The Energon Pub

Sparkimus Prime wrote:I've been collecting for about 7 years now, I have nearly every g1 toy, and quite a few of the other series. I love transformers. I am enjoying the generations line but the limited supply is making me crazy. It's making me so sad and annoyed that these amazon people and others are just buying up entire stocks online of the newest lines and basically holding them hostage. Elita One and Hun Gurr were on HTS for just a few hours and poof they are gone, but if I check amazon they have tons all with a huge markup. The same thing happened with Slugslinger. I know scalping will never go away, I just needed a place to vent my frustration. It's seriously making me want to just give up on this hobby. How do you all deal with these greedy "people"?

Supply and demand.

I deal with these greedy people by being greedy myself.

If I have access to something that will be rare for a while, I'll buy extra and re-sell them to cover the cost for the figures I actually wanted.

ZeldaTheSwordsman wrote:Also, regarding this "just wait" strategy, how long do you think the wait will be for Combiner Wars stuff to go down in price?

I'm afraid I've got some bad news for you - this already happened and passed for most of that stuff. Even some of the earlier Titans Return stuff is either on the way or already over original retail pricing on the secondary market.

Rysquad wrote:

Sparkimus Prime wrote:I've been collecting for about 7 years now, I have nearly every g1 toy, and quite a few of the other series. I love transformers. I am enjoying the generations line but the limited supply is making me crazy. It's making me so sad and annoyed that these amazon people and others are just buying up entire stocks online of the newest lines and basically holding them hostage. Elita One and Hun Gurr were on HTS for just a few hours and poof they are gone, but if I check amazon they have tons all with a huge markup. The same thing happened with Slugslinger. I know scalping will never go away, I just needed a place to vent my frustration. It's seriously making me want to just give up on this hobby. How do you all deal with these greedy "people"?

Supply and demand.

I deal with these greedy people by being greedy myself.

If I have access to something that will be rare for a while, I'll buy extra and re-sell them to cover the cost for the figures I actually wanted.

You may believe this to be harmless, but look at it this way. You and some other person love collecting Transformers. You both want the new Thundercracker from Toys R Us. You go and buy up all the stock in every local Toys R Us and list them online at a 50% markup. Other guy now has no choice but to pay extra to get the same enjoyment that you did. By acting in this way, you are overall hurting the Transformer collecting community. Claiming the moral superiority over other scalpers just doesn't hold any weight.

Lore Keeper wrote:

Rysquad wrote:

Sparkimus Prime wrote:I've been collecting for about 7 years now, I have nearly every g1 toy, and quite a few of the other series. I love transformers. I am enjoying the generations line but the limited supply is making me crazy. It's making me so sad and annoyed that these amazon people and others are just buying up entire stocks online of the newest lines and basically holding them hostage. Elita One and Hun Gurr were on HTS for just a few hours and poof they are gone, but if I check amazon they have tons all with a huge markup. The same thing happened with Slugslinger. I know scalping will never go away, I just needed a place to vent my frustration. It's seriously making me want to just give up on this hobby. How do you all deal with these greedy "people"?

Supply and demand.

I deal with these greedy people by being greedy myself.

If I have access to something that will be rare for a while, I'll buy extra and re-sell them to cover the cost for the figures I actually wanted.

You may believe this to be harmless, but look at it this way. You and some other person love collecting Transformers. You both want the new Thundercracker from Toys R Us. You go and buy up all the stock in every local Toys R Us and list them online at a 50% markup. Other guy now has no choice but to pay extra to get the same enjoyment that you did. By acting in this way, you are overall hurting the Transformer collecting community. Claiming the moral superiority over other scalpers just doesn't hold any weight.

That's just someone being a colossal asshat

I have always kinda suspected scalpers were picking over my local Target. Came across an article that supposedly scalping is banned at Target stores. I wonder how they enforce this, obviously re-sellers are not outright banned. The last portion of this article also states they apply quantity limits which I don't see too often. I would assume that this only applies to people that habitually scalp or extreme cases so it's not going to help get rid of your neighborhood scumbag.

https://consumerist.com/2015/05/26/targ ... resellers/

Granted it all comes down to money and what is in the best interest of the company. They probably don't care about toys too much (considering how understocked their website is for toys). I think that scalping is a problem and after coming in to Target each week to find nothing it does lead me to make most of my toy purchases online. After what happened to TRU it's an open market and these companies need to step up their game.

Lastly it grinds my gears when scumbag scalpers charge more than what a toy is worth on amazon. They aught to have a rule against that.

WreckerJack wrote:I have always kinda suspected scalpers were picking over my local Target. Came across an article that supposedly scalping is banned at Target stores. I wonder how they enforce this, obviously re-sellers are not outright banned. The last portion of this article also states they apply quantity limits which I don't see too often. I would assume that this only applies to people that habitually scalp or extreme cases so it's not going to help get rid of your neighborhood scumbag.

https://consumerist.com/2015/05/26/targ ... resellers/

Granted it all comes down to money and what is in the best interest of the company. They probably don't care about toys too much (considering how understocked their website is for toys). I think that scalping is a problem and after coming in to Target each week to find nothing it does lead me to make most of my toy purchases online. After what happened to TRU it's an open market and these companies need to step up their game.

Lastly it grinds my gears when scumbag scalpers charge more than what a toy is worth on amazon. They aught to have a rule against that.

I agree when you go on Amazon or Walmart and see **** posted for double or triple (or more) of retail price it's just ridiculous. I mean who buys at those prices?

I've been selling on ebay a long time and found even there to get a price a figure is actually worth people still don't pay it. I have no idea how these people make money on Amazon or walmart.

Rysquad wrote:
Supply and demand.

I deal with these greedy people by being greedy myself.

If I have access to something that will be rare for a while, I'll buy extra and re-sell them to cover the cost for the figures I actually wanted.

That's basically saying if you can't beat them, join them. There isn't really a solution to a problem. The only way that scalpers can cease existing is if no one uses them.

william-james88 wrote:

Rysquad wrote:
Supply and demand.

I deal with these greedy people by being greedy myself.

If I have access to something that will be rare for a while, I'll buy extra and re-sell them to cover the cost for the figures I actually wanted.

That's basically saying if you can't beat them, join them. There isn't really a solution to a problem. The only way that scalpers can cease existing is if no one uses them.

Yes, but by adding to the scalping, you're exacerbating the problem. It's like saying we can't stop all crime, so I might as well go commit crimes. The only difference here is that there is no legal repercussion for being a bad actor.

Galactic Prime wrote:
Lastly it grinds my gears when scumbag scalpers charge more than what a toy is worth on amazon. They aught to have a rule against that.
I agree when you go on Amazon or Walmart and see **** posted for double or triple (or more) of retail price it's just ridiculous. I mean who buys at those prices?

I've been selling on ebay a long time and found even there to get a price a figure is actually worth people still don't pay it. I have no idea how these people make money on Amazon or walmart.[/quote]
Rich people that don't care and parents/grandparents of kids who don't know how much things should cost. Just like Toywiz and their **** pricing scalping.