Well my friends, I think it's time we got active in opposing The Selfish Scalping Bastards.

The tales of a now notorious Facebook Scalper and the ends he'll go to in order to create false scarcity and rip off fellow hobbyists has got my dander right up. Right up.

There's a little over 150 folk in my Facebook group now (wooo! and see my sig!) and I figure that's a good start for an organised letter writing campaign to Games Workshop and Forgeworld, making our distaste and displeasure at the Scalpers Market known, and asking their collusion in trying to nip it in the bud at source. And I'd like to invite everyone to join us.

Now I'm quite sure we're all perfectly capable of putting pen to paper, or hands to keyboard, but I'd like to cover off some points which might help.

1. We all pay to get into events, and usually gladly because there's lot to see, and some shiny new toys to get our grubby mitts on. But finding someone else got there first and snaffled the lion's share sucks arse.

2. Ultimately, it's eating into their bottom line. Consider that the Custodes Contemptor retails for £56, and the aforementioned bellend was selling them on for £95. That's £39 some poor sap has paid out their hobby budget - and £39 FW/GW get not so much a sniff of.

3. Limited Edition models really need to be a maximum of one per customer on pre-order and release day. Remember Space Hulk, when it was first re-released? Our Local Bellend bought *12* copies. All on eBay as soon as it sold through worldwide. Doesn't matter that he rinsed his credit card, he still made a killing. It's not as if they'll struggle to sell them after all, so there's no real excuse for people buying multiples.

So I ask, beg and implore you to join in this campaign, and get as many of your fellow nerds and hobbyists to do likewise. It may very well come to nothing, but it's at least worth trying

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

2. Ultimately, it's eating into their bottom line. Consider that the Custodes Contemptor retails for £56, and the aforementioned bellend was selling them on for £95. That's £39 some poor sap has paid out their hobby budget - and £39 FW/GW get not so much a sniff of.

It's a fairly large assumption that this money would have automatically gone to GW if they hadn't used it on that model.

Also that the people willing to spend £95 on a model have a hobby 'budget'...

3. Limited Edition models really need to be a maximum of one per customer on pre-order and release day.

No, they don't. They just need to be produced in sufficient quantities to match demand.

Limiting stuff to one per customer just irritates those people with legitimate reasons for buying multiples.

I don't think it is that large an assumption. Consider that I'll get some stuff from Darksphere Games, because their discount is mighty fine, and I can get to their store after work without too much faffing.

That doesn't mean I actually spend less with them - I just buy more, because my money goes that much further.

Someone willing to pay £39 over the odds for something coming in a few weeks anyway might well need their bumps felt (especially FW, as you get a 'live' exchange rate), but that's clearly an amount of money they'd be willing to spend on their hobby regardless - which means there's a good chance it'd be spent on FW or GW anyway - instead of lining the pockets of a greedy sod.

Now, Limited Edition models? That's a fine line from GW's point of view. A bit of scarcity helps to ensure they sell out quite quickly, and prevent peg warmers. And how can we as customers genuinely judge a sufficient quantity when there's belllends out there snapping them all up to sell on at a substantial mark up? And if it's at an event, it doubly sucks to see some arse buy up loads, then scuttle off to the bar to put them straight on eBay. Strict limits on those on pre-order and release day help to mitigate such selfishness.

But, I do agree there are absolutely legitimate reasons to buy multiples. That's largely what my trading group is there for. I picked up an extra set of the Tzeentch dice for a chap in Lithuania who doesn't have anywhere nearby. And that's an 'At Cost' sale. I also picked him up a Primus Medicae with my local manager's agreement. And when I head to Warhammer World in June, I'll likely be picking up a few each of the Forgeworld 'Event Only' models for those generally unable to get to events themselves - again, At Cost (given you're in Oz, at least according to your flag, let me know if you'd like adding to the 'give me a shout list)

I actually think this is a great idea, and I applaud it. Here's why. Over the past 2 years I've learned that GW does not receive nearly as much as one might think (or want). Understandably, they don't trawl forums (and that's a discussion for another thread, not to derail here) so when they receive actual emails of any topic--complaints, requests, praise, feedback, whatever--these do indeed get passed along to those decision makers. For example, email Black Library and have a letter asking for longer novels say "please pass to the one in charge of commissioning novels" and the like. Though it's changed rapidly in the past year you'd be surprised at how little feedback they actually receive. I get this directly from frequent conversation/interviews.

BL and FW are aware of the issues of ticket priority and scalping of models and according to folks attending GW events they are working on it but the more public feedback just ups the speed and chance of improvement. Hell, management was floored when fans put on our own event when they didn't. That changed. So the more the better. Good on ya!

Limiting to one per customer is great, but somehow I've still seen scalpers with maybe 50+ of one per customer things.

Honestly I'd like it to stop too, but there doesn't seem to be much of a way but for people to just stop buying at the scalper's prices or for GW to not make as many things limited edition. Both of those are probably as likely as the other. I do my part mostly by never buying from these scalpers and I can't even remember if I've ever paid the "shiny" tax for something limited edition from GW before.

If you're seeing Scalpers with 50 of supposedly 'one per customer' things, let GW know. It's entirely possible someone somewhere isn't doing their job.

I know this sounds trite, but it's up to us as a community to make displeasure known

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I don't think it is that large an assumption. Consider that I'll get some stuff from Darksphere Games, because their discount is mighty fine, and I can get to their store after work without too much faffing.

That doesn't mean I actually spend less with them - I just buy more, because my money goes that much further.

It's a huge assumption. You're assuming that gamers all have a specific, finite budget that they're going to spend on their hobby every month... and that's simply not true. A lot of us will go for months without buying anything, because there is nothing we currently need. I'll quite often go for long stretches without buying anything... and then when I do come across something I need, I'll just buy it. Budget doesn't enter into it.

So if I pay more for a limited model than I should have, that's not necessarily money that would have gone to another model instead. If there's nothing else I'm looking for right now, it's money that would have gone to something else entirely.

And how can we as customers genuinely judge a sufficient quantity when there's belllends out there snapping them all up to sell on at a substantial mark up?

A model selling out within 3 minutes of listing is a reasonable clue.

The artificial scarcity is unnecessary. If the model is good, it will sell. If it was produced in sufficient quantities to begin with, then scalpers buying a bunch of them aren't actually going to have a significant effect on those customers who want one from the source.

Yet if a hobbyist is willing to pay £39 over the odds, and buy a £56 model for £95, it's likely they have that £95 set aside as part of a gaming budget, whether or not they have a regular, set budget.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And even if I'm wrong on that one (I may well be), it's just a suggested point for a hypothetical letter you may or may not want to send.

Good luck but - not gonna happen, for all the reasons that came up in the previous scalping discussions. Sorry.

They have been limiting models to 1 or 2 at recent events. And reviewing the 4 ticket limit from the Horus Heresy weekender, for example.

My solution for scalpers is simple.

Don't buy what they're selling until they reduce their price to retail.

Once they get stuck with a bunch of product nobody wants, or they get hosed for a bundle of cash, they'll stop.

In the meantime, if that means I miss out on some stuff, so be it. It's not worth enriching some greedy SOB over.

I don't get this. Are you blaming the people again? How about GW not making so less of a product and actually fill demand and not create artificial hype?

As far as pre-release models go, sure limit 1 per customer. I know from threads on Heresy 30k that you can get rain-checks on the limited models and they'll send you them after the event. It would make sense to do the same with the standard pre-release. At the end of the day the only real offense done to you is that you have to wait a few extra months for something. Not that big of a deal really.

But for limited edition stuff, if you don't live in the UK you basically have no access to it. If I want limited character models from the weekenders I have to either go through scalpers or get someone attending the event to snag me one. This whole thing implies if I dont want to spend $2K on round trip airfare then i shouldn't be allowed to purchase a model for a relatively small markup. Yea sure a scalper makes money by selling the same object, but they create extra value by selling it a certain way. I am willing to pay a few extra if i'm pretty sure i will never have another chance to buy the model.

I'll throw my hat in. I heavily dislike scalpers. However, I can't exactly blame people for being business savvy; my brother resells a few LE GW items from time to time - it's not on the scale of some of these scalpers I see out there, or even in the same profit margins, and I have expressed to him that it's not the nicest thing you can do, but I can't fault him wanting to make a bit of money selling stuff off.

It is a dick move, but business is full of dick moves. It should be more of a warning sign to businesses that demand is far outweighing supply, and that they should do something about that. It's a win win situation - GW would make more money, and people would get what they want without having to pay a "too late buddy" premium.

I think your community is a nice idea though, especially when you're giving to people who have zero opportunity to get certain items themselves. Definitely keep it up, but don't expect your efforts to have a significant effect on scalpers - it's on GW to solve that problem with their exclusivity.

G.A

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Yet if a hobbyist is willing to pay £39 over the odds, and buy a £56 model for £95, it's likely they have that £95 set aside as part of a gaming budget, whether or not they have a regular, set budget.

If they don't have a set budget, they're unlikely to have money set aside as part of a budget.


