Shopping What happened to Dollzone?

I think if you search the news section, they discontinued several dolls earlier this year.

 

It looks like quite a few of the dolls that aren't on the DZ website are still up for order on various dealer websites such as acbjd and bjdivas, so it doesn't look like they've officially been discontinued. In wonder what's up.

 

Dollzone if I remember correctly has gone through many waves of release and discontinue everything for a few years. I think if you remember Robin and Merlin you might have actually missed a couple waves of sculpts now

It's all about how companies can update their marketing styles to keep up with what the market is buying and dollzone seems to be doing very well with this strategy from what I can tell.

 

The website update was very recent, iirc just a few days before they announced Calamusi and Sunflower on Weibo. It was completely blank but for a handful of 1/4 dolls at the time. There were no corresponding announcements and their Taobao shop remained the same. I assume they're just adding things as they go along, so there's no reason to start panic buying anything just yet despite the history of huge discontinuations. Seems to just be the season for website overhauls and at least for DZ's part it makes sense since the old one didn't have a storefront of any kind.

 

Dollzone usually announces what they are discontinuing and does discontinuation events, so I don't think you need to panic buy.

 

Ah sorry I don't keep close tabs on dollzone so I assume it must also be what @mollusk is saying. However I wouldn't put off buying dolls you want from them forever either as they did like to discontinue a lot and it can be hard to always see announcements in time even when companies make them.

 

Spoke too soon I suppose! A discontinuation/warehouse closing event has been announced now. Ironically, it features several dolls that actually were added to the website, so that still wasn't indicative of anything in particular? Very confusing. Notably it includes most of their 1/3 boys, so I guess let the panic buying commence (please do not financially harm yourself).

People in the comments are very cross about Venus Halo and Mist Strayer though.

Discontinuations:
Rowell / Gray / Mandrake / White Crane? / Merlin / Ash / Snow / Cynthia / Jasmin / Nan

Mist Strayer / Venus Halo / Noel / Neil / Cinnamon / Liko Liko?

Youyi / Yuna / Miss Kitty / Yee / Ann / Hotarubi / Evan / Honey

The event itself begins on the 1st of November and includes an ~8% (this may be different internationally) discount for the discontinued children and a reopening of special options for the robots and Honey if the fliers are to be believed, though I don't know how quickly dealers will implement this if at all.

I wish they didn't do these things so swiftly

 

Where did they announce this? I couldn't find anything about it on their website. I just don't understand why they do this. It's pretty disappointing. I'm so glad that I was able to order a Merlin head before this, so I don't have to worry about trying to find a secondhand one later on. Might still have that worry about Gray though, since I was thinking that I might want to buy his head some time in the future.

 

Here's the event announcement, though you'll have to run it through a translator.

Lucky news though I guess! They came back and specified that it's not permanent in response to the rioting in the comments, but frankly that just leaves me with even more questions.

 

Maybe they just need a break from those sculpts to work on a new project? They only have so many employees and space to work! Also remember the state of the world...

 

Thanks for the link! I'm relieved that they say it's not permanent.

 

Oh, absolutely, I definitely understand that. I just wish they were more clear about it. I know it wasn't a translation issue because the native Chinese speakers were exactly as confused and surprised as I was. Hopefully it was a helpful trial for when they announce it again in other languages. Some people were rather aggressive and I'm not... The biggest fan in the world of that.

Given some of the wording, I wonder if it's simply that they miscommunicated a sculpt renewal/reworking. That's also a situation in which the doll "may not be the same" next year. That's simply wild speculation on my part though.

 

I like expressing my disappointment in discontinuation of sculpts in a not-so-heated way. These dolls are pieces of art. Art is always evolving and moving forward. The creators can't help that. People being aggressive about it aren't going to be able to stop the creative process. If anything, it can be very discouraging to the artists.

There are so many Dollzone sculpts I love and will miss but I also want to see what their team will come up with next!