Those golden shoes look fantasic! Like real gold! I'll attribute that to your marvelous lighting... which actually is quite marvelous in this photo. You must be feeling better... physically, at least!
Well, I do, unfortunately and inaccurately, tend to think of "Europe" as being one place, the same way that non-Americans think of The United States as being one place. You have many countries in Europe, and from what I've read here and elsewhere, it sounds like in many cases Eastern Europe continues to be treated like the "poor step-child" of Western Europe or the EU. Most of the Bratzillaz Vampelina figures I've seen come up for sale are from Spain. Perhaps they did not make it to many other places.
I can legitimately relate to your frustration. As I've mentioned before, I never saw a lot of the Ever After High releases anywhere. And the later Monster High releases, especially the more interesting ones (like Sweet Screams), never showed up where I was living. I found it ironic, as well as annoying, that I had to purchase the tropical-themed Ghouls Getaway through eBay while I was living in topical Hawaii.
So yeah, distribution of all doll and toy lines is inconsistent across the continent-spanning United States, and from state to state, city to city, and even among stores in the same chain. It is a problem that plagues us all, I guess, unless we live in a handful of major cities.
The one unfair (so it seems to me) advantage we have here in the States is... so far, at least, although I suspect that to change once the Evil New Dictatorship cheats its way in to power... that we do not pay additional import fees on international purchases. But then, that's a political thing, isn't it? The people can shrug and say, "that's how it is," but if everyone sharpened up the pitchforks and fired up the torches and marched on the governing bodies to protest Customs and Import fees... well, they'd probably call out the police with water cannons and make short work of that nonsense. Which is sad and terrifying. Governments, everywhere, have made "protecting and funding government" their number one priority. And that ends up making toys cost more.
They tell me at the post office that postage rates here in the States are ex-pected to have a big hike in January.
I hope I did not unduly "trigger" you. I hope it does not further trigger you if I say how much I enjoy it when you get fired up and just let it out. It is always informative and interesting, and generally amusing. You have a clever knack for making "ranting" funny while being informative.
{EDIT to add more... because I never seem to know when to stop digging a deeper hole....}
After thinking about this for another twenty minutes, I realized that first, it's silly to talk about what we could have got five or ten years ago, because chances are we couldn't have found it back then, anyway, and if we could have, well, obviously we weren't thinking in terms of five or ten years down the line (or I would have bought all the Catwalk Kitties or Monster High C. A. Cupid dolls I saw on store shelves one single time in one single store and stashed them away).
More frustrating to me, in the current market, is the trend toward "limited editions" of pretty much everything! Like, with the blind box toys, there are always "rare" ones that never show up and countless "common" ones. It doesn't cost the companies any more or less to make one or another, yet they coax us to spend money by making some pieces impossible to find. We've already discussed the latest Monster-High-But-Not-Quite-Monster-High limited editions. Mattel does that with a lot of figures, Barbies and whatever, available as "Mattel Store Exclusives" only already sold out by the time we hear of them. Even the silly, failed Wild Hearts Crew line, available only as a "Walmart Exclusive," had easy to find dolls (Jaycee) and short-stocked dolls (Rallee). What is the point of making limited edition playline dolls?
Pre-sales are another frustrating trend. As we know, that is the direction Smart Doll has taken. That is also the trend with many of the new "character" figures being released. They sell out from the online vendors prior to even being released. Then they hit the secondary market at twice or more the original list price.
Short shelf-life is another current issue. Off the Hook dolls were a six inch line of figures with interchangeable parts that hit the market a couple of years ago and were disappearing within a year. La Dee Da dolls? The aforementioned Wild Hearts Crew? I thought the MC2 dolls were somewhat popular, but they seem to have disappeared without a trace. I don't know what's going on with Equestria Girls these days; the figures seem to get completely redesigned every few months, but I guess they're still around, as I saw some the other day that looked nothing like the versions I purchased several years ago.
There doesn't seem to be time to even learn about a doll or toy line anymore, let alone to see it in person or to start a collection, before it is gone. Toys and dolls are becoming a Buy It When You See It commodity, only, a lot of times, you have to buy it before you see it, because it's gonna sell out and never be restocked.
Also, as per Smart Dolls and other lines, many of us here on the forum seem to be gradually shifting our focus away from "store bought" dolls and figures toward things that are really only available from online vendors: the BJDs, the collector editions, the seamless figures, that kind of thing. No matter where we live, we are all faced with similar issues there: initial prices, shipping costs, wait lists, items selling out while still in pre-order status, and low stock meaning quick sell-outs. Some of us have the additional thrill of those absurd (and almost impossible to calculate) import duties. There is no longer time to "save up" to get a particular doll or figure. If we don't have the cash (or credit) on hand when it is announced, we're probably out of luck. We now have to start saving for things we don't even know exist. Lately with Pullip there have been product cancellations prior to production. It seems like even Pullip is basing production on pre-orders. If there aren't enough pre-orders (or there is too much pre-release online criticism) the release is cancelled before anyone has seen a production example.
But we're still here, we're still talking about dolls and playing with dolls and taking pictures of dolls and grumbling and complaining about dolls... so I guess we're still having fun, huh? What's wrong with us?