All that someone buying an expensive model shows is that they wanted that expensive model enough to pay that much for it. It means absolutely nothing about their purchasing habits overall.



Honestly, though, I'm not sure what you expect this 'hypothetical' letter to achieve. GW are well aware of the second-hand market on their miniatures. Various GW people have commented over the years on it (I recall a comment from a Games Day some years back from one of the studio old-timers to the effect that far more copies of Sergeant Centurius had been sold on eBay than were ever made by GW), and there were rumours a few years back (around about the time that GW"s current insane US online sales policy went into effect) that GW had tried to issue eBay with a Cease and Desist to force them to remove all auctions with GW products.

They know full well that there is a demand for limited edition product, and that some amount of it will be bought and immediately flipped onto auction sites. The lack of action on their part isn't from a lack of knowledge. So long as they get their sale price, they're unlikely to care.

 Miindhaze wrote:
As far as pre-release models go, sure limit 1 per customer. I know from threads on Heresy 30k that you can get rain-checks on the limited models and they'll send you them after the event. It would make sense to do the same with the standard pre-release. At the end of the day the only real offense done to you is that you have to wait a few extra months for something. Not that big of a deal really.

But for limited edition stuff, if you don't live in the UK you basically have no access to it. If I want limited character models from the weekenders I have to either go through scalpers or get someone attending the event to snag me one. This whole thing implies if I dont want to spend $2K on round trip airfare then i shouldn't be allowed to purchase a model for a relatively small markup. Yea sure a scalper makes money by selling the same object, but they create extra value by selling it a certain way. I am willing to pay a few extra if i'm pretty sure i will never have another chance to buy the model.

Which means you're exactly the sort that could benefit from my group

Isn't this just a complaint against the basics of business and capitalism? I mean, buy low, sell high is literally what makes business work. Someone acquires something and adds value, be that by processing it, adding things to it, or moving it to a different geographical location.

In this instance, someone is taking a model that is not available in one place (the internet), and making it available there for a set fee (their profit). If they do it badly and charge too much, nobody will buy it, and they have to be concerned about others doing the same thing and undercutting them. It is, at its core though, basic business.

It's not scalping, anymore than it is scalping when my friend who runs a game stall at conventions goes to Japan, buys a load of merch cheap, and then comes back and sells it at a profit. I mean, sure, I bet his customers would love to be able to be able to purchase from his stall at the price in Japan. Much like I'm sure people would love to pay the FW event only price. But my friends customers are not prepared to go to Japan, and these warhammer customers are not prepared to attend the event. So the middleman attends, buys what he can, and then makes it available. In exchange, he makes whatever profit he feels is suitable/viable.

Seriously, this is literally basic business 101, the foundation of capitalism. It's not unethical.

It's a noble effort but probably will come to nothing.
GW should make enough product to supply the demand.
Which in turn would stop the practice in it's tracks.

There's no real purpose served in arguing about the rights and wrongs here.

MDG's underlying point is simply:

[to make the group's] distaste and displeasure at the Scalpers Market known, and asking [GW's] collusion in trying to nip it in the bud at source.

...which I think is entirely fair. Certainly no harm can be done by letting GW know what a group of gamers/collectors/enthusiasts feel. I don't know what, if any, effect it'll have, but GW certainly do seem to be listening these days.

If it works to make some people happier – either by increasing the amount produced, reducing the amount of limited material buyable in one go, or simply making things awkward for 'business-scale' scalpers – I think that's a fairly laudable aim.

On a personal note, I was disappointed that the Blood Bowl snow pitch sold out within a day. I wrote to Games Workshop to let them know. Later, I checked ebay, to find nearly a dozen on sale for twice (or more) the RRP. It took a few minutes out of my day to politely let GW know there's at least one potential buyer if they do a reprint (I've no intention of paying more than GW's asking price). Maybe it'll help, maybe it won't, but I haven't lost anything.

This group seems to serve a similar purpose.

If I'm right in thinking, they're re-printing the Winter Pitch

That's certainly good news! For reference, here's their initial reply.

Thanks for contacting us, and we are sorry to inform that the Blood Bowl pitch: Blood on the Snow is no longer available and we have no stock left, so I'm afraid that we cannot offer one to you.

Currently now, we have no plans to release it again. Our best suggestion is to keep an eye in our website and/or in our monthly magazine White Dwarf.

If they are reprinting stuff like this, that's presumably a sign that they are aware of the disappointment people feel, even if it's not directly a case of squeaky wheels getting the grease.

Either way, I'll cross my fingers! thanks for the heads-up

I'm certain I read that somewhere, either online or WD - most likely online, given WD's lead times!

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
If you're seeing Scalpers with 50 of supposedly 'one per customer' things, let GW know. It's entirely possible someone somewhere isn't doing their job.

I know this sounds trite, but it's up to us as a community to make displeasure known

I have no idea who to point such a thing to or what GW can really even do about it.

I dont see a problem with scalpers honestly.
It is a fair way to make money and get it to people who missed it the first time

Who missed it the first time cause these guys bought a good chunk of a store's stock to sell for almost twice the price.

 Ketara wrote:
Isn't this just a complaint against the basics of business and capitalism? I mean, buy low, sell high is literally what makes business work. Someone acquires something and adds value, be that by processing it, adding things to it, or moving it to a different geographical location.

In this instance, someone is taking a model that is not available in one place (the internet), and making it available there for a set fee (their profit). If they do it badly and charge too much, nobody will buy it, and they have to be concerned about others doing the same thing and undercutting them. It is, at its core though, basic business.

It's not scalping, anymore than it is scalping when my friend who runs a game stall at conventions goes to Japan, buys a load of merch cheap, and then comes back and sells it at a profit. I mean, sure, I bet his customers would love to be able to be able to purchase from his stall at the price in Japan. Much like I'm sure people would love to pay the FW event only price. But my friends customers are not prepared to go to Japan, and these warhammer customers are not prepared to attend the event. So the middleman attends, buys what he can, and then makes it available. In exchange, he makes whatever profit he feels is suitable/viable.

Seriously, this is literally basic business 101, the foundation of capitalism. It's not unethical.

I really couldn't have put it any better myself, have an exalt.

The OP's heart is in the right place, but raging against "scalpers" is like raging against capitalism, something that should be confined to sixth form common rooms.

Any beef should be directed at GW themselves for engineering scarcity.

 Undead_Love-Machine wrote:

Any beef should be directed at GW themselves for engineering scarcity.

This is the biggest issue, IMHO.

"Sir, we sold out all of our stock in 1 minute!"

"Great! Er, how many was that, exactly?"

"100! We even have 10,000 emails in the last 2 days angry that we didn't make more!"

"...Why didn't we make 10,000 to begin with?"

"They might not sell out in 1 minue!"

"..."

I agree on the limit per person, or make it 2 at the very most.
Tired of endlessly seeing items sold out in minutes then someone claiming they managed to buy 10 or so just to sell on.



Shame nothing can be done about ebay either.
Usual bastard on there buying all the epic tyranid and tripling the price as he is the only seller.
While I have a personal collection I could flood the market with and try to lower prices, I'm not selling off a 10 year collection because someone is being a dick on eBay.

You're not going to stop scalpers.

Even if you limit it to one item per person you're not going to stop scalpers. There are two scalpers in my area that the shops won't sell to because they know what they do with them and they still manage to get a bunch of a limited item and then ebay scalp it for exponential amounts of money than they paid.

They do it through the utilization of a base human instinct: greed.

It takes little effort for them to go "hey cousin bill, i need you to go to the gw webpage at precisely 1:00 pm EST when this thing drops and order this item. I will reimburse you plus give you $10 or whatever you want (and then I'll sell it for 4x the amount)"

They have a load of people that will order the stuff for them to get whatever it is that he's offering them to take the 2 minutes to do this.

They brag about how easy it is.

Why don't GW make more?

I can't answer that as I'm not GW, but my intuition says that in the past they have had a ton of crap languishing in warehouses not selling and they don't want that again so they limit production runs of items.

To them, they want to make X from a limited run. They easily make X so they have met their goal.

You want to stop scalpers you have to affect the demand. While there are tons and tons of gamers willing to drop $200 on a dice cube, you are going to continue to be scalped.

You want to stop that? Increase the supply of the items that are in high demand.. prices will go down to a point where it's not worth it anymore.
By reducing the supply even further you will actually make the "problem" worse.
The prices are so high because people are willing to pay that, because they have no other way (a good is always worth what people are willing to pay and that jazz).

Cheers

If people really want the model that badly and are prepared to pay for it, then that's up to them. Scalpers just fulfil a need.

I don't understand the 'that's just capitalism' argument people keep citing. GW is the supplier, and whether or not they implement a one-per-customer policy is their business; their ability to do so is also capitalism, and that too is limited.

Ultimately if you can convince GW that it's in their interest to take action against against resellers one of the easiest and least obtrusive methods for combating is to abandon event exclusives entirely. Release the new model at your event at a certain price and then start selling it on your website the following week. If your markup for selling it online beats their markup (or frankly, even comes close) you win, and you've dealt a blog to any of them that haven't moved product yet.

