Weekly summary 11-23/2020

Hi,

this is a summary of what was going in the doll world between the 11th and 23rd week of 2020, as far as we at Dollstudio & DS Doll Europe were concerned.

1) Novel Coronavirus situation.

As in the weeks before, the economy remains overshadowed by SARS-CoV-2 (the virus, according to WHO lingo) respectively COVID-19 (the disease, according to WHO lingo). In an attempt to contain the Novel coronavirus outbreak, the Chinese government implemented a strict set of traveling restrictions and quarantines across the whole country. The hot zones in Wuhan and Hubei province were tightly sealed off, but other cities and provinces gradually lifted their containment protocols. As of today, most Chinese factories in South China have resumed production, but occasional new outbreaks showed up in other regions, for example recently in May in Jilin, a northeastern province, Shulan, and Shengyang. This resulted in renewed lockdown measures over a region of 100 million people.

The factories which were already open did not run at full capacity for a while as there was a shortage of workers until the end of March, and ripple effects from severed supply chains for raw materials, skeleton parts, eyes, wigs, cardboard boxes etc. surfaced up. Most notably, air freight capacities were massively reduced between March and June as many airlines either shut down completely or flew less often to China.

At Dollstudio, we were faced with a backlog going back to Dec 16th (earliest cut-off date before CNY holidays), so fulfilling these old orders was our first priority. The backlog was slowly processed during March and April; until May, all of our orders had been completed and were successfully shipped and delivered. To some degree, drop shipping from China to destinations in North America and outside the EU remained mostly functional, though at much higher shipping rates and at a slower pace; for destinations within the EU, the UPS special line moved from air freight to train, and Chinese shipping agents are also offering shipping by the sea route in an attempt to compensate for steeply increasing freight costs. In the beginning of June, most of these exceptions are still in place.

Starting end of February, COVID-19 outbreaks were moving quickly to other areas of the world. Most severely affected in Europe was Northern Italy where about 60 million peope were under lockdown since March 10th. Major outbreaks also occured in Iran, Spain and France; govenments imposed various non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPI) basically all around the globe. Civil liberties like the freedom to congregate and to travel were suspended temporarily, even within areas like the EU which are characterized by the abolition of borders. A few weeks later, the U.S. and the UK were hit most severely. Starting in May, further massive outbreaks occured in Russia, Brazil and other countries in South America. Some destinations in Europe could no longer be reached for shipments due to quarantine measures; until early June, shipments from Germany to the U.S. were only possible with absurdly high freight costs, caused by a 'crisis surcharge' by the German Post and limited freight capacities.

In many countries around the world, retail stores were forced to close due to governmental restrictions. Some shoppers moved to online shops, and some online shops could deliver for a while – as long as their supplies lasted and logistics were able to deliver the orders. Certain major players with own logistics like Amazon benefited from the situation, smaller shops not so much. As of June 2020, numerous products are simply 'out of stock' everywhere as supply chains remain disrupted; consumers can not freely choose the best product, they need to take what they can get, or they have to postpone their purchase. Certain iconic Corona products like toilet paper and hand disinfectants can be purchased again. But you must not be picky and want toilet paper made of recycled paper, or disinfectant that actually works agains viruses – the stuff currently available usually is not. Highly customized products like love dolls are a different story as they are normally not available from stock anyways. The bottleneck for love dolls remains limited freight capacities, and so far there are no signs that this will change anytime soon. So you can purchase love dolls again, but it might take a long time, and it will be more expensive than it was last year.