Well, I do, unfortunately and inaccurately, tend to think of "Europe" as being one place, the same way that non-Americans think of The United States as being one place. You have many countries in Europe, and from what I've read here and elsewhere, it sounds like in many cases Eastern Europe continues to be treated like the "poor step-child" of Western Europe or the EU. Most of the Bratzillaz Vampelina figures I've seen come up for sale are from Spain. Perhaps they did not make it to many other places.
I can legitimately relate to your frustration. As I've mentioned before, I never saw a lot of the Ever After High releases anywhere. And the later Monster High releases, especially the more interesting ones (like Sweet Screams), never showed up where I was living. I found it ironic, as well as annoying, that I had to purchase the tropical-themed Ghouls Getaway through eBay while I was living in topical Hawaii.
So yeah, distribution of all doll and toy lines is inconsistent across the continent-spanning United States, and from state to state, city to city, and even among stores in the same chain. It is a problem that plagues us all, I guess, unless we live in a handful of major cities.
The one unfair (so it seems to me) advantage we have here in the States is... so far, at least, although I suspect that to change once the Evil New Dictatorship cheats its way in to power... that we do not pay additional import fees on international purchases. But then, that's a political thing, isn't it? The people can shrug and say, "that's how it is," but if everyone sharpened up the pitchforks and fired up the torches and marched on the governing bodies to protest Customs and Import fees... well, they'd probably call out the police with water cannons and make short work of that nonsense. Which is sad and terrifying. Governments, everywhere, have made "protecting and funding government" their number one priority. And that ends up making toys cost more.
They tell me at the post office that postage rates here in the States are ex-pected to have a big hike in January.
I hope I did not unduly "trigger" you. I hope it does not further trigger you if I say how much I enjoy it when you get fired up and just let it out. It is always informative and interesting, and generally amusing. You have a clever knack for making "ranting" funny while being informative.
{EDIT to add more... because I never seem to know when to stop digging a deeper hole....}
After thinking about this for another twenty minutes, I realized that first, it's silly to talk about what we could have got five or ten years ago, because chances are we couldn't have found it back then, anyway, and if we could have, well, obviously we weren't thinking in terms of five or ten years down the line (or I would have bought all the Catwalk Kitties or Monster High C. A. Cupid dolls I saw on store shelves one single time in one single store and stashed them away).
More frustrating to me, in the current market, is the trend toward "limited editions" of pretty much everything! Like, with the blind box toys, there are always "rare" ones that never show up and countless "common" ones. It doesn't cost the companies any more or less to make one or another, yet they coax us to spend money by making some pieces impossible to find. We've already discussed the latest Monster-High-But-Not-Quite-Monster-High limited editions. Mattel does that with a lot of figures, Barbies and whatever, available as "Mattel Store Exclusives" only already sold out by the time we hear of them. Even the silly, failed Wild Hearts Crew line, available only as a "Walmart Exclusive," had easy to find dolls (Jaycee) and short-stocked dolls (Rallee). What is the point of making limited edition playline dolls?
Pre-sales are another frustrating trend. As we know, that is the direction Smart Doll has taken. That is also the trend with many of the new "character" figures being released. They sell out from the online vendors prior to even being released. Then they hit the secondary market at twice or more the original list price.
Short shelf-life is another current issue. Off the Hook dolls were a six inch line of figures with interchangeable parts that hit the market a couple of years ago and were disappearing within a year. La Dee Da dolls? The aforementioned Wild Hearts Crew? I thought the MC2 dolls were somewhat popular, but they seem to have disappeared without a trace. I don't know what's going on with Equestria Girls these days; the figures seem to get completely redesigned every few months, but I guess they're still around, as I saw some the other day that looked nothing like the versions I purchased several years ago.
There doesn't seem to be time to even learn about a doll or toy line anymore, let alone to see it in person or to start a collection, before it is gone. Toys and dolls are becoming a Buy It When You See It commodity, only, a lot of times, you have to buy it before you see it, because it's gonna sell out and never be restocked.
Also, as per Smart Dolls and other lines, many of us here on the forum seem to be gradually shifting our focus away from "store bought" dolls and figures toward things that are really only available from online vendors: the BJDs, the collector editions, the seamless figures, that kind of thing. No matter where we live, we are all faced with similar issues there: initial prices, shipping costs, wait lists, items selling out while still in pre-order status, and low stock meaning quick sell-outs. Some of us have the additional thrill of those absurd (and almost impossible to calculate) import duties. There is no longer time to "save up" to get a particular doll or figure. If we don't have the cash (or credit) on hand when it is announced, we're probably out of luck. We now have to start saving for things we don't even know exist. Lately with Pullip there have been product cancellations prior to production. It seems like even Pullip is basing production on pre-orders. If there aren't enough pre-orders (or there is too much pre-release online criticism) the release is cancelled before anyone has seen a production example.
But we're still here, we're still talking about dolls and playing with dolls and taking pictures of dolls and grumbling and complaining about dolls... so I guess we're still having fun, huh? What's wrong with us?
They're not dolls, they're action figures!