An even meaner way to do it is to immediately announce you're taking the above action based on how quickly the event units sold. GW took similar action when they did the resin Cannoness.

 n0t_u wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
If you're seeing Scalpers with 50 of supposedly 'one per customer' things, let GW know. It's entirely possible someone somewhere isn't doing their job.

I know this sounds trite, but it's up to us as a community to make displeasure known

I have no idea who to point such a thing to or what GW can really even do about it.

Print more, so the scalpers don't have a market?

n0t_u wrote:Who missed it the first time cause these guys bought a good chunk of a store's stock to sell for almost twice the price.

And wouldn't have happened in the first place if GW made enough product in the first place.

That said, just show GW the numbers that the money they could have made instead of the money going else where. So instead of worrying about scalpers, just worry show GW the money they could have had.

But then if that happened, GW would loose all that money on impulse buys. And that is why we have scalpers. Again, impulse buys.

You know, limits on the number of tickets at a concert is relatively sane-- there's literally only so much seating, or if it's standing room, the concert hall is only rated for so much capacity before violating safety regulations, et cetera. But harsh limits on the number of miniatures produced really doesn't make much sense. It literally CREATES scalping for no adequate purpose... unless the maker wants to be screwed out of its money by scalpers.

Basically, GW is working to make scalping appear in the first place-- why would they want to work against it when their apparent goal was to make it happen?

Davor wrote:

n0t_u wrote:Who missed it the first time cause these guys bought a good chunk of a store's stock to sell for almost twice the price.

And wouldn't have happened in the first place if GW made enough product in the first place.

That said, just show GW the numbers that the money they could have made instead of the money going else where. So instead of worrying about scalpers, just worry show GW the money they could have had.

But then if that happened, GW would loose all that money on impulse buys. And that is why we have scalpers. Again, impulse buys.

I don't really know how I can show GW me spending my money elsewhere when they run out of something they decided would be limited edition. But, that's what happens.

 kronk wrote:

 Undead_Love-Machine wrote:

Any beef should be directed at GW themselves for engineering scarcity.

This is the biggest issue, IMHO.

"Sir, we sold out all of our stock in 1 minute!"

"Great! Er, how many was that, exactly?"

"100! We even have 10,000 emails in the last 2 days angry that we didn't make more!"

"...Why didn't we make 10,000 to begin with?"

"They might not sell out in 1 minue!"

"..."

Kronk is right like always

I am patient, i usually buy it of someone after a few years
(and i wonder how many of those first minute buyers are re-casters )

 Melissia wrote:

Basically, GW is working to make scalping appear in the first place-- why would they want to work against it when their apparent goal was to make it happen?

Exactly, the low supply model drives the impulse purchasing they seem to rely on "buy now whilst you still can!" and encourages scalping as it's a sure-fire way to make some money (I was at the last real games day, and they were encouraging everyone to buy loads of the LE models to sell on, even saying "Some guy bought a whole tray of them for eBay").

That they can sell out any limited run (except AoS books) in a short time is great for their business. It's easy, low risk money. If they make too many, then they lose money from (a) having kits left and (b) scalpers buying less due to being burnt. As far as I can tell, they've been burnt pretty badly with things like Space Hulk, where the price dropped below retail on the re-re-release.

Herzlos wrote:

 Melissia wrote:

Basically, GW is working to make scalping appear in the first place-- why would they want to work against it when their apparent goal was to make it happen?

Exactly, the low supply model drives the impulse purchasing they seem to rely on "buy now whilst you still can!" and encourages scalping as it's a sure-fire way to make some money (I was at the last real games day, and they were encouraging everyone to buy loads of the LE models to sell on, even saying "Some guy bought a whole tray of them for eBay").

That they can sell out any limited run (except AoS books) in a short time is great for their business. It's easy, low risk money. If they make too many, then they lose money from (a) having kits left and (b) scalpers buying less due to being burnt. As far as I can tell, they've been burnt pretty badly with things like Space Hulk, where the price dropped below retail on the re-re-release.

This is quite true; GW is really the core of problem and could solve it comparatively easily by more accurately gauging market demand. They choose not to because they would rather not expend the efforts on market research (which to be fair isn't free) and instead crow about the number of releases that sold out within hours. Disinterested investors (i.e. - the people GW actually care about) hear "demand is high for our products" and leave the money alone; since they're disinterested they don't ask themselves "how much MORE money could have been made?" which is a missed opportunity and harder to see from a distance compared to concrete losses on products that stop moving. An activist investment firm might look into things and then very uncomfortable questions might be raised such as what StarBoard did to Darden Foods, but I doubt that such an investor is interested in a comparatively small fish like GW; there's likely not THAT much extra money being left on the table nor will it result in a huge surge in the stock price to make such efforts worthwhile.

So unless GW decides to stop leaving money on the table, which historically has been an huge weak point for the company, it will continue to produce the "scalper" market. A per-customer limit doesn't work in a world where email accounts and friends with shipping addresses are nearly-free and measures beyond that become insanely draconian for toy soldiers. As many have said this boils down to basic supply vs. demand; where there is demand someone will attempt to buy up the supply and raise the prices. The solution is to increase the supply to meet demand. If the scalpers are unable to corner the market, they are unable to raise the price. They tend to disappear at that point since there's no money to be made.

n0t_u wrote:

Davor wrote:

n0t_u wrote:Who missed it the first time cause these guys bought a good chunk of a store's stock to sell for almost twice the price.

And wouldn't have happened in the first place if GW made enough product in the first place.

That said, just show GW the numbers that the money they could have made instead of the money going else where. So instead of worrying about scalpers, just worry show GW the money they could have had.

But then if that happened, GW would loose all that money on impulse buys. And that is why we have scalpers. Again, impulse buys.

I don't really know how I can show GW me spending my money elsewhere when they run out of something they decided would be limited edition. But, that's what happens.

Call Customer Support and tell them. I did that. I love it. They can't say anything but that we have the right to do. They don't even have an answer. I would call them and say "because you make this limited edition or limited release and is already sold out before orders are taken, I wanted to buy it, but now you didn't make enough, you don't have my money." Then the poor soul will say "but we have this and that" and I would have to reply "but I don't want this or that. I wanted IT. Since I can't have IT, my interest in the range is gone. If I am going to have to buy something else, I will buy your competitors stuff that I know I CAN GET and not be frustrated when a company turns me a way since they don't want my money."

They never have an answer for them not wanting my money on products I want. lol

Or you could be more constructive about it?

Scalpers are annoying, But that is about it. Its also up to GW how they want to handle there market. If they make Something limited it will hold value as a limited or a collectors item.

People will take the risk on the item and put down for more than one, and try to sell on. There is no way to go against this other than inform GW you do not like the limited market they create.

Honestly all of these problems are things that exist in every market, and will never stop. It's how it works. If you want that limited model you show up early, he'll every limited release GW has I'm always waiting in front of the store a good 2 hours before its open so I can garuntee I get one.

That's what it takes if you really want it. I don't have a problem with people buying 3 or 4. That said, if you are the first and buy the whole stock, yeah your a dick but guess what, those are the Kinda people that get driven out of the hobby becuase no one wants to deal with them.

Yeah it sucks but hey, it's kinda the way it works.

Davor wrote:

n0t_u wrote:

Davor wrote:

n0t_u wrote:Who missed it the first time cause these guys bought a good chunk of a store's stock to sell for almost twice the price.

And wouldn't have happened in the first place if GW made enough product in the first place.

That said, just show GW the numbers that the money they could have made instead of the money going else where. So instead of worrying about scalpers, just worry show GW the money they could have had.

But then if that happened, GW would loose all that money on impulse buys. And that is why we have scalpers. Again, impulse buys.

I don't really know how I can show GW me spending my money elsewhere when they run out of something they decided would be limited edition. But, that's what happens.

Call Customer Support and tell them. I did that. I love it. They can't say anything but that we have the right to do. They don't even have an answer. I would call them and say "because you make this limited edition or limited release and is already sold out before orders are taken, I wanted to buy it, but now you didn't make enough, you don't have my money." Then the poor soul will say "but we have this and that" and I would have to reply "but I don't want this or that. I wanted IT. Since I can't have IT, my interest in the range is gone. If I am going to have to buy something else, I will buy your competitors stuff that I know I CAN GET and not be frustrated when a company turns me a way since they don't want my money."

They never have an answer for them not wanting my money on products I want. lol

You sound like a barrel of laughs. You ever worked customer service?

 Ketara wrote:

Davor wrote:

n0t_u wrote:

Davor wrote:

n0t_u wrote:Who missed it the first time cause these guys bought a good chunk of a store's stock to sell for almost twice the price.

And wouldn't have happened in the first place if GW made enough product in the first place.

That said, just show GW the numbers that the money they could have made instead of the money going else where. So instead of worrying about scalpers, just worry show GW the money they could have had.

But then if that happened, GW would loose all that money on impulse buys. And that is why we have scalpers. Again, impulse buys.

