Paranoia, or realistic suspicions? (scalper related)

[Sokar]

Here in Calgary, the first series of lego mini figures started appearing on store shelves a little while ago (maybe 1-2 months ago?), and as can be seen in the hauls thread, some people here were buying them. I even managed to snag 4 of them myself when I saw them at my local walmart. But then things started to seem a bit fishy.

The first time that I saw these figures, there were 4 cases of them sitting on the shelf of my local walmart (2 sealed, 2 open and packed with figures). With no decoder to determine which to get, I went home and printed one out for the next day. Later the next day I went back and all 4 cases were gone. Knowing the walmart I was going to, that wasn't necessarily unheard of since they tended to have things move around the store at random it seems, so I put it off as someone puling the boxes and putting them in the back because of some street date issue or something else like that.

Around a week later, after no luck with the other walmart stores or toys r us, I walked into the same store, and low and behold, there's another set of cases there. Again, they are packed with figures and all 4 were opened this time, so I picked out 4 figures according to the decoder, and took them home to make sure that the decoder was accurate. Since it worked out that it was accurate, I decided to go back again the next day to get the last 2 or 3 figures I wanted. The next day, however, they were again gone from the shelves.

Now, I realize that there is demand for these figures, but boxes hold either 60 or 120 figures at a time, and they were literally disappearing overnight. That's when I was starting to get suspicious that someone was buying up all the stock here.

About a week ago, I was at my local TRU, and I could see 2 cases stuck up in the overhead compartment above the lego, but figured that they would eventually be brought down and put out for sale. I would have liked to grab them and pull them down, but they were a bit higher than I could reach without a ladder, and there weren't really any staff available at the time. Twice I went back, and both times they were up there still, but I figured they would eventually be put out on the shelves, so I wasn't in a rush to get them. Then, a few days ago I checked again, and again both cases had disappeared without a trace. Again, this just fueled my suspicions that someone was buying all the minifigures in Calgary.

Now there are some shops here in Calgary who are known for (or at least very heavily suspected to be) hitting up local stores when things are hot or on sale and buying then scalping them, and one such store is a place called the Discovery Hut. They do carry a lot of unique items, but myself and others have noted how the Zellers down the mall seems to be cleared out of various toys (including transformers) that have gone on sale, and then they suddenly appear at Discovery Hut. A notable example of this would be how they got in the latest wave of halo figures roughly 3 days before the local walmarts, and yet they had the Walmart exclusive white EOD armor (all of which at a 4$ markup from the WM pricing).

Getting back to the minifigures thing, DH has been selling lego for a few years, and generally has had very little competition around it, so they could manage a bit of a markup. However, in the same mall, it was announced a few months ago that the mall would be getting Canada's first Lego store, and this week it finally opened. I went down there yesterday to check it out and see what was there, but the line up was ridiculously long to get in, so I decided to wander the mall, and check out DH to see if they had anything new.

As you've no doubt guessed by now, they miraculously had lego mini figures! Now that in itself is a possible bit of luck on their part, but there's a bit more to it. The only way that you could apparently get a mini figure was to buy 35$ or more in lego, then you got 2 free mini figures. However, I didn't see any actually for sale anywhere in the store, so really you had to buy 35$ in lego if you wanted any of them. The real thing that makes me suspicious, however, is the way the staff were pushing the sale. They would come up to you, no matter what you were looking at in the store, and say "Hey, do you know about the lego mini figures? (if you said no, then they explained them to you) Series one is completely sold out and out of circulation now, but we've got some in stock, and if you buy 35$ or more in lego, you get two free with your purchase".

They're out of circulation? really? maybe that's because you bought them all !! (well maybe at least)

What I'm thinking is the case is that when they realized that they wouldn't be able to push their lego at high prices once the lego store opened up, they decided to pick up the mini figures since they are a fairly hot product, and use them to help push through their sales. For a loss of 6$ in mini figures, they are able to guarantee that they sell at least 35$ in lego, and probably gain back their loss on the mini figures if not more based on their markup. Even the smaller lego sets that were 12$ at walmart are marked at around 17$ last time I checked.

I'd be less suspicious about this being the case, but the timing is the same as the grand opening of the lego store, plus, there is no apparent way to just buy the mini figures from them separately.

So then, is this just a bunch of paranoia, or are my suspicions grounded do you think?

There's nothing necessarily illegal or anything even if I'm right, but it just feels a bit frustrating to not be able to find these mini figures just so that they can keep themselves from taking a big loss on their lego.

[Nocturn]

They approached me and said "even the LEGO store is sold out"

Yeah... but who bought them?

Another example is when they had the Zellers Superion in stock after a sale for $60 a pop

[jackalprime]

youve got me thinking sokar, TOYS TOYS TOYS must do this at STC when walmart has a sale

[Shepp]

Wait, so LEGO is now selling individual figures? Awesomesauce!

[jourdo]

Sounds like you are on to something. I understand there is no law against this kind of thing, but it is frustrating to see businesses hoarding toys and making it difficult for others to find things.

On another note... I didn't know the Lego store was opened yet. I might have to check that out now.

Is the Apple store open yet in Chinook?

[Nocturn]

Originally Posted by jourdo

On another note... I didn't know the Lego store was opened yet. I might have to check that out now.

Not this weekend

It's grand opening

[Sokar]

Originally Posted by Shepp

Wait, so LEGO is now selling individual figures? Awesomesauce!

Yep, there's already a second series coming out (this fall I believe)

There's some great looking mini figures in there too. So far I've managed to find the caveman, robot, and magician and all of them are pretty fun. I wanted to get the zombie and ninja, but as you can guess I've had problems finding them.

What I really don't get about these though, is why is there not a pirate?!? you have a ninja in the series, so how are we supposed to create the glorious battle of pirates vs ninjas with thousands of mini figures, if we have no pirates to use?

Also, I'm glad to see that I'm apparently not totally out to space on this hoarding/scalping idea. Obviously there's not a lot I can do about it short of not shopping there (which is already pretty much the case), but it is definitely frustrating.

[chans formers]

i can honestly see this store doing this,mostly because i had to deal with the actual owner of the place a few days before leaving for tfcon.(unfortunately i got stuck dealing with the douche,i did "all" his signage and he's one of those guys you just don't want to pursue any future dealings with.chinook mall right?)

so what's a "mini fig?tf themed?

there used to be a store in marlborough mall,right beside walmart.everytime walmart had an exclusive,they would magically dissappear from the shelves,only to reappear at this said store but at 60 bucks a pop.(the most memorable was either the unicrons from walmart for 20$ which were then scalped and resold by them for 120.00,or the first wave of tftm07 deluxes.(grincore/jolt/etc)

[Phy]

"Minifigs" are lego-speak for what you would otherwise call "lego men". Y'know, the little guys with yellow cylinders for heads? What this is all about is, Lego was selling a line of individually blind-packed minifigs with special parts and costumes - there was a magician, a scuba diver, a ninja, a zombie - twelve in all. Looks like people started collecting them like they were Hot Wheels.

[chans formers]

^ahhhhh^
i thought it might have been the soon to be released new redo of the battlebeasts