I don't get toy scalping. Even if you buy the 2 windchargers in the case for example, you're only making at most 40 bucks a figure. Sure it's easy money but the amount of driving you have to do seems to outweigh the monetary gain
Alot of the online stores are getting worse than scalpers. Just look at some of the prices on Toywiz.
But you can't deny the pleasure of buying said hard to find toy at retail price. Scalpers suck but they are a part of every collectors fandom. Don't hate them, learn to beat them.
It's part of our addiction ... Best and most rewarding thing I've done to beat the scalpers is to purchase a rare item and sell it to a fellow collector at cost, hell I've even donated some too. As long as items stay out of scalpers hands I'm happy.
Personally, I've found that if I was patient enough, I waited out the scalpers. To this day, there is no figure I want that I haven't gotten, at retail or less, with the exception of Universe 2.0 Starscream. I wasn't collecting when he came out, so I missed him. There was a board member that found him somewhere, but jacked up the price by nearly twice as much to resell him. Sad when scalping happens within your own ranks...
You gotta remember that most of them arn't just in it for Transformers. They will buy hotwheels, GI Joes, DCUC, Captain America, Starwars, Marvel, etc, etc. Additionally, they arn't just stopping in at stores. As fat as they are, they will be at TRU at opening on stock day, Target at opening on markdown day, and Walmart at midnight for the restock. I don't really have a problem with them (unless they are paying off stockroom employees or work at the store). If they beat me fair and square, more power to them. I have nothing against people making a buck in this world, and if reselling toys is your way of doing so, so be it.
Scalpers are an inevitable part of the internet-based system that keeps lines like 'Chug' in existence. I didn't say i like them, but they aren't going anywhere.
One of the worst things that can happen to a scalper is for one to scalp a ton of "rare" stuff, and then see even more of it mass released. I hope they burn that way
If that was their only sales. Scalpers haven't affected me at all... and personally scalping doesn't bother me. The only figure I've missed out on was RTS Windcharger... and I only have HASBRO to thank for that and not a scalper. Dislike scalpers? Beat them at their own game... or resort to scalping yourself. Well said.
All True. Also dont get the way hasbro, well any toy company does there case assortments. Why not just make a minimum order size and be able to fill it with what the stores don't have. Collector or kid, no one likes going in and seeing the pegs full of the same figure
Look the monthly scalper thread. The discussion of whether reselling stuff is scalping will probably start again soon. Really? Unless you know for a fact that everyone who has ever scalped is "fat" then it looks like you have an issue with them. Personally, I don't but it is annoying to just miss a figure i want because someone just cleared every single new figure off the shelf. Its a part of the fun, however.
And I sold all 3 of them for $30/each at NJCC and not one of the people I sold to complained about the price. I don't think "Scalping" applies when I find dead stock at a Rite Aid 3 years after the fact, either. I'm highly liquid and invest for income. I can and will buy things to flip them because I have the free cash on hand. I do not scalp. I capitalize. If I scalped, I wouldn't tell the locals about what I left.
there's always good and bad in people. so does scalpers. they are there for reason, you just have to know how to deal with them. if you're new to collecting, you'll discover that the same local scalpers in your area, in mine anyway, are the same guys who are the supposed "dealers" at toy conventions.
This is 100% true. People need to understand thats its not the scalpers fault for putting the time and effort to get the items, They just want the items more badly and they go out to look for them. The people that sits at home, and only shop a little here and there, well what do you expect? Yes learn to beat them, go out everyday earlier then them, run to the shelves, ask employees to hold items, check in the back etc. If its online, then sit there every minute and buy, buy, buy. Hell buy up the entire stock and they will have none left. Spend a few hundred dollars, or hell spend hundreds of thousands of dollars, and swipe it all dry. Then the scalpers will know whos boss. Why hate scalpers, learn to beat them. But anyways my point is transbot is right on this one.
yeah...i have an ok job, not that great, but i sit in air conditioned office all day, and glad i don't have to try to make a living driving around from store to store trying to find the newest rare toys hoping to flip it for 20-30 bucks. $20-30 per toy sounds like a lot but if you think about it, you'd probably make about the same money sitting in the office for the amount of time these guys drive around looking for stuffs that may or may not be there and may and may not sell at the profit margins they wanted, while you're guaranteed that $20-30 on your paycheck basically just for being there in the office. also the only thing worth scalping are end of the line/canceled stuffs that are poorly distributed or convention exclusives that happen only once or twice a year for a toy line. like some one said the professional scalpers will buy up all the 'rare' toys to flip them, but for me keeping track of the 1 transformers toyline is hard enough, i don't think i can stand the thought of tracking 10 toylines for stuffs i don't even like nor care for. i don't want to spend any time on the internet trying to figure out what's the rarest my little pony or elmo toy this year. if you don't like the price scalpers are asking, just don't buy them, no matter how you put it, you don't really NEED these plastic toys.