I don't really know how I can show GW me spending my money elsewhere when they run out of something they decided would be limited edition. But, that's what happens.

Call Customer Support and tell them. I did that. I love it. They can't say anything but that we have the right to do. They don't even have an answer. I would call them and say "because you make this limited edition or limited release and is already sold out before orders are taken, I wanted to buy it, but now you didn't make enough, you don't have my money." Then the poor soul will say "but we have this and that" and I would have to reply "but I don't want this or that. I wanted IT. Since I can't have IT, my interest in the range is gone. If I am going to have to buy something else, I will buy your competitors stuff that I know I CAN GET and not be frustrated when a company turns me a way since they don't want my money."

They never have an answer for them not wanting my money on products I want. lol

You sound like a barrel of laughs. You ever worked customer service?

What is wrong with Davos' hypothetical? That is one of the most effective ways to voice displeasure with a company, especially one like GW that supposedly doesn't value feedback via e-mails.

I didn't see Davos advocating for being a monster to the customer service representative, which would be uncalled for, but letting the representative know in clear terms that their company's policies are costing them sales might work.

Sure, the rep could just roll their eyes and read boiler plate platitudes until the disappointed customer hangs up, but there is also a chance the call is recorded or otherwise passed up the chain for review. Done enough times maybe something would change. Or maybe not, but calling the company is sure more proactive than yelling about scalpers on the internet.

When someone says 'They never have an answer for them not wanting my money on products I want. lol'? It sounds like they're more interested in trying to put one over the poor sod on the other end of the line than they are giving feedback.
Not to mention that I can guarantee that they do indeed have an answer for the customer in question, namely that they become an ex-customer (though I doubt they'll voice it down the phone).
I mean seriously, it's one thing to send in an email saying, 'I wanted the product but can't get it, that's a spot of my cash you've lost, please produce more in future'. That's fine.

To transplant Davors speech to another company though, it's like me dialling up vic at Vic miniatures and saying:-

'Yeah, you know that Female Commissar you made as an exclusive for Adepticon? '
'Well, I want to buy one.'
'What do you mean you can't sell me one?! The hundred you put up on the webstore as a special have sold out!? '
'Well Vic, I'm afraid I don't want any of your other officer models. I want that one.'
'Since you didn't make enough, you can't have my money! If I can't buy it, my interest in your range is gone! '
'No, I'm going to go and spend my money elsewhere!!! What do you have to say to that, eh?'
'Good day to you!'.

Doesn't sound like a pleasant way of approaching some poor schlub working a phone line, does it?

 Ketara wrote:
When someone says 'They never have an answer for them not wanting my money on products I want. lol'? It sounds like they're more interested in trying to put one over the poor sod on the other end of the line than they are giving feedback.
Not to mention that I can guarantee that they do indeed have an answer for the customer in question, namely that they become an ex-customer (though I doubt they'll voice it down the phone).
I mean seriously, it's one thing to send in an email saying, 'I wanted the product but can't get it, that's a spot of my cash you've lost, please produce more in future'. That's fine.

To transplant Davors speech to another company though, it's like me dialling up vic at Vic miniatures and saying:-

'Yeah, you know that Female Commissar you made as an exclusive for Adepticon?
Well, I want to buy one.
What do you mean you can't sell me one?! The hundred you put up on the webstore as a special have sold out!?
Well Vic, I'm afraid I don't want any of your other officer models. I want that one.
Since you didn't make enough, you can't have my money! If I can't buy it, my interest in your range is gone!
I'm going to go and spend my money elsewhere!!!
Good day to you!'.

Correct me if I am wrong, but hasn't the notion of e-mailing GW and expecting a result been gakked on across Dakka for years? The common knowledge being that GW doesn't respond to e-mails in a serious manner, and that if you want to voice your concerns you write a letter or call because that demonstrates to GW that the customer is serious about their complaint and not just momentarily "venting".

Also, subbing Vic's Miniatures for GW in your example doesn't really do much for your argument in my opinion, and actually, kinda hurts it.

There was an outcry over Vic's Adepticon exclusives, and Vic was good enough to make sure that some models were available for sale outside of the convention. So... feedback works?

 Ketara wrote:
Doesn't sound like a pleasant way of approaching some poor schlub working a phone line, does it?

Yeah, granted, someone answering phones for a company has a gak job. Hearing customer complaints IS their job, though. So, again, I don't see how Davos' hypothetical is a problem. You could delete some of the exclamation points you added and keep those same sentences calm, and collected and convey the pertinent information to the company rep. You seem to be inferring a level of animosity that doesn't have to be present to achieve the results Davos is advocating.

We've ventured into the realm of internet hyperbole. Both on your part and Davos' part, perhaps, but that doesn't change the fact that a call or letter is a valid means of voicing displeasure with a company.

The point is you can tell a company why their exclusive policy is turning you away as a customer (without being an ass about it) and maybe that will affect change.

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:

Correct me if I am wrong, but hasn't the notion of e-mailing GW and expecting a result been gakked on across Dakka for years? The common knowledge being that GW doesn't respond to e-mails in a serious manner, and that if you want to voice your concerns you write a letter or call because that demonstrates to GW that the customer is serious about their complaint and not just momentarily "venting".

Whether they pay attention to your email or not is up to them. If the goal is to make your opinion heard, the email achieves the same thing. Whether they choose to pay attention to either is a different matter.

Also, subbing Vic's Miniatures for GW in your example doesn't really do much for your argument in my opinion, and actually, kinda hurts it.

There was an outcry over Vic's Adepticon exclusives, and Vic was good enough to make sure that some models were available for sale outside of the convention. So... feedback works?

Sure. Point out where I said giving feedback was a bad idea, and it might have something to do with something I said.

Yeah, granted, someone answering phones for a company has a gak job. Hearing customer complaints IS their job, though. So, again, I don't see how Davos' hypothetical is a problem. You could delete some of the exclamation points you added and keep those same sentences calm, and collected and convey the pertinent information to the company rep. You seem to be inferring a level of animosity that doesn't have to be present to achieve the results Davos is advocating.

No? I'll be blunt, the ''They never have an answer for them not wanting my money on products I want. lol' imparts the level of glee in the supposed discomfort/wordlessness of the person on the other end of the phone that tells you what sort of context the conversation is happening in. The only other way it could potentially be read is as someone who was frustrated ('They never have an answer' implying that a solution was desired), but the 'lol' puts paid to that interpretation of the sentence.

You can choose to read it in some other way if you like, but that's how it read to me.

Scalper fail??

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Brother-Corbulo-by-Lutz/dp/B01LVZ8S59/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1485286698&sr=8-1&keywords=corbulo

Actually, I sort of understand why GW has such limited release numbers. It falls out like this:

1.) Warehouse space is expensive. People don't get this sometimes, but warehouse space is commercial space and it's expensive to rent. The larger a run of minis you do, the more space you need just to handle that run. Go to any Kickstarter to see how easily the producers are overwhelmed by the space requirements of a single run of their Kickstarter release.

2.) When people know something is a limited release, they're more likely to buy it NOW rather than later. If you don't buy it NOW, you might not get it at all. This stops people from going, "Eh, looks nice, but I have a backlog of 50 minis, I'll buy it once that's done." This ties into warehouse space - if a run sells out, you need less warehouse space because you don't have to hold it.

Basically, it's a balancing act between a set amount of guaranteed profits (limited release) and a potentially larger profit that might get eaten up by warehouse expenses if you over-produce.

Now, in theory, you could adjust your manufacturing based on pre-orders - i.e. produce as much as you get pre-order plus a set amount based on experience, but there are also things like lead times to printing, casting and packaging that makes this less efficient, cost wise. Having to do a 2nd or 3rd run of the same thing increases set-up costs and cuts into profits (a larger, single run is the most cost effective).

Now, more sales = more profits, but the way they've structured themselves, GW ALWAYS has new releases to sell out quickly, so their turn around on their money is exceptionally rapid, and that's a thing businesses care a LOT about. It's not just about how many absolute dollars you could make from a run, how fast you can get your return on investment is important, because no business likes having money sit in inventory - they often need money for things like paying staff and paying dividends to investors.

TL;DR: Artificial scarcity reduces GW's return on investment time and cuts down on warehouse expenses.

 Ketara wrote:

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:

Correct me if I am wrong, but hasn't the notion of e-mailing GW and expecting a result been gakked on across Dakka for years? The common knowledge being that GW doesn't respond to e-mails in a serious manner, and that if you want to voice your concerns you write a letter or call because that demonstrates to GW that the customer is serious about their complaint and not just momentarily "venting".

Whether they pay attention to your email or not is up to them. If the goal is to make your opinion heard, the email achieves the same thing. Whether they choose to pay attention to either is a different matter.

Oh, I see, so achieving an effective result isn't desired here. We are just spinning our wheels? Despite your dodge, e-mailing GW doesn't work. Don't go all alt-fact here and pretend that e-mailing GW hasn't been a known dead end for YEARS on Dakka. It ranks up there with online petitions in effectiveness.

