I will be blogging about the Modern Doll Convention shortly. I have not felt well since returning home, which is why I haven't written anything yet. Pictures will also be made available.
Just tonight, I realized the Ryung-Soah Yahoo group had had quite a lot to say about my blog entry asking for a boycott of Elfdoll products. It's too bad more group members didn't respond to my post directly, or to my response to the group member who did.
To restate my position: while Elfdoll certainly had the right to drop its retailers, and Ms. Cholong, the way DK went about it was unprofessional, unnecessary, ungracious and certainly ungrateful.
Someone mentioned that Elfdoll had a love/hate relationship with its retailers. That is certainly true. Had Ms. Cholong, or someone equally enthusiastic and charming, not been the liason for Elfdoll, I probably would have given up on them long before I went out of business.
Somebody else mentioned that if Ms. Cholong were the cause of Elfdoll's constant problems and delays, then getting rid of her would cure a lot of the company's ills.
My prediction? Elfdoll will have the same problems as before, if not moreso, without Ms. Cholong to smooth things over. At least DK won't be able to blame Ms. Cholong, or anyone else, for her problems. Sour grapes on my part? No, I don't think so. I think I'm being realistic, knowing what I do of the company, its history, and its staff.
I find it interesting that before DK got involved with the Yahoo group again, which was approximately shortly after the time Elfdoll posted about dropping its retailers and Ms. Cholong, there was a fair amount of criticism of Elfdoll's lack of creativity, poor business practices, etc. After DK got involved again, voila'. Suddenly Elfdoll could do no wrong. Makes you wonder, doesn't it?
I love Rainman's dolls and probably always will. I consider Rainman a great artist and I hope he will always create dolls for appreciative collectors. Hopefully someday he will have a better, more efficient and more friendly way of getting them to his customers. Just my opinion.
I personally still think DK should have answered to your post here, that's the reason I pointed it to her in the group.
I've always thought R-S Yahoo group is quite honest and never avoided critiques when they should be said, but by the other way, we all are quite devoted to Elfdoll so I supose you can't blame us (or at least too much ;-))
There's another thing to take into consideration, customers experience with Elfdoll seems to be quite different than dealers'. At least from my own experience, Elfdoll takes a lot of care of individual customers and solves problems quite quickly. So it is difficult to take a side. Ms. Cholong has always been extra-nice to me, I was sorry to read bad things about her, and I wish her all the best... but I have the same feelings about DK, Oka and Rainman. All of them have commited mistakes, but all of them (again from my own experience) have made their best to solve them.
I'm glad you answered to my previous comment (I really didn't know what else to say), and I hope you get better soon to add new entries.
Yes, it's unfortunate (but not surprising) that DK chose not to respond to my posts. Perhaps I am beneath her notice. It's also unfortunate she has the Elfdoll website locked down so tightly. One can't help but wonder if this was done partly to discourage dissension.
I agree I've found Elfdoll's conduct unprofessional in the past but there are always two sides to the story. Apparently Mrs Cholong knew that the contract wasn't going to be renewed months before the retailers did. As she was the person dealing directly with them, then it was her responsibility to inform them of that fact. While Elfdoll could have indicated something as the dealers were essentially Mrs Cholong's customers, it was really her responsibility to do so. It doesn't appear that Elfdoll viewed the dealers as 'theirs' but as part of the business belonging to Mrs Cholong. Elfdoll also stated that some delays in shipping were because Mrs Cholong hadn't made the final payments for the dolls due to be shipped. Not very professional if that is the case, nor something she was open about in defense of the company. They also made it clear that providing Mrs Cholong the American distributorship had caused problems financially for the company. Problems that they are now supposedly working to overcome. The reality is the from now on, Elfdoll will have only itself to blame if customers aren't happy, but if the new layaway scheme is anything to go by, they're bending over backwards for their customers. 1/3 deposit then an entire year to pay off the doll? How many other companies offer that? Yes, Elfdoll are back popular again on Ryung-Soah, strange given that we are a group set up to appreciate their dolls. A lot of us have never met Mrs Cholong to give us a reason for a personal bias against the company. As for in your previous post, the comment that without the US companies to display the dolls in person that Elfdoll will slowly die: I'm Australian and I've only once seen a doll in person before purchasing, courtesy of a doll meet with other collectors. Sure, seeing the dolls in person made me buy a littlefee where I had no plans to, but the reality is that the majority of the doll people are not located near doll stores. I know I bought several things from your store and I had certainly never visited it. I'm surprised by the note of bitterness in some of your posts not just the ones regarding Elfdoll. It doesn't appear that retirement is making you very happy.
