The Doll Forum

sorry was asking in the wrong section

Many supposed european based vendors do. Dollstudio ships from within EU. Talk to Sandro and he will confirm!

djenrique wrote:Many supposed european based vendors do. Dollstudio ships from within EU. Talk to Sandro and he will confirm!

thank you sorry can not see a Sandro in the Forum

Is there any reason this topic is posted in Scam alerts, if not I will move it accordingly....

Anung

Anung Un Rama wrote:Is there any reason this topic is posted in Scam alerts, if not I will move it accordingly...

I guess this post should be moved as the OP seems to have edited his post already.

Regarding the initial question - there are a couple of different variants how dolls can come to the customer. Some vendor's names might be misleading, resulting in possibly not applicable expectations.

• A very common method is called drop shipping. That means that a customer orders from a manufacturer or vendor (= the seller), and the seller forwards the order to the factory. The product is shipped directly from the manufacturer to the customer. Usually, the customer has to pay import fees - namely customs and taxes (VAT) - before receiving the doll. Also, the customer is the importer, maning that in case of a seizure he will be held liable, not the seller. Additionally, some (hady) vendors burden the shipping risk to the customer. Drop shipping is the typical method if a EU or U.S. customer buys from a Chinese seller, but many U.S. and even EU companies drop ship.

• Another method is called controlled shipping. That means that the seller imports the product and then forwards the shipment domestically. Sometimes the seller also checks the shipment before forwarding it to the customer. That's what we - Dollstudio and DS Doll Europe - do by default for all EU customers. With controlled shipping, the customer does not have to pay additional import fees; the price he pays is the final price. However, controlled shipping is always more expensive than drop shipping as there is an additional step for shipping.

Besides these two basic variants, there are several mixtures possible, but they are rather uncommon. For example, if the factory supports it, a vendor can drop ship and clear import fees. Though, as of now, there is no Chinese vendor supporting this method as there is no Chinese manufacturer or seller with a business licence, so they all need to ship indirectly through freight forwarders which do not support clearing customs and taxes.

Also, some vendors combine drop-shipping with certain added-value services. An example would be the PQC quality check or the extended accessory kits which are only available from X/S Dolls, BCD, and Dollstudio.

In a nutshell: It makes always sense to ask the seller to state precisely which method he supports. Import fees can add 30-35% on top of the product price, so this can result in unpleasant surprises. To make sure if you get accurate information, check if the seller even can ship domestically. For example, a business that sits in South East Asia can neither ship domestically within the EU nor provide service on location as they neither have an office nor personnel on location - unless they run a subsidiary or a branch. Though there are not many seller big enough for that.

A second thing to check is the actual location where a seller's business is registered. In the past months, a huge number of shady sellers showed up with misleading domain names and websites with missing contact information. Never buy from a seller who doesn't disclose his business location!

Sandro