Auction Sales Selling dolls at a few dollars over cost will not meet the overhead, even for a web based shop. Those who elect to sell on eBay must pay a minimum five percent of final selling price, plus an insertion fee. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to quickly calculate that a hundred dollar doll earning a forty percent profit, sold on eBay at a twenty percent discount is only going to earn them a fifteen dollar profit. Uncle Sam is going to want three dollars of that ten bucks, at a minimum. Online Catalogs Somebody has to build the website.
Somebody has to scan the images and update the shopping cart.
Web hosting for commercial sites is not free to most people. It takes the fastest web jockey twenty minutes to scan, resize, and upload a single image and thumbnail using the best tools available. Adding the hundreds of images and shopping cart code necessary for an entire doll line can quickly run up a web bill of several thousand dollars. Even if the shop owner can do the work alone, their time is worth something. Selling a few dolls a week at a few dollars over cost doesn't make sense for most people.