Nice Twice Doll Shop

beth l.

Joined 2 years ago

Nice Twice?!? It s more like four times mean and nasty.

Be forewarned. This is not the child-friendly, main street USA doll shop you might be thinking it is. After our 8 year old daughter had a very unpleasant experience this weekend that ended in tears, we quickly learned from others in Campbell that the owner is notorious for her many ways of sharing her dislike of small children even entering into her vintage doll store, including those children that actually collect dolls.

In our young daughter s case, she came to the store excited to look for some specific styles of a relatively common 1960 s vintage doll line (an admittedly odd request from a child, as most collectors of such dolls would be considerably older). The owner looked rather surprised by the request, said that she knows her dolls, and proceeded to show us four examples that she had on hand...all while describing her rationale for not having price tags on anything...when my daughter identified the nicest example as being the one she was most interested in, the owner quoted a price that we all knew to be about significantly higher than the going rate for this particular doll...but she did indicate that this doll had been on the shelf quite a while, and that she would be willing to negotiate on the price...she also showed us the small ziplock bag of outfits she had for this doll, again quoting us a general price range on the outfits (the quoted price range on the outfits was far more reasonable than the doll quote), all while suggesting that we could get a better price once we had identified the particular clothes we wanted.

However, when my daughter then picked out two outfits (one basic, one nicer one), and asked for a combined price, the owner apparently decided that the hook had been set and she actually started RAISING the prices of the doll and clothes!?!? My daughter, who was struggling at this point to understand what was going on, offered the owner her original asking price for the doll if she would include the two outfits (though it isn t particularly relevant to the real reason for this poor review, this was actually a VERY reasonable offer for the set)...Much to my dismay, and contrary to her earlier indications of being willing to entertain reasonable offers, Beverly then got extraordinarily nasty with my daughter, saying (rough quote here) That will NEVER happen...in fact, I think that doll should be even more expensive than what I m asking for it from you, and if you re not interested in buying it at that price, I ll be asking (35%) more for it after you leave my store.

My daughter left the store in tears, struggling to understand what had just transpired, since she really wanted the doll and knew that she had offered a very fair sum for it...Truthfully, I was also struggling to understand, until others shared with me their similar experiences...suffice it to say that apparently the owner doesn t use price tags because she sizes up her client in every case, not hesitating to raise prices after a customer (children and adults alike) shows any interest in an item...Had the owner simply wanted to stay firm on her price, there were easy ways to say so, and we would ve understood, and we would ve simply looked elsewhere for a another example of this doll and come back later for other ones...but misleading us on her intentions, and then playing a abusive/nasty game of verbal hardball with an 8 year old by actually raising her prices once she thought the hook had been set!?! What a shame for her...she lost an incredibly good customer for life, and my wife went back later to let her know it.

So, if you re an adult collector interested in sharing the company of other adult collectors while surrounded by hordes of (still pretty mediocre quality) collectible dolls, this might be the store for you...all others, especially moms who don t think doll shop owners should be mean and nasty to little girls, should simply steer clear.