In most European countries, the outbreaks of the 'first wave' faded during April and May. NPI measures were loosened to some degree, and people were starting to get used to the New Normal which still includes things like wearing face masks in public, physical distancing and restrictions regarding larger gatherings. At this point of time, COVID-19 is not over yet, but the pandemic affects the different countries not equally. This could be a result of different NPI measures, but it also could be caused by different clades or strains of the Chinese virus. And yeah, the more questions about the origin of the virus are raised, the more questionable the WHO lingo and this organizations delayed actions become. What we know so far is that in Wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak, a biosafety level 4 (BSL–4) lab exists (Wuhan Institute of Virology, 中国科学院武汉病毒研究所). Also we know that in this lab, so called 'gain of function' research on coronaviruses was performed for years, and publicly available papers were published about this research so everybody can review who did this research and who financed it. And last but not least, there are a number of unexplained anomalies in the SARS-CoV-2 virus like the infamous furin cleavage site as well as other possible inserts from other viruses. There are still many unanswered questions, and most importantly we don't know if we need to expect a 'second wave' of outbreaks in fall and winter.

Though, investigating the origins of the Wuhan virus might be a rather academic challenge as the damage is done – or the virus did it's intended duty. Which it is, that's a matter of your point of view. Most notably, trillions of debt were generated and wasted for stock market bailouts. Millions of people lost their jobs, but stock markets recovered suspiciously quick. In form of desaster reliefs, at least some money went to small businesses or others in need, but many businesses keep struggling, from retail stores over restaurant to musicians. A lot of excess fiat currency is now floating around, so this staged play might continue in two acts. First a couple of months with deflation, then a loooong second act with inflation. With zero interest rates, this outlook might scare people who have their savings in a bank account as currencies will lose a lot of their value.

However, for the time being we need to accept the New Normal as it is. Life goes on, but it is different than before. Business also resumes slowly, but it is also different than before. Customers keep asking why they can't get Indigo's care and repair products (e.g. if they live in the U.S.), or why they need to wait 6-8 weeks for a doll (if they live in the EU and want import fees clearance). Those are side effects of the New Normal, and nobody can tell at the moment how much of our old lifestyle we can get back.

On TDF we have a thread about the Novel coronavirus situation which covers the situation until April. For updates in April and later, we have another thread over here at the Dollbase with more updates and further information about the New Normal and it's implications for the doll business.

2) New arrivals.

Since China recovered relatively quickly from the pandemic, doll makers were busy to develop new products or to make changes to existing products. We will introduce these novelties as soon as demand increases. However, not everything developed during the past weeks is an enhancement. Particularily, some long-standing issues were not targeted by R&D yet.

A general trend towards silicone dolls continued. Many TPE factories are now offering silicone dolls, or at least silicone components. This is an interesting development, but not all of the new silicone dolls utilize the advantages of the material, e.g. better repairability due to off-the-shelf adhesives, weight reduction due to foam cores, standing without screews, and blending areas with different shore hardness.

Among the silicone newcomers is Piper Doll with a 160cm doll and Akira head. This doll is specified to have a foam core, though the weight is still stated to be 41 kg; breasts are supposed to be hollow and gel filled; standing requires bolts as in the TPE counterparts; and the material used for vagina, butt, stomach, and thighs seems to be the same as the rest of the body. However, Piper's new silicone doll is still a very charming novelty.

Also there are new silicone doll makers in China; and German silicone doll maker Doll Affair seems to have gone out of business, at least the company website was shut off.

As always, you can follow the latest updates in our Twitter feed: https://twitter.com/DollStudioEU

Also, we have the New products listing on all three Dollstudio websites. It is sorted in reverse chronological order, so the latest additions to our portfolio are on top of the listing:

• Dollstudio US - http://us.dollstudio.org/new-products
• Dollstudio EU - http://eu.dollstudio.org/new-products
• Dollstudio DE - http://de.dollstudio.org/new-products

On Dollstudio EU, there is also the New arrivals timeline http://eu.dollstudio.org/timeline with a slightly different display style.

3) Latest blog posts.

During the past weeks, our blog was in hibernation. Similar to introducing new products we will resume the regular blog posts when consumer demand increases

4) Factory photos and shipped dolls.

All pending orders and shipments from the backlog have been processed, shipped and delivered. Reporting about new orders will resume when new orders come in.

Sandro