2nded. I fight my urge to "must have it right now!!!" and usually I save myself the money. Scalpers mainly cash in on people's impulsive reactions to a new figure or line. The way to circumvent them is to not give in to the impulse.Counterpunch wrote:I just wait a bit. There hasn't been anything in the past few years that's not gone on sale or has been widely available online at some point.
Counterpunch wrote:I just wait a bit. There hasn't been anything in the past few years that's not gone on sale or has been widely available online at some point.
Emerje wrote:Counterpunch wrote:I just wait a bit. There hasn't been anything in the past few years that's not gone on sale or has been widely available online at some point.
Titans Return Deluxe waves 4 and 5 disagree with that statement. I've never seen those two waves on sale and definitely never seen them widely available online for anything less than $20 marked up and in short supply. I sure would like to know who's warehouse they're clogging because it isn't Hasbro's/HTS's or TRU's since neither of those stores ever got them.
Emerje
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"?
Counterpunch wrote:Emerje wrote:Counterpunch wrote:I just wait a bit. There hasn't been anything in the past few years that's not gone on sale or has been widely available online at some point.
Titans Return Deluxe waves 4 and 5 disagree with that statement. I've never seen those two waves on sale and definitely never seen them widely available online for anything less than $20 marked up and in short supply. I sure would like to know who's warehouse they're clogging because it isn't Hasbro's/HTS's or TRU's since neither of those stores ever got them.
Emerje
Slugslinger was readily available on Amazon and Hasbrotoyshop: https://www.seibertron.com/transformers/news/hasbro-toy-shop-restocked-with-new-and-old-titans-return-figures/40422/
Wave 4 is a fair exception, but that seems to be more of a distribution hiccup than anything. New stories show them in bountiful supply in Hong Kong and Canada. I found them personally on shelves in Target here in the US (on more than one occasion). Until recently, they weren't commanding a premium either.
I won't point out that all three figures have superior LG versions out or coming; all of which end up being only marginally over online retail.
mordhelm wrote:Let me ask this. When is it really scalping though? Maybe this would be a good op-ed article, because it's definitely subject to some interpretation.
The initial example was Hun-Grrr and Elita-1. Right now I see Elita-1 available through a Prime Retailer on Amazon for 36.99.
Let's assume this particular vendor bought at the typical price of 24.99.
Now, this is a FBA (Fulfillment by Amazon) Prime Seller, basically anything that says "Sold by <COMPANY> and Fulfilled by Amazon". This means they buy the product, ship it to Amazon's warehouse, then it get's in Amazon's system and on the website, then it can be sold and Amazon handles the Fulfillment.
Here is where it gets tricky. This is not a free service, you have to pay for Shipment to Amazon, Storage at Amazon (monthly at a minimum), and Fulfillment.
So let's do some cost breakdown:
Let's say they bought the toy for 24.99 + tax to start:
Price: @24.99
Tax (avg in the US is 8.45%, so let's say 8%): $2
Shipping (to AMZN): ? (they offer discounted rates, but I am not privy since I am not a vendor). Let's call it $2 (I bet it is more than that, but most ship in bulk).
Storage (@ $0.64 per month): $0.11
Fulfillment Cost (let's assume it's between 1-2 lbs): $4.71
So the total for them to sell on Amazon is: $33.81
So really we are nitpicking over $3.18 of profit from this vendor if they were going the "scalper" route (buying from a retailer then reselling on Amazon.
Ebay works a little different. Basically they charge about 8.24% for "Top Rated Plus" sellers, and 9.2% for non-Top Rated Sellers.
So, there is an Elita-1 on ebay for 35.95. Not a top rated seller.
Figure + tax: $26.99
Shipping (from Ebay's calculator): $10.80
Ebay's Fee: $3.29
Total for them to sell on Ebay: $41.08
So I don't think this vendors are scalpers. I think they are getting boxes from distributors and selling them. And, unfortunately, don't have the size of large vendors to mitigate all the costs. So I am guessing they are probably bringing in $5-$10 profit per sale for a voyager figure priced around $36. Not scalper money to me (maybe decent money, but not scalper), but maybe I am missing something.
Someone care to offer a counter point here? Before you think I am defending these prices, I will say, I personally would not pay the price they are suggesting for the figure. So far I have paid $25-26 plus tax for voyagers at max.
Counterpunch wrote:
Wave 4 is a fair exception, but that seems to be more of a distribution hiccup than anything. New stories show them in bountiful supply in Hong Kong and Canada. I found them personally on shelves in Target here in the US (on more than one occasion). Until recently, they weren't commanding a premium either.
I won't point out that all three figures have superior LG versions out or coming; all of which end up being only marginally over online retail.