 Ketara wrote:

Also, subbing Vic's Miniatures for GW in your example doesn't really do much for your argument in my opinion, and actually, kinda hurts it.

There was an outcry over Vic's Adepticon exclusives, and Vic was good enough to make sure that some models were available for sale outside of the convention. So... feedback works?

Sure. Point out where I said giving feedback was a bad idea, and it might have something to do with something I said.

Vic Miniatures is an example of public feedback changing a company's policy on exclusive releases. You were trying to use her as a foil to prove how rude Davos' hypoethetical conversation was, but you also shined a light on a company that changed its exclusive policy after vocal feedback from customers. That seems on point to me. Your advocating e-mailing (which again, has been shown to not work with GW) seems counter productive to dealing with the scalper/LE issue.

 Ketara wrote:
No? I'll be blunt, the ''They never have an answer for them not wanting my money on products I want. lol' imparts the level of glee in the supposed discomfort/wordlessness of the person on the other end of the phone that tells you what sort of context the conversation is happening in. The only other way it could potentially be read is as someone who was frustrated ('They never have an answer' implying that a solution was desired), but the 'lol' puts paid to that interpretation of the sentence.

You can choose to read it in some other way if you like, but that's how it read to me.

So your feathers are ruffled because of internet hyperbole. Gotcha. You know that the content of Davos' hypoethetical could be conveyed in a polite manner. That is the point. Contacting customer service is a good avenue for getting your opinion to be heard by a company, GW especially.

I understand you have a dislike of how Davos phrased things, but you seem to purposely being obtuse over the effectiveness of directly contacting GW in order to defend your position of... politeness? Just stop pretending e-mailing is more effective than a phone call. It isn't. You and I both know that.

Something else to consider regarding the "they never have an answer" line. How many reps would know how to respond to that sort of complaint? I bet not many, and it likely does cause a bit of a furor in the CS department. Which is the point, surely on the customer's part. They want the company to take action, and if you hit a customer service representative with a problem that they can't answer properly that sort of thing often gets run up the chain and gets more notice from the higher ups.

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:
[What is wrong with Davos' hypothetical? That is one of the most effective ways to voice displeasure with a company, especially one like GW that supposedly doesn't value feedback via e-mails.

I didn't see Davos advocating for being a monster to the customer service representative, which would be uncalled for, but letting the representative know in clear terms that their company's policies are costing them sales might work.

Sure, the rep could just roll their eyes and read boiler plate platitudes until the disappointed customer hangs up, but there is also a chance the call is recorded or otherwise passed up the chain for review. Done enough times maybe something would change. Or maybe not, but calling the company is sure more proactive than yelling about scalpers on the internet.

I was very polite about it when I called. I guess I am old school so don't do the email thing but do the phone thing. Surprisingly the gentleman on the other end of the line really listened to what I had to say. The rep said there is nothing he can do but fully understands, and I said I fully understand, but I just wanted to say and if he could pass it up the line. He said he wolud and was very pleasant as well.

I know nothing came out of it, but at least I tried, doing it the old way.

Davor wrote:

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:
[What is wrong with Davos' hypothetical? That is one of the most effective ways to voice displeasure with a company, especially one like GW that supposedly doesn't value feedback via e-mails.

I didn't see Davos advocating for being a monster to the customer service representative, which would be uncalled for, but letting the representative know in clear terms that their company's policies are costing them sales might work.

Sure, the rep could just roll their eyes and read boiler plate platitudes until the disappointed customer hangs up, but there is also a chance the call is recorded or otherwise passed up the chain for review. Done enough times maybe something would change. Or maybe not, but calling the company is sure more proactive than yelling about scalpers on the internet.

I was very polite about it when I called. I guess I am old school so don't do the email thing but do the phone thing. Surprisingly the gentleman on the other end of the line really listened to what I had to say. The rep said there is nothing he can do but fully understands, and I said I fully understand, but I just wanted to say and if he could pass it up the line. He said he wolud and was very pleasant as well.

I know nothing came out of it, but at least I tried, doing it the old way.

And that is exactly how the conversation should go. And I bet it did register with someone higher up.

GW seems much more open to engagement with their customer base over the last year, so all the more reason to reach out to them in meaningful ways in order to convey customer concerns.

 Ketara wrote:
When someone says 'They never have an answer for them not wanting my money on products I want. lol'? It sounds like they're more interested in trying to put one over the poor sod on the other end of the line than they are giving feedback.
Not to mention that I can guarantee that they do indeed have an answer for the customer in question, namely that they become an ex-customer (though I doubt they'll voice it down the phone).
I mean seriously, it's one thing to send in an email saying, 'I wanted the product but can't get it, that's a spot of my cash you've lost, please produce more in future'. That's fine.

To transplant Davors speech to another company though, it's like me dialling up vic at Vic miniatures and saying:-

'Yeah, you know that Female Commissar you made as an exclusive for Adepticon? '
'Well, I want to buy one.'
'What do you mean you can't sell me one?! The hundred you put up on the webstore as a special have sold out!? '
'Well Vic, I'm afraid I don't want any of your other officer models. I want that one.'
'Since you didn't make enough, you can't have my money! If I can't buy it, my interest in your range is gone! '
'No, I'm going to go and spend my money elsewhere!!! What do you have to say to that, eh?'
'Good day to you!'.

Doesn't sound like a pleasant way of approaching some poor schlub working a phone line, does it?

It's also cowardly and childish.

That spod on the end of the phone? What say do you think they actually have in the matter? Do you honestly believe they can just order up a production run at the drop of a hat, or the call of someone being understandably disappointed but incredibly unreasonable? There are many ways to express dissatisfaction and frustration, and a great deal of them are actually quite constructive. That's what my email and letter writing campaign is trying to achieve.

It's like when people don't like my assessments at work. There's absolutlely no point getting out of your pram in my direction. I'm not the FCA, I'm not the FSCS. I don't make the rules - and I go where the evidence takes me. I get they're disappointed - sadly some of my assessments have the potential to ruin an individuals life (yes, I hate having to deliver those ones - but that's part and parcel of the job). But how much empathy do you think I'll have if you kick off at me, even when I didn't issue the assessment?

It may ultimately come to naught - but at least I'll have said my piece, yes?

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:

Oh, I see, so achieving an effective result isn't desired here. We are just spinning our wheels? Despite your dodge.....[insert tedious back and forth]

Dodge? Mate, you seem far too invested in trying to get into an argument with me. I read a comment, and thought it sounded like the sort of one that as a customer service fellow, I would have hated dealing with, on account of the fact they seem more interested in putting one over you than anything else. And commented along those lines. You can think differently if you like, I couldn't give a smeg.

If you have that much time to waste, and that much of a desire to argue over something this pointless, the OT forum is down at the bottom of the main forum page with sundry suitable topics.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
There are many ways to express dissatisfaction and frustration, and a great deal of them are actually quite constructive. That's what my email and letter writing campaign is trying to achieve.

If you could scrape together a petition/group nlist with enough names for a limited release reserve service, that might do something? GW knows it gets guaranteed sales then, and you know you get the models. Couldn't hurt to see if you could approach them with something like that in mind, although you'd probably need a few hundred people to pull it off.

I'm still not seeing what this crusade is trying to achieve? You want to stop GW selling to flippers, so that the "average gamer" can access models? How do you propose they police buyers? Background checks? And if its a "one per customer" and I want to buy a model each for two children as a xmas gift, would I not be allowed, so am robbing someone who wants one from getting one as one child would have to go without?

Tyranno wrote:
Scalper fail??

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Brother-Corbulo-by-Lutz/dp/B01LVZ8S59/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1485286698&sr=8-1&keywords=corbulo

Questions listed about that item...

There is nothing wrong with limiting limited ed items to 1 to 2 per person. However they will still be scalped just a bit more time consuming and annoying for the scalpers. It would behoove gw though to track the shipping address items are shipped to as well and prevent multiple copies. That would be a more annoying issue for scalpers.

Davor wrote:
I just wanted to say and if he could pass it up the line. He said he would and was very pleasant as well.

Snipped and highlighted for focus.

I severely doubt he did so. I really, really do. He will tell you that to give you the desired "customer experience" slot on his call (which is requested from his superiors if his call is selected for analysis) which is designed to make the customer feel as though you were listened to and taken into account. In the end, I doubt he even noted down what you said.

Do note that my cynicism is not directed at you, Davor, just at that specific procedure itself.

The problem with limiting scalpers is gw really doesn't care. The idea is to sell the entire production run. How that occurs doesn't matter.

On the flip side gw has an entire supply/marketing team trying to figure out the exact amount needed to sell off thier entire stock without keeping inventory. Print on demand is the new gw policy. Certain limited stock doesn't sell fast enough such as The new 40k game mats. Some sell extremely fast bloofbowl winter pitch. It's a guessing game and the marketing team isn't really good at it. But if substantial enough demand exists they will create another production run as in the winter pitch.

However o don't see gw artificially limiting sales. At best they can limit to some thing like 5 to customer outside any retailer supply.

I thought GW's attempt to kill of scalpers was called Dreadfleet.

