What is Scalping

[jaydisc]

There are a lot of interesting measurement in this thread, and virtually none are consistent.

I think MV75's original, concise description of a scalper is accurate. This is very similar to my initial definition, and reinforced by Kup, Tober and others. By that definition, a key criteria is the intention to reduce supply.

I think all other definitions are purely objective. For example, Tetsuan says buying 4 extra SS's and reselling at retail prices is scalping. Golden Pheonix has pulled the magic number of 10 out of his hat.

How many of you City-Commander-X-2 purchasers are purchasing the 2nd after seeing the price that the Cliffjumper kit went for? How many of you are willing to admit it? I am! I don't plan on selling it for $300 the next day, but my thoughts are that five or so years down the road, I'll sell it for double, thus paying for the one I keep. Why is earning money off of the hobby any different than earning money in other ways?

Now, Pulse, your comments that you linked to are a bit concerning to me, specifically:

I don't know how some scalpers can do it. By Scalpers, I mean the ones who have amassed an amazing collection over the years (which began in 1984) & then one day decide to sell them all for as much as possible.

Are you saying that a collector that suddenly decides to move on, possibly due to the birth of a child, or a higher interest rate on their mortgage, should be selling their toys at cost??!?!

Pulse, you also say that markup to cover costs is acceptable, but unnecessary markups for no reason becomes scalping. I don't understand this. Every goods-based business is all about markup for profit.

Why is profiting off Transformers such a no-no? Why can used car lots by cheap used cars and mark them up? Why can a supermarket by cheap groceries mark it up? What makes markup on these toys so different?!?!

[TheDirtyDigger]

I bought some Ult BB's before Christmas for $88 from Big W and got around $200 each for them on eBay BUT I started all my auctions at 99cents and there wasn't a shill bidder in sight.


Also could/should eBay seller potions11 be considered a scalper?
She buys from US eBay, doubles the price and puts them on Oz eBay. B!+@#.

[Paulbot]

To me, Scalping is when you can't buy a hard to find item (TF, Concert tickets, whatever) because someone else has bought them solely to make a profit by selling them to people who missed out/couldn't find them.

Buying some toys for investment is fine but I wouldn't be impressed when it prevents others from buying them. For example, in the instance of the City Commander kit say there were only 10 available, and the first board member to see it bought 10, kept one and put the other 9 up on ebay and 9 other board members missed out. I would call that person a scalper. Fortuntely in this example the preorder requests came first to ensure there were enough kits to meet the demand.

[Rampage]

I bought some Ult BB's before Christmas for $88 from Big W and got around $200 each for them on eBay BUT I started all my auctions at 99cents and there wasn't a shill bidder in sight.

i did that too however started the price at the price i paid for them $99 from target

i sold 8 the highest going for $191 and lowest for $146 made about $550-600 all up however 70% of it would've been respent on transformers or nikes on ebay

5 of the 8 the people picked up from me and all of them were older women buying them for their own kids/grandchildren so i didn't feel so bad about it

but i also grabbed 5x 2008 BB Deluxes from Big W and sold em to board members at cost so im not all bad

[jaydisc]

Great example TDD. Thanks for your honesty.

The starting-at-99c auction is an interesting point as well. Since it is the market, not the seller, inflating the price, if there is insane market demand and the product fetches 2-300% the seller's cost, does this in itself make the seller a scalper?

[STL]

The starting-at-99c auction is an interesting point as well. Since it is the market, not the seller, inflating the price, if there is insane market demand and the product fetches 2-300% the seller's cost, does this in itself make the seller a scalper?

I'm inclined to say so. We cannot hide behind the veil that we started the auction at 99c. If you are fundamentally aware of the significant shortage of the product and its desirability, you are still profiting on it. The market supply has been reduced, the price becomes excessive by its own nature. The same goes for concert or sporting tickets. If you were genuinely not a scalper you'd be offering it at cost, covering your own costs and charging a small mark up. I saw one or two Botcon 2008 sets sold at very close to what it would've cost to get from Fun Publications w/ buy it now prices. While I wasn't all that interested, I do respect those sellers cos they are very rare.

