The Doll Forum

Folks,
I never look at dolls at work, nor am permitted to. However, I can look at BBC news and look at what I spotted:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-39859939

It was nice to look at dolls at the workplace - a light relief.
teddykan1 (UK)

The link doesn't work for me teddycan1, even when I copy the entire link and paste it. And when you click on the highlighted part of the hyperlink it only takes you to the main page.

Working link: http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-39859939

Thanks Tomoe.

It is cool that she did include parts of my interview with her in the story!

Realdoll does and always has done great work, but I feel like the cost is outrunning the market in such a way that it may not be sustainable for much longer. The climate of this market has changed dramatically in the past few years, and the direction has been higher quality for cheaper prices. RealDoll has fallen behind on that entirely.

The fact that one can get a very well-made soft doll from numerous places now has satisfied a great portion of the market that once saw RealDoll as the only viable option. Adding Robotics is a wonderful needed direction for RealDoll, but add another $10,000.

The one thing the Latex RealDoll was positioned to do was satisfy the market that wanted a good quality doll, but wasn't willing to spend $5,000+ for it, but RealDoll doesn't have that bridge anymore. RealDoll's robotic direction is going to be a tough sell unless they find a way to bridge the gap. A chinese company is already doing that with robotics, and therein lies the problem for RealDoll: they're not able to compete in price with the smaller manufacturers and people are going to choose those smaller outfits over them just because the price of entry is more accessible.

In order to buy a $10K+ doll, most persons are probably looking at a bank loan and monthly payments. How many are willing to do this for such a doll? I don't know; we'll have to wait and see.