 Lithlandis Stormcrow wrote:

Davor wrote:
I just wanted to say and if he could pass it up the line. He said he would and was very pleasant as well.

Snipped and highlighted for focus.

I severely doubt he did so. I really, really do. He will tell you that to give you the desired "customer experience" slot on his call (which is requested from his superiors if his call is selected for analysis) which is designed to make the customer feel as though you were listened to and taken into account. In the end, I doubt he even noted down what you said.

Do note that my cynicism is not directed at you, Davor, just at that specific procedure itself.

It's actually just as likely he did. Not every customer service agent says meaningless platitudes to get the call done. The thing is, though, "passing it up the line" doesn't necessarily mean it goes to the ears it actually needs to reach. I know I would tell my supervisor something a customer asked me to, but then it was up to him if he wanted to continue passing it up, or bring it up in a meeting, or implement a solution himself if he could. I did what was asked by the customer, and it's just as likely this customer service rep did as well.

Good luck with this.

As a fan of live music, I have an intense, deep-rooted hatred of scalpers. The old "blame the company that made it limited" canard holds no water when we're talking about finite venue spaces.

To be honest, if scalpers are even partially to blame for helping stock run out, then that argument still holds no water. They're not providing a "service" if we would have been better off without their interference.

Excellent idea. Death to scalpers!

(Or at the very least a massive drop in their sales)

Joined.

Why all the hate for 'Scalpers'? This individual has done nothing wrong, they’ve supported the original creator, providing their asking price for a product. Should they then sell that product at a higher price, then so be it. This is what a Supply Chain does, everyone supports it every time they buy anything from anywhere other than the original producer. You don’t accuse WallMart of ‘Scalping’ because they mark up a product to sell at retail for more than they actually paid for it?

If I buy a mini at $25, and then am able to sell it at $50 due to its limited run or whatever, I’d argue that I’m selling it on at market value (because that’s what the market will pay). The original seller, should have sold their product for more than $25, as the market will pay for it at that value, or, created more Product. It’s all about Supply and Demand. The original seller can curtail this a bit by not allowing people to buy multiple copies of the same item.

If you don’t wish to support someone making extra $$$ on stuff, then simply don’t purchase from them. Then its over. If no one buys from the Scalper, then Game Over for them.

Here’s another example. Someone selling a rare Star Wars toy for $5,000. That’s the market value for this collectable. Are they now a ‘Scalper’ because 30 years ago, they only paid $2 for it? Should they now just sell the item at the value they paid (plus escalation)? So is everyone who sells an item on for more than they paid for it a ‘Scalper’? If you wish to stop this practise, then there are 3 ways.

1. – Don’t buy it. Seller is lumbered with something they can’t sell and losses $$$.
2. – Original retailer sells more of the same product, thus eliminating the 2nd hand market.
3. – Original retailer increases the price of their product to what the market will pay.

The Scalper is not the source of the problem, so why demonise them? It’s the limited supply, and the high demand to buy that is. The Scalper will always be present, only when the Supply is increased or the Demand reduces will the Scalper be defunct. If no one re-sold, then it still doesn’t help the “Waaagghh I want one” crowd, because of the limited supply and the demand. If the creator of the Product didn't create the 'limited' supply environment, the issue goes away. The point is, it’s the product creator, or the demand for the Product which creates the environment for the Scalper to operate in.

I don’t criticise the Scalper. They are providing a means for someone to purchase something that they would not be able to do. The problem is with the Limited Supply, or the society which demands it. Again, take away the demand, or increase the supply, and the Scalper fails to operate.

^ That star wars toy one may be a bad example. SW collectors got bitten bad by a repacking scam.

One of the "valuers" used by collectors and some cronies had found a pile of unused Kenner cardbacks and blisters, and was putting out-of-box merch back into them, after a touch up - and artificially inflating the values (selling NIB stuff as MIB).

Part of the problem, though.

If someone is reselling merch from X, and the price is not unreasonable, I'll pay the price if I want it.
If it's too high, I don't.

Admittedly, I sometimes do my part to drive up the prices of LE stuff. I've melted down LE metal figures after removing bits for conversions. There are now fewer of them, so the value of the others does go up marginally.

Playing Malifaux, I buy from 'scalpers' occasionally, since Wyrd do a lot of LE models all available in various ways.

I paid $110au for Santana Ortega. I got a Through the Breach Kickstarter Exclusive Hannah model in a larger set of stuff, but she would have cost double that by herself. Neither of these are available anymore.

I bought various other LE models - Miss Terious, alternate Bayou Gremlin, alternate Performer, Amelia Bathorys (alternate Nicodem) from various people on eBay or at my FLGS. Miss Terious because she is always immediately sold out in their sales, and the other three because they were rewards for spending certain amounts of money during Black Friday which was just too rich for me (IIRC they were rewards for spending $300).

I recently bought a set of 5 'guilders', which everyone gets for playing in official Wyrd tournaments, which can be traded back to Wyrd for LE models that you can only get this way. My FLGS doesn't have official events or a henchman to run them, so I have no way to get these guilders.

I'm honestly not seeing what the problem is. They're limited edition models that people have either bought intentionally to resell, which hey, more power to them, or people got rewards they didn't want and sold them on for make a bit of the money they spent back.

Like chromedog says, if the price is too high, I'm not going to pay their price. But if I don't mind the price they're asking, and I have the money, I see no issue with the secondary market reselling LE models.

 chromedog wrote:
^ That star wars toy one may be a bad example. SW collectors got bitten bad by a repacking scam..

The fact that the goods being sold were dodgy in that specific example doesn't change the point, though, which is simply: how long do you have to hang onto something for before it stops being 'scalping' and starts being 'selling a collectible'...?

I think this is more aimed at the people that go into a store (or online) and buy up every pack of dice/LE models/etc. knowing that they will then be able to sell these on instantly at an insane profit, thus denying other hobbyists the chance of owning said items for retail value.

If you buy a model and sell it for a huge profit in XXX years because you held onto it, that's clearly not scalping. That is either luck or incredible foresight.

Scalping is knowingly and purposefully buying more items than you need, purely with the intention of profiteering.

 Pumpkin wrote:
Good luck with this.

As a fan of live music, I have an intense, deep-rooted hatred of scalpers. The old "blame the company that made it limited" canard holds no water when we're talking about finite venue spaces.

To be honest, if scalpers are even partially to blame for helping stock run out, then that argument still holds no water. They're not providing a "service" if we would have been better off without their interference.

(I don't mean to target you, Pumpkin, but you just happened to have a nice post that summarized a lot of the points I wanted to discuss, and on the last page.)

There are a few problems with this argument, but not the post that makes the argument so nicely, that I want to address.

1: Finite venue space is tricky, but that is not the only lever ticket sellers have to see that the people who demand tickets the most get those tickets. The other is price. Raise the price, and people who don't want to go as much** stop wanting tickets, leaving more for everyone else. Ticket sellers do this to a point, charging more or less for better or worse seats, a form of bundling/price discrimination, but over all the value of a sold out show is apparently greater to the seller than the lost revenue from exactly matching supply and demand.

Scalpers then don't make stock run out; it was going to run out in any case. Scalpers rather take on part of the distribution role, selling high to people who value** the tickets more. Their own prices fluctuate based on demand and supply, and they only make money if demand is quite high.

2: The "we" in your sentence "They're not providing a "service" if we would have been better off without their interference." is incorrect. That is to say, you are breaking the world up into sellers, scalpers and buyers, but buyers in this case is a more heterogeneous group, one that competes against itself. If we consider buyers who have time to camp the limited edition items and those who don't as two different groups, that competition becomes clear. Those who camp have more time than money in some sense, and so are better off if the price is low but they have to spend time camping the site. Those who have more money than time, however, are made worse off, as they would happily pay more for the item but can't spend the time. Scalpers help the low time group a great deal, as evidenced by the higher prices they receive.
(That assumes that everyone values the item the same. There is also the question of those who don't really care about the item vs those who value it a lot. Unless having the time to camp the site correlates perfectly with how much you value the item, it is likely that there will be a loss in well being there too.)
Now, that does put a small premium on those who spend money instead of time to get the item. That is very often a problem not matter what, although price discrimination gets around it sometimes. P.D. doesn't work though with things like tickets to a concert that are so easy to trade.

So, yea, scalpers (or any sort of reseller/retailer) are not the problem when it comes to scarcity. If anything, they help reduce scarcity by increasing the cash price of the good which serves as a signal to any manufacturer paying attention that there is much more demand than supply. One feels a bit for those who spend time instead of money or other physical resource to get things, but it is important to remember that the time "spent" isn't received by anyone else, it is just lost. Waiting in line is one of the least efficient ways to determine who gets something, as the suppliers are not made better off, and so have no more incentive to produce more.
Now, perhaps ideally limited run items would be auctioned off in a discriminatory price auction, or perhaps a Vickrey-Clarke-Groves auction. Really, any auction that allows buyers to 1: set their desired price per unit, 2: set desired units, and 3: allowed for the top X bids on X items to be accepted, where X is the number of units being sold. Then you could have people who are willing to pay 100$ for the item get it, as well as those who want to pay 30$, so long as there are enough units to cover all those folks. At least then the company gets to retain all of the earnings from selling the items, instead of middle men like scalpers. The company also gets a really nice set of data representing the demand curve for their product, which is basically what you pay marketing companies millions of dollars to do.

