The Scalper Annoyance Thread

[legenddkillaa]

Sour grapes?

[Wheeljack Off]

Frankly, I don't mind scalpers.

For some, who don;t mind paying a premium, you could argue they are providing a service for a cost.

What really irritates me is boardies who use the sightings forums to get the headsup and then clean a shelf off without ever saying a word.

Usually these people have no day jobs, are trust funders or are just plain losers.

These aren't desperate people who are trying to make a buck or run a business, they are just greedy people with more time on their hands then the rest of us.

I seriously think we do ourselves more harm than good by posting new sightings here.

You rarely, if never see a boardie post "bought all of the MP Prowls at GV TRU".

The amount of times I have gone somewhere within an hour of a post and found it completely cleaned out is evidence enough for me.

[FEZaid]

The problem isn't scalpers, its the lack of distribution in a small market. A great example is the Masterpiece line, only one company (Toys R Us) sells them and spreads it out to their stores in limited numbers, which doesn't help if a lot of collectors are trying to get the figure the second its sighted. Its the same cause with the Generations lines.
Sure, it kinda sucks that some person(scalper or not) got to the thing you wanted, but the toy isn't gone forever and its not like you will never get 20 more opportunities to get it again. If you really, really want a figure, preorder it, its a simple solution, you save your time and gas from going from store to store.

[Wheeljack Off]

Originally Posted by FEZaid

The problem isn't scalpers, its the lack of distribution in a small market. A great example is the Masterpiece line, only one company (Toys R Us) sells them and spreads it out to their stores in limited numbers, which doesn't help if a lot of collectors are trying to get the figure the second its sighted.
Sure, it kinda sucks that some person(scalper or not) got to the thing you wanted, but the toy isn't gone forever and its not like you will never get 20 more opportunities to get it again. If you really, really want a figure, preorder it, its a simple solution, you save your time and gas from going from store to store.

So sorry.

If something is being distributed in limited numbers to a limited number of retailers, how is that not actually exacerbated by scalpers?

What you are describing is actually the perfect environment for a scalper to flourish.

I would say it's fair to lay some of the blame on the distribution but the distribution would not seem like so much of an issue if you didn't have greedy people taking advantage of it (and us).

[wervenom]

classic example

http://www.kijiji.ca/v-toys-games/mi...ationFlag=true

[Sun Swipe Prime]

The lurker to poster ratio is pretty high here. Just because a hot item disappears within a hour or two doesn't mean scalper. Yes there are scalpers, but...

Out here, there's a mall with a TRU right next to the food court. While eating lunch, I've had the opportunity to observe after posting/seeing a sighting for new/hot item at that location, see a constant flow of collectors going in and buying stuff up.

None of them is cleaning off the shelves, most buy one or two, but when you have 10+ people going through, the shelves empty pretty quick.

I mean how many locations stock more than 10 of an item?

Also a few years back they had HA Mudflap for $15 at a local Walmart. I went there to get one and while I was there I saw a guy rumbling towards the TF section with a shopping cart. I thought for sure he was a scalper, but as it turned out he was a boardie loading up for fellow boardies.

[skrilla 88]

Fuck scalpers. The real assholes are TRU/Wally/Hasbro. Nightmare distribution practices, broken release dates (if there is even a date in place), short packing figures,etc. If every figure were equally packed, if the shelves weren't barren, or dilapidated, if the shelves overfloweth with sought after figures, easily obtained like low hanging fruit, scalpers wouldn't be an issue.

[Cerebros]

Originally Posted by positivelyken

It's probably politically correct on these forums to downplay the scalper phenomenon as a "bogeyman", some fictional thing, to blame when something you're looking for isn't in stock. Except, of course, for all those eyewitness accounts -- and sometimes people's own admissions on these boards -- of someone buying every last unit of a particularly high demand item from a store, not to collect, but to control the supply and make a buck at the expense of other collectors.

Was it a coincidence that every last unit of MP Grimlock on a TRU shelf at launch was sold about 3 minutes after the store opened? Did those stacks of Jetfires at Walmart vanish in a day because a horde of children discovered an unadvertised sale all at the same time and each took one home in an orderly and courteous fashion? Did a Target location's whole inventory of Windblades (only Windblade) sell out in one fell swoop because she suddenly became the hot new must-have toy for boys ages 5 and up? Let's not be coy here. Adult collectors are buying the shit out of these figures, and some of those adults are plain greedy.

The reason Masterpiece figures sell out so quickly is that there's a significant demand for them. Toys 'R' Us typically limits the amount of these figures sold to a single individual as only 1-2.

However, what most people don't know, is that some store employees are actually paid under the table by customer(s) to inform them of when these figures land within the store. This is more common with McFarlane figures and Hot Wheels, but it's now becoming a huge trend with Transformers, especially here in Winnipeg.

Then of course there's a significant amount of collectors like myself, whom barely bother with the sightings thread here on cybertron.ca and only communicate with other members/collectors via text message.

A good example of this would be my recent purchase of 4x Jetfire and 5x Wingblade. All of these items were spoken for before there eventual purchase for fellow collectors within the community.

So in reality, scalpers are "bogeyman", sure you'll get the occasional person trying to take advantage of a quick resell on Kijiji, but it's not too often you'll see hordes and hordes of individuals doing this.

Originally Posted by Sun Swipe Prime

The lurker to poster ratio is pretty high here. Just because a hot item disappears within a hour or two doesn't mean scalper.

Exactly! I rarely ever post, so I can attest to the lurkers.

[zfarsh]

After reading these stories, I am so glad I got my hands on Windblade!!!

But now afraid for Arcee and Chromia especially, but would have also liked Roadbuster and Brainwave eventually.

Maybe I should just get 1 copy of Arcee and Chromia online just to be sure I get them...

Guys, pls don't buy TFs from Kijiji or craiglist!!! Maybe we can discourage them a bit.

[wervenom]

Originally Posted by zfarsh

Guys, pls don't buy TFs from Kijiji or craiglist!!! Maybe we can discourage them a bit.

You won't, discourage them I mean. Besides they are on occasion many good opportunities to buy figures from people who are on the up and up. Myself and 2 other board members had really good scores yesterday. It's just a matter of knowing what to buy from those sites