So I went to my local Walmart this evening when I got off work because, eh, why not? Maybe something new came in and I just got paid. So as I am nearing the boys toy section I see a guy, well dressed, with a shopping cart full of Prime and Rescue Bots. Oo. Guy had a Vehicon. And what looked like Kup and Rumble. Chances seem good for me! Okay. I go to the toy section to see that they did get new figures in.... ....except all that was left was scraps. The Deluxe revision figures and Powerizers Bulkhead and Starscream. Dang. So as I'm leaving I see the guy again and get a better look at his load. Dreadwing. Possibly two of him. A whole bunch of Rescue Bots. Vehicon. Kup. Rumble. Some Cyberverse thing. So I decided to cut my losses and buy that lone revision Knock Out left hanging. It doesn't ring up in the system. All signs point to this other guy getting the cases and pulling the hard to find stuff out first...because I then see him at a register taking a while to checkout because, again, this stuff wasn't even put on the shelves yet. I know this is probably how a lot of guys here get their figures when they go hunting, but I get more of a thrill and sense of satisfaction finding that new toy hanging on the wall or sitting on the self. Sucks that that joy, during this time of poor distribution, can be taken away from me because I don't have a smart phone with UPCs or whatever punched into it. Guess I'll just order shit online and hope certain figures I want are shelfwarmers.
Over-eager fan. To be honest, a lot of this is just pure assumption on your part. - Whether you like it or not, toy purchases at retail are a first come first serve kind of thing. He had just as much a right to that stuff as you do. - Toys don't always ring up in the system. This week when I got Rumble, he didn't ring up either. We had to grab the lone non-DVD Prime deluxe to scan. - With current case assortments, it is very unlikely that he purchased two Dreadwings with only a Bulkhead and Starscream remaining. The guy more than likely found them on the shelves, and as you've noted yourself there is rather poor distribution and he grabbed it while he could. Is it unfortunate? Yes. Could I be wrong? Of course. But sometimes, you just have to give someone the benefit of the doubt.
Can't be sure. Still, buying 2 of a newly released figure is kind of weird. Then again I always found it super bizarre for people to buy more than 1 copy of a figure unless it was a troop builder, and even that I frown upon after a certain point.
Buying two dreadwings isn't strange at all. Me and my brother in law buy doubles of stuff all the time to hook each other up.
If I saw Dreadwing (especially below normal retail price), I'd probably nab a 2nd one to mule to a friend, and I'll likely be doing the same if the GDO shit ever shows up here.
If your location didn't say Garden State, I might have thought you were talking about the guy I saw yesterday. The guy I saw HAD to be a scalper. He had a shopping cart FILLED with Transformers. I mean freaking filled. And they were all heaped upon each other randomly. Like shoveling a pile of dirt, except action figures. A ton of deluxes, a ton of Voyagers, and a TON of Cyberverse. It was a giant mound of TF that filled the cart and was piled high enough to spill off the sides if he turned the cart fast. I would not be surprised if it rang up in the thousands of dollars. Nobody collects like that. And nobody has that many kids. If he was having a birthday party for his kid and invited 50 guests and planned to give each guest a TF as a party favor, he STILL had bought too much. This guy was a scalper plain and simple. I have never in my life seen anything like it.
Blame the distribution from Hasbro for the problem. My Walmart will not carry Marvel Legends anymore because they could'nt get Hasbro to ship them cases. So instead of leaving the pegs bare, they just ordered other toys to fill the spot. Poor distribution+ collectors+scalpers is why you hardly see anything.
Well, with how the line's been going lately I don't blame anyone for buying everything in one go like that instead of pacing it out over several weeks like you used to be able to do. I mean, it'd be ridiculous to call anyone who buys all the Combaticons in one go a scalper just because they're buying a lot of "prized" toys at once. Could just be a dad with a Transformer-obsessed kid(s) with a birthday coming up, maybe even doing some early Christmas shopping. I know my parents bought sizable chunks of whatever toyline I was obsessed with at the time around my birthday (in September) just to save much of it for Christmas.