Sparkimus Prime wrote:I think you might be missing my main complaint about this practice. The point is these people are going into brick and mortar stores and buying what's there just to relist online to make a profit. They could just as easily leave them in the store for people like me to purchase them. The worst offender in this regard are the ones that buy directly from amazon and relist it on amazon with the markup. They are literally doing nothing but creating an artificial demand for the product.
I'll go back to my earlier example of Slugslinger. He was shipped and sold by amazon, I had him in my cart and before I could complete payment he was sold out. Magically he appeared on timmy's toy box as available with a hefty markup. These are the people that make me want to stop collecting. They have no interest in the actual toy, they just want to make money.
I'm not saying that buying a few of some toy to relist on ebay is bad, as long as you leave a few in the store. It's the bulk buyers that drive me crazy and they know exactly what they are doing.
shajaki wrote:Scalpers have been around forever and they aren't going anywhere. It's best to get used to it, or work around them. The only reason to ever buy from a scalper is because you want it NAOW. Patience wins out every time for me, and it's not often I actually complain about the cost of things.
Only recently have I done so with the TF Vinyl OST, sold for 30 bucks a pop and now being scalped for almost 10 times more. But you know what I'll do? Watch and wait
william-james88 wrote:Also, several other toys never made it to US big box stores like:
RID Legion HeatSeeker and Twinferno
Emerje wrote:Scalping isn't the same as gauging. While there's certainly scalpers going into stores and selling what they find on Amazon, many Amazon sellers, usually the ones that are priced closest to Amazon's price, have legit Hasbro accounts and buy and sell in bulk. They may be selling much higher than MSRP, but they aren't scalpers.william-james88 wrote:Also, several other toys never made it to US big box stores like:
RID Legion HeatSeeker and Twinferno
You mean Heatseeker and Cyclonus (wave 12). Twinferno (wave 13) was available at US Retail. Just another case of the last wave being the easy one to find and the next to last being elusive.
Emerje
Sparkimus Prime wrote:I think you might be missing my main complaint about this practice. The point is these people are going into brick and mortar stores and buying what's there just to relist online to make a profit. They could just as easily leave them in the store for people like me to purchase them. The worst offender in this regard are the ones that buy directly from amazon and relist it on amazon with the markup. They are literally doing nothing but creating an artificial demand for the product.
I'll go back to my earlier example of Slugslinger. He was shipped and sold by amazon, I had him in my cart and before I could complete payment he was sold out. Magically he appeared on timmy's toy box as available with a hefty markup. These are the people that make me want to stop collecting. They have no interest in the actual toy, they just want to make money.
I'm not saying that buying a few of some toy to relist on ebay is bad, as long as you leave a few in the store. It's the bulk buyers that drive me crazy and they know exactly what they are doing.
Burn wrote:Scalpers aren't an issue for me.
It's no secret I've had trouble finding POTP around me, in fact, it's a problem country wide. Now that they're starting to filter out to other retailers like K-Mart I should be getting excited.
Nope. Because K-Mart have jacked the prices up to the point I seriously have to question whether I can afford to keep collecting.
Currently, "NO" is winning.
Galactic Prime wrote:Burn wrote:Scalpers aren't an issue for me.
It's no secret I've had trouble finding POTP around me, in fact, it's a problem country wide. Now that they're starting to filter out to other retailers like K-Mart I should be getting excited.
Nope. Because K-Mart have jacked the prices up to the point I seriously have to question whether I can afford to keep collecting.
Currently, "NO" is winning.
I always find it funny when Americans complain about the pricing they pay for TFs. Come to Canada, or Australia, or the UK, then you have the right to complain about prices.
mordhelm wrote:Galactic Prime wrote:Burn wrote:Scalpers aren't an issue for me.
It's no secret I've had trouble finding POTP around me, in fact, it's a problem country wide. Now that they're starting to filter out to other retailers like K-Mart I should be getting excited.
Nope. Because K-Mart have jacked the prices up to the point I seriously have to question whether I can afford to keep collecting.
Currently, "NO" is winning.
I always find it funny when Americans complain about the pricing they pay for TFs. Come to Canada, or Australia, or the UK, then you have the right to complain about prices.
I hope you realize that Burn is in Australia.
mordhelm wrote:Galactic Prime wrote:Burn wrote:Scalpers aren't an issue for me.
It's no secret I've had trouble finding POTP around me, in fact, it's a problem country wide. Now that they're starting to filter out to other retailers like K-Mart I should be getting excited.
Nope. Because K-Mart have jacked the prices up to the point I seriously have to question whether I can afford to keep collecting.
Currently, "NO" is winning.
I always find it funny when Americans complain about the pricing they pay for TFs. Come to Canada, or Australia, or the UK, then you have the right to complain about prices.
I hope you realize that Burn is in Australia.
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