[jaydisc]

I'm inclined to say so. We cannot hide behind the veil that we started the auction at 99c. If you are fundamentally aware of the significant shortage of the product and its desirability, you are still profiting on it. The market supply has been reduced, the price becomes excessive by its own nature. The same goes for concert or sporting tickets. If you were genuinely not a scalper you'd be offering it at cost, covering your own costs and charging a small mark up. I saw one or two Botcon 2008 sets sold at very close to what it would've cost to get from Fun Publications w/ buy it now prices. While I wasn't all that interested, I do respect those sellers cos they are very rare.

If you, as a would-be-scalper, are not constraining supply, why is profiting so bad or wrong? I'm starting to think that our own selfish desires to acquire what we want as cheaply as possible is causing us to morally attack those running a business.

What makes someone who buys 4 Starscreams and sells them on eBay any different from a Toys R Us that buys four cases and sells them in their physical store? Why can a company exist for profit and not an individual?

The other major issue as I see it, is the unfortunate situation of the chicken and the egg. Who sets the exorbitant prices first? The consumer or the seller? Once this price has been set for whatever reason, why should the next seller not be entitled to make the same profit as his predecessor?

Why is someone that ordered three Botcon box sets more evil than one who ordered three City Commanders?

Why should an ethical seller sell his box set at only a slight margin when a scalper is only going to come in and sell it at triple the margin only to fund further scalping?

[griffin]

Scalping is excessivly profiteering off an item, through limited availability at its regular price. The most obvious toy scalpers (usually in America) are those who go around to stores buying up short-packed or exclusive items, with the sole intention of re-selling them way above retail. When they remove from the general market a product to re-sell immediately or within a short space of time, they are scalping the product by artificially inflating its value.

Great example TDD. Thanks for your honesty.

The starting-at-99c auction is an interesting point as well. Since it is the market, not the seller, inflating the price, if there is insane market demand and the product fetches 2-300% the seller's cost, does this in itself make the seller a scalper?

A seller doesn't have to be directly inflating demand for an item to still be a scalper, they can inflating the price of it instead.
Listing a rare (current/recent) item as an auction instead of a Buy-it-now is inflating the price by forcing the market to fight over items that have been removed from a (public) retail source, either by that person or by some other cause (limited release or short packed). Due to such a smaller demand for TFs toys in Australia compared to America, I think there is very little actual toy-scalping happening here (someone going around to every store, buying up limited or exclusive items to resell on ebay). I just think there is the occasional person taking advantage of the odd rare or hard-to-find item from time to time (like Battle Jazz, Classics Jetfire, Ultimate Bumblebee, MP Starscream, 08 Bumblebee).
The stories I've read about US toyscalpers, and toys like Star Wars and the recent MOTU, make our toyscalping seem rather insignificant.

Here's an example of what I think best describes a toy scalper, from my own experience.

Alternator Rodimus.
It was limited to about 20 Toyworld stores in Brisbane, making about 200 of the figures released in this country for $40 retail. I aquired about 50 of them. This mass acquisition of a rare item is only half of the procedure for a toy scalper - limiting availability to the general public. The result is that it becomes even more sought after by those who know about it, because if I hadn't bought them, there would be 50 less people fighting over the ebay Rodimus Primes. That's the 'demand' factor, inflated by the toy scalpers, but rarely monopolised by scalpers acquiring all stock***.

The difference between me and a toy scalper though, is the second part of the process - re-sale price.
A toy scalper would resell them at a hugely inflated price (most on ebay were $80). I sold them for $40 (or $45 if you bought a second one, or if I listed it on ebay), which in itself doesn't cover all the costs of fuel and credit card fees/interest (and ebay/paypal fees). But that's the thing a toy-scalper doesn't care about - making sure real collectors get the items without paying more than they would if getting the items themselves from the store.