I don't know about the guy the thread-starter saw, but the guy I saw was buying the entire line several times over. But I love how people jump in to offer defenses for people doing this. I actually HOPE the guy I saw was a scalper. Because if he was, then whatever, he's a d-bag, who cares. But if he wasn't a scalper, then he has a very serious problem. It's seriously diseased behavior to buy in the quantities this guy was buying, if he wasn't doing it for profit.
THAT'S the sort of shit that was going down in the Lafayette area during that whole 90's superhero toy renaissance. It took me forever to find anything that was shortpacked, if I found it at all. Mostly I had to hit ChicagoCon every summer to make up the difference. This was also the situation when I got into a fistfight over Domino. And truth be told, it will never get better until we, as collectors, refuse to purchase from said outlets. Hasbro will only see "Hey, shit's selling." so there's nothing the scalpers' actions are doing that will hurt the hobby or the line. The only downside is that kids, the intended consumer, have little to no chance of getting these. Well, once the bottom drops out and they need to recoup and return their figs to TRU or whatever. IF you're lucky.
I usually see hot wheels scalpers. Not so much tf scalpers. But pretty sure they are out there. I dont know where they find the time or money to do all this scalping. Unless they r just deadbeats with no life.
Sounds like the guy was just a fan. Maybe he'd been looking for a lot of figures and decided to just buy them all at once. He could have been a scalper, but it doesn't sound like he was.
Wouldn't a scalper organize the figures better to avoid the possibility of card/box damage? If they're flipping them for profit, mint cards and boxes are worth more than heavily cart-damaged ones.
Sounds to me like that this person is a Scalper. But buying two of one figure is fine and that's normal, maybe you are pick one up for a buddy for example, but a whole cart full of Transformers that is just ridiculous.
The individuals the OP described were more than likely scalpers, but seeing someone with a cart of figures doesn't automatically make them scalpers. When DotM figures came out, a friend and I hit about 10-Wal Marts and picked up everything we wanted. At the best one, I actually did fill my cart, and that included two Shockwaves and a few multiples for customs.
so, if you buy three deluxes and two voyagers, you're a scalper? wow, guess i scalped all the time during classics and animated
Probably just a guy getting them while he can. A couple of weeks ago the toy store near me finally got some new stock in so I grabbed all the figures I wanted there and then because I had no idea if I'd ever see them again. Didn't really want to spend out that much in one go but I didn't want to buy just one of the things I wanted and then come back the next week and find everything gone again and have missed my chance because of worrying someone might think I was a scalper or whatever. As for buying two or more of the same figure at a time, that also doesn't mean scalper. If I see three Vehicons on the shelf and I have friends I know have been desperately searching for them I'll buy them all and pass them on to them for the same price I paid for them. And in return I'd hope those friends would do the same for me if they found figures I was really wanting to get. No doubt if someone saw me with a shopping cart full of figures they'd assume I'm a scalper, but actually I'd just be a collector trying to beat the shitty distribution, poor wave case choices and, of course, scalpers.
I was at TRU last night as was asking the guy behind the counter about when MPTC is coming in and he stated, "The reason why we have not put a spot on the shelf for him is because he never makes it onto the shelf. The days we GOT them in, the same guy was at the door at opening and bought every case we had, each time we got them, which was 4 times in 3 weeks, 2 cases each time." I asked him "why don't they limit the amount someone can buy so it's fair to other customers who want that item?" He said, "the manager doesn't care, as long as they get sold, if you want it bad enough you'll go online and either pre-order or do a pay now and pick it up in store, so when they come in we'll hold one before selling the rest to him." About the same time we both said, "what a dick"... but, on the other hand, the warehouse has an order for 1000 cases for the area... hopefully they will come in soon.
