Four-of-twelve is still exacerbating a bad problem, though. I don't see any hating going on, I just see folks trying to draw his attention to the fact that he's not doing anybody any favors, and that he's mistaken if he truly believes that what he's done is a harmless thing.

Look at it this way: the store finally stocked a highly sought-after product, and a third of them have already vanished into this guy's trunk. That's not being helpful at all. Why didn't he just hide them, or damage the packaging, and alert local collectors to their location? Or even just leave them be? Instead, he's going to grift them on the internet.

It would be okay if he bought, say, one to keep and one to sell, but he's taken a proportionately huge chunk of the stock for himself. Times like this, when things are hard to find, if we as collectors have any sense of comradery (and we do, otherwise we wouldn't be on a site like this), then we should be buying less and leaving more for others.

 

Exactly. Well put NothingHead.

 

That's not scalping, that's hoarding. hoarding can be combined with scalping for maximum asshole-effectiveness.

buying even one deluxe and selling it for thirty dollars is scalping. this is scalping. him being a well-liked member of the forum doesnt make it okay. if it was some random person on ebay that you didnt know, you guys would be making topics in this forum calling them all sorts of terrible things.

 

Guys, this thread is about a guy selling his wares, not one about scalping/not scalping. Bring it to PM.

 

Valkysas FTW!!!

 

I'm going to address a couple of the falsehoods people posted about this and then bashed me for.

"He bought 4 of 12 only leaving 8 for others when he could've left all 12"

Ok, I bought extras to sell. Sure, I wouldn't mind getting a few extra dollars ( who here hasn't tried to make a buck at some point? ), but I did not scalp. It was not 4 of 12. It was 4 of about 20. Two different stores. One store had 12 BBs. I did buy 4 there. 2 for me. One to keep sealed as a spare in case I accidentally break the one I bought to open. One to give to a friend for my cost of $13.77 after tax and one extra to sell on ebay. I figured, why not? I'm leaving plenty on the shelf and the extra $10 or so would help offset my collection expenses. Two days later, I stop off by another Kohl's and they had 11 BBs there. That's when I decided to buy 3 more leaving 8 on their shelf. ( So at this point, there are still 16 BBs on shelves locally. ) The idea was to go ahead and put them all up on ebay and fully planning to start this thread. I'll explain my full intentions more on down the post.


"You're not supposed to raise fees to cover eBay and PayPal fees."

Dude, noone would be stupid enough not to. It's just poor business sense to sell an item for less than it costs you to purchase and market it. Any good business person is going to sell things for enough to cover all costs. Including listing fees. What do you want me to do? Sell it at cost on ebay and then eat the fees so that I'm pretty much losing money on every transaction? If that were the practice, then noone would sell on eBay. Now to add fees to the auction is against their rules. Like say, winning bid, plus shipping, plus fees. However, my shipping charge is only a quarter over actual shipping and I include no such charge to cover fees. It's built into the bid just like every other thing sold in the world.


"He factored shipping into the buy it now cost and then charges for shipping so the eBay buyers are getting screwed"

I'm not sure where that came from, but I did NOT factor shipping into the buy it now cost. The buy it now cost on eBay was solely for me to make about $12 on them. However, I totally do/did not expect to sell them at that price. It's just a possibility. I'll explain further.


"It's sad when others are selling them for cost or near cost"

I am selling them near cost. These things weren't bought at Wal-Mart for $9.99. Nor is shipping free. Here's the breakdown. These guys were $12.99 each plus KY sales tax of 6%. That makes my total out of pocket for these guys $13.77. To list this auction on eBay, I had a listing fee of $2.65. That breaks down to about $.66 each. With the fixed price auction, ebay told me what my final value fee would be for each one sold. Another $1.70. Paypal fees on $30 ( based on past transactions ) would be about $1.50. So just my cost to buy the figure, make it available, and accept the payment comes to $17.63. You might as well say $18. So yes, at the ebay cost I'd be making about $12. As I said, I don't expect to sell any at that price.
As for the shipping, anyone who's ever shipped USPS knows about the Flat Rate box. Any weight, any location ( in the US ), for the same price. Rather than running back and forth to the PO for quotes, it's much easier to just charge for this service on items you know will fit in that box. It's $8.99 plus an additional $.75 for Delivery Confirmation. That makes shipping costs $9.70. I guess the fact I'll make a quarter off of that makes me scum.

Here was my plan with all this to try and help as many people as possible.

I left 16 BB on the shelves for people locally to still be able to buy for $13.77. A scalper would've bought them all. And possibly could have bought the ones I left sometime after I left.

I made this thread to give my fellow board members a chance to get them for a little over my cost plus shipping. Using the above calculations, cost would be $27.33. With a buy it now of $29.99, I'm making like $2.66. Not much considering the hassle of boxing them up, driving to the PO, waiting in line, and so on. Sure, the cost could've been lower had I skipped eBay, but only by about $2.36. Hardly worthy of all the flaming. It's better to buy one for this than not at all. I'm just making it available.

Lastly, the eBay auction itself. IF noone on the boards bought them, then they'd still be out there and available to everyone else. I can't make people buy them at the listed price. However, the people that might do it are the ones that can't find Bumblebee anywhere else. If they are willing to pay that for them, then they get what they want. I'd make enough profit to buy lunch for a couple days and everybody is happy. Considering this was just the last resort, "might as well make a buck" effort, that hardly makes me a scalper. A scalper would've made this first priority. I gave fair chances to the local shoppers and the board members first.

A question for those saying my $29.99 shipped offer is not fair. Since I've given the breakdown on my costs to make these available, what do you think I should do? Sell them for $20 and basically give away $8 for each one I sell? Would you be willing to pay $8 just so someone else can have a toy? I mean, do you guys really expect me to lose money just to help you out? The one guy that was selling them for $13 plus $7 for shipping was doing that. I'm glad he can afford to, but I can't. Unless the actual shipping was far enough below $7 to cover the PayPal fees and taxes he paid.

Anyway, I've explained it. Unless you live in this area and didn't get to either of the two Kohl's in time to get one of the other 16, then you really have no complaint over this. All I'm doing is providing options. If noone buys them, then I have my receipts and can return them to Kohl's. Guess what? You still won't be able to buy them. I refuse to lose money just because you guys decided to flame me.

May as well lock this thread, I'm done with it. Next time I'll only buy what I want and not try to help anyone out.

 

Using some of the same "logic" presented in this thread, if I had the opportunity to buy up all g2 merge prototype items (menasor/defensor) from a collector, (items that are FAR rarer than deluxe concept bumblebees ever will be) and flip them on ebay for profit, does that make me a scalper too?
If I bought a collection of loose minty G1's items (again in high demand and limited supply), break them up and sell them individually for profit precluding the opportunity for other collectors to get their paws on them, does that make me a scalper?