Weekly summary 36/2020

Hi,

this is a summary of what was going in the doll world in the 36th week of 2020, as far as we at Dollstudio & DS Doll Europe were concerned.

1) Novel Coronavirus situation.

a) The pandemic situation in general. The amount of daily new infections still exceedes a quarter million per day on average. Most active hot spots were in the past week India, Brazil, the U.S., Argentina, Colombia – and most recently France (yesterday 8,550 new cases; worldwide now on rank 5 after Argentina and before Colombia).

The number of total confirmed cases has exceeded 27 million; as of today, it is at 27,097,421. So far, 884,350 deaths were recorded.

b) Impact on the doll business. Sitation in a nutshell:

The pandemic keeps dominating what occurs or does not occur in the doll business, and it determines the pace how fast or slow things are moving. There are lots of promises about shorter transit times, but these promises are not always kept. For EU destinations, there are now supposed to be two 'special lines' for air freight available (UPS & DHL), but so far, they have not been used so it is not possible yet to assess if these routes are for real. Some of the new train gateways are no good, especially the one in Czechia is slow, unresponsive and overall super annoying.

Also, we are noticing an increase in lead times to make the dolls in China. Doll Forever's new 80 cm miniature dolls take over 20 days lead time to create the silicone variant, and Happy Doll takes longer than four weeks to create their fabric dolls. Both lead times are well above what the suppliers put in prospect before placing an order.

In mainland China, the pandemic might have a more severe impact on businesses than we are led to believe; however, the panemic seems to be used as a welcome excuse for configuration mistakes, 'forgetting' to respond to questions or to send tracking codes. Things are everything but smooth, and I absolutely do not like the suppliers becoming even more unreliable than before.

2) New arrivals.

This week, two new heads were introduced:

• HR Doll no. 38 head - TPE
• SE Doll ›Eva‹ head - TPE

Also, one new body style was released:

• New arrivals: WM Dolls WM-172/B body style - TPE / 172 cm / 39 kg

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) Business updates, technical updates and dolls in development.

Starting in the upcoming week, Sino-doll will launch a special offer. Every order will be upgraded "with ultra soft options, standing without bolts and S effect (head only) for free".

From September 5th - 19th (= two weeks), Dollstudio will offer a time-limited discount event for Xycolo. The 5% off coupon code is valid on Dollstudio US, Dollstudio EU, and Dollstudio DE.

4) Latest blog posts.

Our daily blog posts feature mostly new photo sets, showcasing dolls and heads in various configurations.

• 06.09.: New photos with Xycolo XC-170/E body style and ›Muse‹ head
• 05.09.: More photos with Sino-doll SI-162/D body style and S38 head aka ›Scarlett‹
• 04.09.: New photos with Doll Forever FIT-155/F body style and ›Flavia‹ head
• 03.09.: New photos with YL Doll YL-151 body style and ›Yukina‹ head (Jinsan no. 76)
• 02.09.: New Photos with Irontech Doll IT-158 body style and ›Fiona‹ head
• 01.09.: New photos with HR Doll HR-165/D body style and no. 38 head
• 31.08.: New photos with SE Doll SE-166/B body style (= SED 071) and ›Eva‹ head
• 30.08.: New photos with Sino-doll SI-160/E body style and S32 head aka ›Linyu‹ with R+S

These blog posts are mirrored on the Latest blog posts section all three Dollstudio websites. It is sorted in reverse chronological order, newest posts on top:

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

(EU and US sites in English, DE site in German)

5) Factory photos and shipped dolls.

This week we had no recently completed dolls.

6) Weekly Top 10 Dolls.

Based on our website access stats, here is the weekly report: What's trending this week?

These stats reflect what our (potential) customers are interested in; however, it does not indicate conversions. The stats are broken down by the geographical distribution area, so this might give some insight about varying regional tastes or preferences.

Dollstudio EU

1. Sino-doll SI-162/D
2. Piper Silicone PI-130/D
3. Xycolo XC-170/E
4. Sino-doll SI-160/E
5. Doll Sweet DS-168 ›Summit‹ - Alexa
6. Gynoid GT-162/D
7. Doll House 168 DH19-145/F
8. Gynoid GT-172/D
9. WM Dolls WM-172/B
10. Piper Silicone PI-160/G

Dollstudio US

1. Doll House 168 DH20-80/G
2. Doll House 168 DH20-80/E
3. Doll Sweet DS-167 ›Evo‹
4. Xycolo XC-153/E
5. Ildoll IL-151
6. Piper Silicone PI-130/D
7. Piper Mini PI-100
8. Silicone Art Body M
9. Climax Doll CLM-135
10. Doll Sweet DS-152 ›Summit‹ - Jodie

Dollstudio DE

1. Sino-doll SI-152/D
2. Sino-doll SI-155/H
3. Doll Forever FIT-145/F
4. Xycolo XC-163/E
5. Doll House 168 DH20-80/G
6. Xycolo XC-163/A
7. Sino-doll SI-162/D
8. Xycolo XC-170/E
9. Happy Doll HA-165
10. Sino-doll SI-160/E

Sandro

https://twitter.com/DollStudioEU/status/1302706396786556928?s=20