Taking hot toys from sideshow as example, sideshow getting huge discount from hot toys, that's why they can provide excellent after sales service, I am sure they are ready to break down figure for sending replacements
For people who buy hot toys from hong kong (secret base 1st batch/2nd batch), you are at your own risk, hot toys only provide 14 days warranty for secret base order
We get hot toys from China, our wholesale cost is even higher than secret base retail price, but at least we can provide some sort of after sales service, it's slow, sometimes we need to return for exchange but at least we can request for after sales service after months
Now come back to 3rd party figures, in general these companies request us to return damage/defect parts for exchange, somehow it could reduce problems for them, they knew it's not easy to return from overseas. We have to treat them lightly, providing picture/ evidence to proof there's quality issue with their product. For some brands it's taking months to chase after replacements.
That being said, we understand the responsibility to keep every transaction smooth, it's not customer's fault by receiving defect figures. We are thankful for people who understand our difficulty, especially when there's minor issue with figure, for example: parts fall off because lack of glues, 3rd party manufacturer will say "come on, let the guy glue it back, it's easy"
We always try our best but we can't guarantee to resolve all cases. SSR made mistake on the packaging that cause the damage to the head sculpt during transportation, he's a good guy and he understand it's their responsibility to respond on this matter, so they offer us replacement sculpts, although it takes sometime to produce a new batch