The Sleep of Reason creates...

I’m going to go on a long rant to show just how rigged this process became on my end, you’re free to ignore it and just move on, but I need to get it off my chest. 

Let’s say I want to release a head for 80USD, with a run of 20, and the cost of casting is about 30 per head. That means I need 600 bucks for the starters, correct?  With shipping between me and the company, push that to 700.  Sounds very doable, I’d need at least 9 orders to go ahead.

Now the hairy part. ANY, and I mean ANY paypal amount would not only have the fee of about 8%+ a fixed amount for BRL conversion, but would also fluctuate wildly according to the day’s rate. 

So let’s approximate and say I get 3.500BRL after the conversion and fees. It sounds like enough, but it’s really not. (3500 BRL is about 630 USD. I’d need to pass the price of heads to at least 100 to cover my own ass. But let’s continue with this fictious example for the sake of the illustration.) Let’s say production goes without a hitch and I get the casting order paid just right. 

Uh-oh, there’s Brazil customs! They’re allowed to charge at LEAST 60% on top of any goods entering the country. Bonkers right. I’ve had someone say, that like french artists, I should just repass this to the final consumer. And to that, I ask, who in their right mind would go ahead with that, profit barely and inflate the final price a possible 60%? It doesn’t seem feasable in today’s world where other artist run shops and companies can delivery quality and original BJD with competitive prices. 60% would bump the original asking price of the head to 108 each, a whooping 48USD nobody but the Brazilian fat and corrupt government would be profiting from. 

To escape that, I could surrogate shipping and handling, as I’ve done with the Zeev orders. It still leaves open the transit, handling and work open for a third party to handle. If that person made 10% of the value, 8USD would be more passable than the fat 60% of BR customs. 

Then, of course, another problem comes from the solution - the shipping money, conversion and fees. I won’t keep pulling values out of my ass. I’m bad at math. But buyers would have to either send me the value and have me transfer it with an added cover for the fee, and the fee from me to my shipping handler; or pay directly to somebody else, separating the price of the head from the shipping, which complicates invoices and buyer protection.

Speak of buyer protection, I’d probably be screwed with the fee and conversion for the refund, because it has happened before and they tried to make ME cover the fees for the difference. 

Alas, you get the picture.It’s a never ending cycle of fixes and problems which started with Banks pressuring paypal against Brazilian users safeguarding USD in their accounts back in, possibly iirc, 2017. 

I would love to go back and actually release Faraji (the elephant with the joint trunk) and the others, but as it stands, unless I transport out of this shitty version of Narnia, it’s highly unlikely. 

There is a Paypal branch or something that allows bank to bank transfer with decent fees. The service seems to be hit or miss if the reviews are to be believed. The hassle is: it needs SO much information. People could doxx me and my third generation children with that stuff. Or who knows, use my name for an account in the Bahamas.