Quote Originally Posted by STL View Post
In summary, for me there are 3 elements that constitute scalping
1.) Intention to manipulate supply enabling them to
2.) excessively price to the
3.) detriment of the consumer
I essentially agree with the first two (I pretty much said the same thing in my own posting above before reading yours), but the third is a bit subjective. Buying from retail can be just as detrimental to consumers, especially with AUS prices, while some items I have bought from toyscalpers I have been happy about, because of how rare they are, and at least I had them. I find a lot of the limited JP items are effectively scalped on ebay and online stores (if you can't find someone who can get them first hand for you), so finding a rare item by an online 'scalper' can still be a good thing, because without the online scalpers, I wouldn't probably get a number of items I currently have.

So in summary scalpers aren't always a detriment if you have no direct access to the retail source and they do, and retailers (who are not scalpers) can be a detriment, as is the case for us Aussies.