Acquisitions Etiquette?

[GoktimusPrime]

If you refer to Scalping, the ugliest side of mass-purchasing,

Nobody's talking about scalping here. Scalping is an entirely different (and evil) practice.

I just feel for the kids who live near epping or northland or where ever else you guys hunt often... it must seem like certain toys never get released to them.

This tends to happen more because of scalpers not because of active toy-hunters. Remember that toy-hunters are basically only buying for their own needs. Scalpers will take _everything_ - as in, fill up an entire trolley full of toys and then purchase them. There's stories of scalpers fighting with children over toys. Scalpers also tend to camp outside stores when they know there's a new stock coming out and they rush in and scoop everything up before anyone else can have the chance to get in there. They then sell the toys off to collectors at inflated prices.

A person who buys a bunch of toys for him(her)self and his(her) friends is an entirely different thing. First of all, they usually don't take as many toys as scalpers do, and secondly their motivations are far more altruistic. It's one thing to grab a bunch of toys to help your friends/fellow collectors and basically sell them at the same price that you paid (i.e.: you're not making a profit). It's an entirely different thing to grab everything and then sell them at an increased price, with the intention of making a profit. The former is effectively doing a favour for other people, the latter is exploitation of collectors.

And as I said before, if you're worried about other people missing out then the only thing you can do is _stop_collecting_ because every toy you buy is a toy that someone else can't have!!

On some rare occasions toy stores have been known to enact anti-scalping policies, like restricting the sales to say a limit of 3 of the same toy to any one customer. I remember some toy stores doing this when Star Wars The Phantom Menace toys first came out - there was a limit of 3 per customer (of the same figure). The vast majority of stores don't do this though.

I remember in late 1986 Kups were shelf-warming and they were marked down to like $5 each or something really cheap like that. My mum went and bought a crapload of Kups! I got one, my brother got one and she kept the rest as presents for my cousins and her friends' children... so for the next year it was like, "Happy Birthday!" "Oh wow, Kup!" or "Merry Christmas! Oh wow, Kup!" over and over again. It wasn't scalping or anything, she was giving them away as free gifts to children. d:

So blame Santa. ;P

which TRU Gok? (is it....the nearest one here?)

The one we went to last time.