Edited because I forgot this part:
** "Value" or "want as much" is tricky. In economics it means "willing and able to pay", whether that be money, time, effort, or whatever else paid. In some ways that makes a lot of sense. If my friend and I want the same model but don't have enough money on hand, but my friend is willing to sell his PS4 in order to use the money to buy a model, whereas I am only willing to use the spare change in my couch, it makes sense that he gets it if he has more cash now. On the other hand, if he just doesn't have the resources at all to buy it, even after selling his stuff, and I have lots of cash, I will get the model, even if he was willing (but not able) to pay twice as much as me. That's a really awkward problem, that goes in a lot of strange directions, like philosophy and ethics, that are way, WAY off topic.
However, for things less than say 200$, that are probably luxuries (concert tickets, miniatures), it seems reasonable to say that willingness to pay money is the best way to distribute them, as most people have that kind of money to spend on a luxury they really want, even if they have to sell other things they don't want as much. If they don't have those resources, they probably shouldn't be spending 200$ on a ticket. In other words, for relatively low priced luxuries relative to personal wealth, willingness to pay dollars is probably equal to the value in dollars of the utility it brings you.
In any case, no matter how you decide the best method of seeing that people who want something the most get it, it still stands that the producer should just make more of them

 D4V1D0 wrote:
I think this is more aimed at the people that go into a store (or online) and buy up every pack of dice/LE models/etc. knowing that they will then be able to sell these on instantly at an insane profit, thus denying other hobbyists the chance of owning said items for retail value.

If you buy a model and sell it for a huge profit in XXX years because you held onto it, that's clearly not scalping. That is either luck or incredible foresight.

Scalping is knowingly and purposefully buying more items than you need, purely with the intention of profiteering.

You've missed the point of the question. I get that's what people are talking about. I'm trying to establish where the line is drawn.

How long does your person who walked into the store and bought up all the limited stock have to hold onto them before he stops being a dirty scalper and starts being a smart investor?

 insaniak wrote:

 D4V1D0 wrote:
I think this is more aimed at the people that go into a store (or online) and buy up every pack of dice/LE models/etc. knowing that they will then be able to sell these on instantly at an insane profit, thus denying other hobbyists the chance of owning said items for retail value.

If you buy a model and sell it for a huge profit in XXX years because you held onto it, that's clearly not scalping. That is either luck or incredible foresight.

Scalping is knowingly and purposefully buying more items than you need, purely with the intention of profiteering.

You've missed the point of the question. I get that's what people are talking about. I'm trying to establish where the line is drawn.

How long does your person who walked into the store and bought up all the limited stock have to hold onto them before he stops being a dirty scalper and starts being a smart investor?

I'd say if someone goes in and buys up all the stock with the idea of reselling they're always a dirty leech, it's just the faster they do it the more obnoxious it is, there is no line.

If you bought a box of Blood Bowl Skaven dice and, as a collector, decided not to open it and 10 years later it's worth $100, that's fine, you're just a collector selling off part of their collection. A collector doesn't need to go in and buy up as much stock as they possibly can.

The dirty rat is the one who goes in and buys out all the stock.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 insaniak wrote:

 D4V1D0 wrote:
I think this is more aimed at the people that go into a store (or online) and buy up every pack of dice/LE models/etc. knowing that they will then be able to sell these on instantly at an insane profit, thus denying other hobbyists the chance of owning said items for retail value.

If you buy a model and sell it for a huge profit in XXX years because you held onto it, that's clearly not scalping. That is either luck or incredible foresight.

Scalping is knowingly and purposefully buying more items than you need, purely with the intention of profiteering.

You've missed the point of the question. I get that's what people are talking about. I'm trying to establish where the line is drawn.

How long does your person who walked into the store and bought up all the limited stock have to hold onto them before he stops being a dirty scalper and starts being a smart investor?

I'd say if someone goes in and buys up all the stock with the idea of reselling they're always a dirty leech, it's just the faster they do it the more obnoxious it is, there is no line.

If you bought a box of Blood Bowl Skaven dice and, as a collector, decided not to open it and 10 years later it's worth $100, that's fine, you're just a collector selling off part of their collection. A collector doesn't need to go in and buy up as much stock as they possibly can.

The dirty rat is the one who goes in and buys out all the stock.

Where does the line get drawn though?

Someone buys two or three. One to use, one or two to hold on to to see if it appreciates in value. They're not buying all the stock, but they're doing it for future monetary gain.

Something comes up, bills need to be paid, and within a couple of weeks, they need to sell them. You don't know their personal story, you just know they've got two limited edition models on eBay within weeks of them selling out, so they're filthy scalpers.

Alternately, they bought them from a filthy scalper, decided they didn't want it after all, and decided to on sell for what they paid. Are they the filthy scalper? How would you know?

Selling miniatures online isn't as easy to label people as people standing outside of a venue selling overpriced tickets.

 -Loki- wrote:
Where does the line get drawn though?

IMO there is no line. I guess if there is a line, the line comes from intention rather than numerical quantity. Doing it because you love the product and are a collector? Fine. Doing it because with you're bulk buying you intend to make money of it? That's what puts someone in to "leech" territory to me.

I think if you're going in to the purchase purely for the sake of monetary gain then I reckon it's a bit of a prickish way of making money.

If someone is a collector and they just love Space Hulk so much that they buy 7 of them because they intend to paint 4 sets, give 1 to a friend and keep the other 2 sets on their shelves for later use, cool, whatever, they just really love Space Hulk and I'm happy for them buying 7 sets. However if someone just bought 5 sets when they intend on only ever painting one and selling the other 4, that person loses my respect as they're contributing to less people being able to enjoy Space Hulk or having to pay much more money for a meagre*** monetary gain.

Kind of like how if you walk down the street and accidentally bump in to an old lady and knock her down you aren't an evil arsehole, but if you intentionally go around tripping over old ladies because you enjoy the sound of bones breaking you might just be that evil arsehole

So if there's a line, it's intention based rather than numerically based.





***I say "meagre" because doubling the cost of a $100 wargaming item to $200 is likely to put it out of the reach of many hobbyists' spending money, but the profit doesn't actually go all that far to, say, paying the rent. It's a small chunk out of someone's total paycheque but a large chunk out of someone's final spending money after they've paid for their essential living costs.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 -Loki- wrote:
Where does the line get drawn though?

IMO there is no line. I guess if there is a line, the line comes from intention rather than numerical quantity. Doing it because you love the product and are a collector? Fine. Doing it because with you're bulk buying you intend to make money of it? That's what puts someone in to "leech" territory to me.

I think if you're going in to the purchase purely for the sake of monetary gain then I reckon it's a bit of a prickish way of making money.

If someone is a collector and they just love Space Hulk so much that they buy 7 of them because they intend to paint 4 sets, give 1 to a friend and keep the other 2 sets on their shelves for later use, cool, whatever, they just really love Space Hulk and I'm happy for them buying 7 sets. However if someone just bought 5 sets when they intend on only ever painting one and selling the other 4, that person loses my respect as they're contributing to less people being able to enjoy Space Hulk or having to pay much more money for a meagre*** monetary gain.

Kind of like how if you walk down the street and accidentally bump in to an old lady and knock her down you aren't an evil arsehole, but if you intentionally go around tripping over old ladies because you enjoy the sound of bones breaking you might just be that evil arsehole

So if there's a line, it's intention based rather than numerically based.

This is the point I was trying to make. Yo've got no idea about the sellers personal situation or reason for having said item, or even if they had 10 of said item and you're buying number 8. This threads OP started this as 'I'm sick of people scalping LE models, someone should crack down on them', but it's just not that easy. You don't know if someone bought multiple to intentionally sell at an inflated price, if it's someone who only bought one and changed their mind, a collector who had a sudden financial situation come up, or anything really. Not everyone buying multiple LE models, or those selling LE models even close to the original release, are scalpers. If someone has an LE model for the price I'mw illing to pay, I'm not really going to be too concerned about their intention.

On top of that, some people rely on resellers, scalpers or not, to be able to get access to LE models they want to actually play games with. I simply wouldn't have the LE models I have for Malifaux if it wasn't for resellers, because I never spend enough in their sales to reach their target levels for free models and missed out on some of their other LE models by starting to play their games late. If someone has an LE model for a price I'm willing to pay, their intention isn't my primary concern, it's buying it before someone else jumps in.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
I think if you're going in to the purchase purely for the sake of monetary gain then I reckon it's a bit of a prickish way of making money.

That literally the trading and collectibles industry summed up. The problem isn't so much that people are buying stuff to collect and sell later, it's that GW is producing the artificial scarcity that results in short term gain for a few whilst driving prices up. But it's actively encouraged by GW.

