American Girl has raised prices!!!!!!!!

[alleyflo]

And I was just hoping they might actually put the dolls on a monthly special. I'm just really glad I orderd Marisol 2 weeks ago before I had to pay another $3 bucks. Grrrrrr this still makes me mad!!!! [img]graemlins/thumbs_down.gif[/img] [img]graemlins/thumbs_down.gif[/img] [img]graemlins/thumbs_down.gif[/img]

[OSusannah]

Thanks for your hard work, dolllover! I hadn't noticed that so many other things went up in price! Better get myself to selling on eBay instead of buying! [img]redface.gif[/img]

[Miabirdbrain23]

I guess I won't be getting Josefina in the very near future! All the oil companys have to do is hint that oil might be going up and the gas pumps reflect that within hours!!!! It seems as though there is a lot less on sale now that Matel took over, too. [img]graemlins/sleepy.gif[/img]

[alleyflo]

Thank you for making that list of price changes. AG raised prices to alot of things. I hope they get their wish to be a multi-billionaires.... [img]graemlins/whatever.gif[/img] .

[Peachysweetdream]

Much thanks for posting the grand list of new prices. Some of the raised costs seem a bit too inflated, even taking the current oil/gas crisis into consideration. I mean, if you think about it, items like the nightime accessories really cost very little actually produce, so AG already makes a big profit off those. An extra 2 or 3 bucks to each item really adds up!

Looks like AG will really be raking in money this holiday season. [img]graemlins/thinking.gif[/img]

[Miss M]

What's interesting is that a lot of the items that went up in price,the Nightime Necessities, the school lunches, the pets, are the frequent items on monthly special, and the party treats have been specials in the past. So are they trying to make it so the new monthly special prices are about the same as the old original selling price would have been? I don't understand why you would raise the prices on some of your lowest selling items, which I thought the monthly sale items were. Raising prices on current available items is tacky. They should just make new outfits and items reflect the higher prices instead of going back and revising prices on so many things.

[mom_to_an_americangirl]

I have to say that the dolls have only increased in price +/-20% over the past 20 years. I am not terribly upset when you figure gas. milk and other items have gone up well over 200% in the same amount of time. The inflation rate over the same amount of time is 74%, so the cost of the dolls is way under inflation,

I do not think the price change is exhorbitant. Manufacturing costs have decidedly increased and therefore we bear the price increase.

[annkirstin]

While I'm no fan of price increases, compared to inflation I think AG has done fairly well. Still, I have to say that Jip at least should not have gone up to $18. I didn't think he was worth $16.

I'm glad only one item on my wishlist (Kirsten's trunk) is on the increased prices list!

[amandajg]

Thanks for posting the list!

Now all we have to do is cross our fingers for another "code" [img]wink.gif[/img]

[only1genevieve]

I don't know how I feel about the price goug--I mean, raising. On the one hand, I can see there are economic issues at hand. Inflation, for instance. The milk example is a good one, but a little bit like comparing apples to oranges. Walk into any clothing store, and you'll see that the prices for most clothes, even high-quality clothes, haven't gone up that much. In fact, in many cases, clothing prices have gone down in the last twenty years (this according to my mom, so I'm not claiming to have super-human memory [img]biggrin.gif[/img] ).

In regards to the whole materials thing...yeah, some materials, like oil, have gone up. But has cotton gone up, too? Plus, labor costs are going down thanks to 3rd world nations. On top of that, Mattel is such a big company compared to Pleasant Company, prices should have gone DOWN. The reason being that they can buy in bulk, and probably have better contracts with manufacturers, etc.

So that's my two cents in that regard. Ie, I think Mattel is full of, ah, fooey. Economic reasons my hiney. They're still churning out Barbies for $10, and when I was a girl they cost a lot more than that.

In the long run, I think raising prices will hurt AG. They're already seen as "too expensive" for most parents. This will push a lot over the edge. And from my perspective, a lot of the clothes just crossed the line from "fun" to "luxury" for me.
For instance, while I would probably have ordered two outfits at $22 dollars (spending $44 total, plus S+H) because I thought those were fair prices, now I'll think long and hard before buying an outfit that's $30 because I see it as a little pricey. Then again, I'll still be buying things, so maybe they don't care?

So maybe I'm just a penny pincher at heart.

<font color="#051E50" size="1">[ July 07, 2005 02:21 AM: Message edited by: only1genevieve ]</font>