But then the last Rodimus I had available, I took the toy-scalper approach, by listing it as an auction on ebay. Even if you list a rare item at a tiny start price, and the seller (me with the Rodimus) knows it is a rare item that now has an increase in demand on non-retail sources (due to it no longer being available at retail, either intentionally by scalpers or unintentionally by short supply/short packing), the high final ebay sale price is not the fault of the buyers. Just because they are prepared to pay that much, it makes no difference if it sells at an inflated buy-it-now or at an inflated auction price. The best way to prove that you aren't scalping a toy on ebay, is by selling it at a buy-it-now that is close to what you paid for it.
I didn't do that with my last Rodimus figure I listed on ebay, because I listed it as an auction (the other 19 all had BIN prices). Even though I listed it with a small opening bid price, I was taking advantage of the market, by getting them to fight over a figure I had removed from retail sale (it ended up selling for $56). Sure, most of those who bought my Rodimus toys were out of state anyway, but that doesn't justify taking advantage of them by making them pay more for an item, by listing it as an auction instead of a buy-it-now at what it cost me. It made me feel good to have so many fans out there getting their hands on a rare toy for about half what it would have otherwise cost them.

Even if I did end up losing a little money over it, hopefully at least, I didn't lose the respect of people buying them off me by not listing them as auctions or hefty buy-it-nows.

Hope that example helps distinguish the difference between a toy scalper and toy collector helping out other collectors.

*** The one exception to this for TFs was Beast Machines Battle Unicorn. Bigbadtoystore acquired an almost exclusive supply of the toy when the line was axed before BU was released. It was a basic sized toy, which would have retailed for about US$5. BBTS price was US$50. They fulfilled the first part of a toy-scalper by inflating demand of their stock (couldn't buy it elsewhere), and as such fulfilled the second part of a toy-scalper by inflating the price (fans had no choice if they wanted that toy). BBTS was taking advantage of the desperate or completist collectors, excessively profiteering off those willing to pay that much for a rare TFs toy. Fortunatly after about a year when demand for that price died, they were selling them off for about US$5, which allowed for more collectors to get one at a more reasonable price.

[Pulse]

Trunk's recount from some 10 months ago comes to mind...




Quote:

"I'll keep this short.

I had to pop into Big W on my way home (I love their extended hours) to grab a few things for the gf (Uni goes back next week, the stress begins, for the final time!.

Managed to get all the paper, books, pens etc, so I decided to pop on down to the toy section, and see if they had restocked.
They had, half a dozen Dreadwings, Arcees, Swindles, 10 Bonecrushers, but not a single 08 Bumblebee, but there were 2 empty pegs.

"ah well" I thought, and grabbed an Arcee, seeing as she is meant to be somewhat decent if you take her head off. I made my way to the checkout, and stood in line behind a woman who had a basket full of Deluxe transformers figures.

Naturally I tried to peek at what she had, but could only see the top one: 08 Bumblebee. Now that irked me, as it meant I had literally just missed getting it.
What happened next irked me even more.

When it came her turn to be served she pulled out 7 08 Bumblebee's. 7. Now I could understand maybe 2 or 3 of the same figure, 1 for each kid, or maybe one to open, one to keep mosc, but 7? Straight away I knew she was one of them, the filth and lower than low scum that is a scalper.

I hoped against hope that she was paying by cash (but it seems no-one does anymore) and that she would not have enough, and would have top leave 1 or more behind, she didn't.
I hoped her card was declined, it wasn't.
Finally I begged whatever higher powers there may be that she should slip on her out scum layered feet, fall and crack her skull open. I't didn't happen.

The second she left the store, she lit up a cigarette (still inside the centre mind you) and took a few puffs, by the time I had been served, she was walking away about 3 metres ahead of me. She whipped out her mobile phone, and starting yapping away, loud as anything, and I Quote:
"Yeah got seven of 'em, all dey had in the shop, y'know. Yeah 19 bucks each, yeah cheap, make a pack on 'em, gonna put 'em up tamorra, yeah, see if dey go as quick as de last bunch. Didn bofer wif any others, jus' de yellah one..."

She started talking bout how cheap she got them again as she left the centre, into the carpark. I was seriously tempted to follow her and smack her around with the 20 notepads and various books I had bought, but fought the urge.

Now I dont mind the average person selling doubles or spares of figures on ebay, what I do hate is people like this woman that go and snap up every figure that they can, as cheap as they can, leaving none on the shelves for regular people, for the one purpose of re-selling them at a far greater price. It's despicable.

Anyone else have stories about scalpers, either trying to buy from one, or witnessing the scum actual buying stuff themselves? "