Hi Sue,
Thanks for your response.
How well Elfdoll will fare without its retailers remains to be seen. I for one don't see how they can survive with only the customers they presently have signed up, whether or not layaway is available. With DK, policies can and have changed arbitrarily at a moment's notice.
As for not letting the retailers know they were getting cut off sooner, as I said before, DK had threatened several times before to stop supplying them. How was Ms. Cholong to know DK would actually keep her word this time?? DK changed her mind about many things, many times.
If Ms. Cholong was late in making payment to Elfdoll, it was most likely because the retailers were late in making payment to her. She tried as best she could to give them a little extra time if they were having trouble making a payment deadline. Unlike a BJD company making layaway available to its direct customers, retailers get no such privilege. They have to pay the total amount, IN FULL, including shipping, before the dolls are produced. In other words, if a retailer orders $15,000 worth of dolls, that total amount plus more must be paid all at once. That can be a lot of money to come up with all at once.
DK also claimed that dolls were delivered late because of Ms. Cholong's late payments. I never, ever heard of late payment being a cause. I heard about problems with the shippers, problems with the faceup artists, problems with getting the boxes made, problems with moving DK's offices and warehouses (which she inefficiently did several times in four years), problems with the factories, problems with the wigs or eyes, problems with the seamstresses and even problems with the box labels. When I was an Elfdoll retailer, 99% of the problems originated in Korea, not the U.S. and that includes the time before Ms. Cholong became the distributor.
From my experience, DK was never truly happy supplying retailers here. Money was a constant concern and complaint even before Artmaze was opened under DK's orders. If DK as the director of the company felt it was no longer financially smart to supply the retailers, she should have said so without dragging Ms. Cholong and the retailers through everything she did. Other bad research and development decisions on her part just made the financial problems worse.
You say I sound bitter about the doll business. I would say that is your interpretation. I think I have been fairly realistic about what running a doll business was, and to some degree still is, like. Heaven knows I didn't have the shop to make money, I had it because I was passionate about dolls. Having to deal with difficult doll companies just made the business that much harder than it really needed to be.
As for retirement? I like it just fine. I've got the time to play with dolls again, and be excited about what is new. It's a lot easier and more fun to be a doll collector than it is to run a small business in today's ultra-competitive economy.
Kathy
Kathy Quote
"Yes, it's unfortunate (but not surprising) that DK chose not to respond to my posts. Perhaps I am beneath her notice;"
I wonder if it could be because you are demanding a boycott of her products on your site? I am not sure that makes you beneath her notice. You may be
simply a very angry person she chooses not to argue with publicly any more.
As for the rest of your post having to do with "discourage dissension" etc. I am again and again confused by these implications. You write with this ultra calm logical voice but constantly pepper in negative bitter comments? Can you prove what you just said or are you just suggesting something to influence collectors to hate the company as much as you do? Really, just stop slamming on Elfdoll. It is not healthy to hope for a business to fail just because you have some personal vendetta with them.
Malkavian, thanks for your response.
To quote you, "You may be simply a very angry person she chooses not to argue with publicly any more." I'm not sure how you can say this, as I don't believe we have argued in public. She could have posted a thoughtful, balanced response to my initial entry, but chose not to.
My goal wasn't to get people to hate Elfdoll - my goal was to present a different side of the story from DK's very one-sided, unprofessional version. As a former retailer I have been privy to far more information than the average doll collector. That includes dealing with DK "long distance" as Elfdoll's director for several years and dealing with her in the flesh early this year at IDEX. I am not just randomly inventing criticisms of DK's personality and business practices. I am speaking from personal experience. Knowing DK as I do, I thought suggesting a boycott of Elfdoll's products might actually get her attention and make her realize she had handled the whole situation very poorly and in a way that reflected as badly on herself as it did Ms. Cholong. Sometimes money talks when reason doesn't.