Weekly summary 09/2020

Hi,

this is a summary of what was going in the doll world in the 9th week of 2020, as far as we at Dollstudio & DS Doll Europe were concerned.

1) Novel Coronavirus situation.

As in the weeks before, the economy remains overshadowed by SARS-CoV-2 (the virus) respectively COVID-19 (the disease). In an attempt to contain the Novel Coronavirus outbreak, the Chinese government implemented a strict set of traveling restrictions and quarantines across the whole country. The hot zones in Wuhan and Hubei province are still tightly sealed off, but other cities and provinces are starting to gradually lift their containment protocols. As of today, some factories have started to resume production, and others are preparing to open in within the next week.

The few factories which are already open do not run at full capacity yet as there is a shortage of workers, and ripple effects from severed supply chains for raw materials, skeleton parts, eyes, wigs, cardboard boxes etc. are to be expected.

There is a huge backlog going back to Dec 16th (cut-off date for new orders before Chinese New Year holidays). None of our orders collected since then has been completed or even shipped yet, so it is impossible to say for sure how functional factories and logistics are at the moment. Our online shops remain closed until we get tangible signs that things are getting back to normal. Such tangible signs would be, for example: factory photos for a completed doll, or a tracking code for a shipped doll.

On TDF we have a thread about the Novel Coronavirus situation: https://dollforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=1662048#p1662048.

2) New arrivals.

In the past week, no new products were introduced.

3) Latest blog posts.

In the past week, no blog posts were published.

4) Factory photos and shipped dolls.

This week, we had no completed doll.

However, we have two shipped dolls.

• Backlog completed from stock – Order date: Jan 22nd (CLM) / factory photos: yes / tracking code: yes (Fedex)
• Backlog completed from recalled – Order date: Dec 3rd (IL) / factory photos: no / tracking code: yes (Fedex)

Both Fedex shipments are now moving towards the U.S., one with destination in Arizona and one with destination in Texas. Details about things like traveling times and customs clearance details are updated in this thread on TDF: https://dollforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=1662048#p1662048.

Sandro