agree with what it stands for because it protects the consumer, etc. Bottom line, TDF is not saying that customers can't take risks on their own, but I like TDF stance on protecting the consumer, vendors, and manufacturers. Everyone knows buying from Ali express is a huge risk even consumer reports magazine can attest to that as well.

Consumer complaints forums is flooded with customers who bought products from people on Ali-express, al-baba whatever they are called, and were scammed. TDF is like Angie's List, or any other consumer protection forum out there. Their not going to tell consumers to go out and risk buying from companies not part of TDF when they stand behind protecting consumers and businesses. I am glad TDF stands behind this, and hope they never change and people who have lucky success going to outside sources of vendors, good for them. I was also scammed to, so logically I would rather not go through risking that again, and others could agree to that, it is not worth gambling with hard earned money.

[Fireball]

I think Fireball you are missing the point.....

OK, you're right, I'v got this...

[Fireball]

I have just received response from Sam:

Yes that ID card is for Chinese market use .

So congratulations to all those having got a doll with an ID card. She's guaranteed a Chinese Special made more cheaply for the Chinese market. The comments in my post above apply.

Sorry for this, maybe Im a bit stupid, but:
Who's Sam and where is he/she from? China?