Sure, it's a bit gakky for someone to walk into a FLGS on a launch day, buy all of their LE stock and stick it straight on eBay, but that's not the fault of the buyer for being a chancer, and entirely down to GW for allowing it. Most of them have a strict limit until some time (like 2/each until noon).

The only way to counter the industry is to not buy the inflated goods.

I find it a bit different when it comes to genuinely limited items, like concert tickets, because that seems to be done using automated systems in collusion with the suppliers, and it's genuinely a restricted resource. That said, I won't buy overpriced concert tickets either, and if people want to do so then that's up to them.

Personally, I've got enough choice in the gaming and entertainment spheres to be too bothered about something becoming too expensive on the 2nd hand market. Admittedly, GW do a terrible job or running essentially limited production runs of core game essentials. The LE stuff I've got from everyone else is kinda cool, but completely irrelevant to the actual game (like the alternate sculpts from Wyrd).

Am I a scalper in these 2 real examples:
1. I buy all sorts of LE minis, but keep them in packaging until I'm actually ready to do anything with them, with a view to selling later if I change my mind. I've sold off about 90% of my LE stuff this way in the last 2 years.
2. I've bought a more or less complete set of the Star Wars: Force Awakens action figures, and have them in a crate in the attic, where I'll either pop them open for my son in ~5 years years, or if he's not interested, I'll sell them on. Again, I've kept them NIB.

I did try buying-to-resell straight away, from one of the games days, and lost a small fortune (bought a book for about £15 and it sold for £5), so I've given up on that. I'm happy enough to buy local-restricted stuff to sell on for a tiny profit though, but in that case I view it as providing a service.

 TheSecretSquig wrote:
You don’t accuse WallMart of ‘Scalping’ because they mark up a product to sell at retail for more than they actually paid for it?

No, because WalMart actually provides a useful service in getting the product from the manufacturer to a retail location where you can buy it. Without that link in the distribution chain you would have no (practical) means of getting the product. A scalper, on the other hand, provides no such service. They just beat you to the purchase and increase the amount of money it costs you while adding nothing in return. The $25 miniature direct from GW is actually a better product than the $50 miniature from the scalper (who is much less trustworthy), and costs half as much. So, where WalMart continues to sell plenty of stuff at marked-up prices even though people could attempt to buy from the original manufacturer, the scalper's sales would drop to zero if GW announced an unlimited production run of the item.

Here’s another example. Someone selling a rare Star Wars toy for $5,000. That’s the market value for this collectable. Are they now a ‘Scalper’ because 30 years ago, they only paid $2 for it?

No. An important part of scalping is the immediacy of it. The scalper gets the limited-supply item and then immediately exploits the shortage they created to make a profit. Selling something 30 years later is completely separated from the original transaction. New price, new potential customers with new reasons for buying.

If no one re-sold, then it still doesn’t help the “Waaagghh I want one” crowd, because of the limited supply and the demand.

This is not true. It's significantly easier to get limited-supply items when scalpers aren't buying up large quantities for resale, especially when the scalpers are using automated systems to buy the entire supply before a human can complete the checkout process.

(Not saying that's the case with GW stuff, but good luck getting concert tickets if the scalpers have targeted that show.)

 -Loki- wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 -Loki- wrote:
Where does the line get drawn though?

IMO there is no line. I guess if there is a line, the line comes from intention rather than numerical quantity. Doing it because you love the product and are a collector? Fine. Doing it because with you're bulk buying you intend to make money of it? That's what puts someone in to "leech" territory to me.

I think if you're going in to the purchase purely for the sake of monetary gain then I reckon it's a bit of a prickish way of making money.

If someone is a collector and they just love Space Hulk so much that they buy 7 of them because they intend to paint 4 sets, give 1 to a friend and keep the other 2 sets on their shelves for later use, cool, whatever, they just really love Space Hulk and I'm happy for them buying 7 sets. However if someone just bought 5 sets when they intend on only ever painting one and selling the other 4, that person loses my respect as they're contributing to less people being able to enjoy Space Hulk or having to pay much more money for a meagre*** monetary gain.

Kind of like how if you walk down the street and accidentally bump in to an old lady and knock her down you aren't an evil arsehole, but if you intentionally go around tripping over old ladies because you enjoy the sound of bones breaking you might just be that evil arsehole

So if there's a line, it's intention based rather than numerically based.

This is the point I was trying to make. Yo've got no idea about the sellers personal situation or reason for having said item, or even if they had 10 of said item and you're buying number 8. This threads OP started this as 'I'm sick of people scalping LE models, someone should crack down on them', but it's just not that easy. You don't know if someone bought multiple to intentionally sell at an inflated price, if it's someone who only bought one and changed their mind, a collector who had a sudden financial situation come up, or anything really. Not everyone buying multiple LE models, or those selling LE models even close to the original release, are scalpers. If someone has an LE model for the price I'mw illing to pay, I'm not really going to be too concerned about their intention.

On top of that, some people rely on resellers, scalpers or not, to be able to get access to LE models they want to actually play games with. I simply wouldn't have the LE models I have for Malifaux if it wasn't for resellers, because I never spend enough in their sales to reach their target levels for free models and missed out on some of their other LE models by starting to play their games late. If someone has an LE model for a price I'm willing to pay, their intention isn't my primary concern, it's buying it before someone else jumps in.

Of course you can't judge the intention of an individual selling a single item on ebay. Though sometimes you can get a pretty good hint (If it says they have 10+ of an item and have already sold 20 of them or have a sales history full of nothing but limited edition stock, they're probably one of the aforementioned dirty leeches).

But you asked for a line and I gave it. I never said it was a line of practical use for buyers, simply that you insisted on one.

Personally I'm happy with anything that drives down the value of the 2nd hard market other than true scarcity.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 -Loki- wrote:
Where does the line get drawn though?

IMO there is no line. I guess if there is a line, the line comes from intention rather than numerical quantity. Doing it because you love the product and are a collector? Fine. Doing it because with you're bulk buying you intend to make money of it? That's what puts someone in to "leech" territory to me.

The number of people I've known who go to an event, and pick up two of an event only item, one for themselves, and one to put online to cover the cost of the double purchase, is not small. Yet they're 'leeches'?

Blimey mate, that's a pretty hardcore moral compass you've got there.

They've got the money, and go to the event. They put it online for more than they paid for it, and now people who didn't/couldn't go get the opportunity to buy the model. That means that they get their own copy a bit cheaper. Who's suffering? If they didn't do it, all those people who didn't go to the event just wouldn't get one, period. Is that really the morally superior option here?

Herzlos wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
I think if you're going in to the purchase purely for the sake of monetary gain then I reckon it's a bit of a prickish way of making money.

That literally the trading and collectibles industry summed up. The problem isn't so much that people are buying stuff to collect and sell later, it's that GW is producing the artificial scarcity that results in short term gain for a few whilst driving prices up. But it's actively encouraged by GW.

Sure, it's a bit gakky for someone to walk into a FLGS on a launch day, buy all of their LE stock and stick it straight on eBay, but that's not the fault of the buyer for being a chancer, and entirely down to GW for allowing it. Most of them have a strict limit until some time (like 2/each until noon).

I never said GW was in the right for creating a system where scalping is encouraged, but that doesn't preclude me from disliking the people who take advantage of it.

Scalping might just be a way of making money that has been encouraged by GW's business practices, but that doesn't make it a respectable way of making money and no body has said anything that has remotely gone towards making me respect people who try and make money through scalping.

Am I a scalper in these 2 real examples:
1. I buy all sorts of LE minis, but keep them in packaging until I'm actually ready to do anything with them, with a view to selling later if I change my mind. I've sold off about 90% of my LE stuff this way in the last 2 years.
2. I've bought a more or less complete set of the Star Wars: Force Awakens action figures, and have them in a crate in the attic, where I'll either pop them open for my son in ~5 years years, or if he's not interested, I'll sell them on. Again, I've kept them NIB.

As I said before I don't think there is a line in the sand here. I'd say it's a sliding scale and unless you're buying out large quantities of stock then you are way down the small end of that scale.

As I said previously, if there is a line, it's based on intention rather than quantity. I'm not going to try and judge the intention of some random dude on an internet forum, you can judge yourself and decide if I think you're a leech.

 Peregrine wrote:

No, because WalMart actually provides a useful service in getting the product from the manufacturer to a retail location where you can buy it. Without that link in the distribution chain you would have no (practical) means of getting the product. A scalper, on the other hand, provides no such service.

You're assuming that everyone is able to make the purchase, due to either time or location.

The leech provides a service to those who can't get to a location (convention only minis, new store openings), or can't get there whilst there's still stock, or don't want to do the things needed to get the item (spend over $x in the webstore, take part in an intro campaign).

In that regard it may be no different to hiring a personal shopper or a courier for the afternoon, except it's likely done speculatively.

I'll probably buy the Warlord Games LE guy from the store opening (because I didn't want to buy anything else online at the time and I'd rather pay a scalper than make an 8 hour & $200 round trip).

 Ketara wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 -Loki- wrote:
Where does the line get drawn though?

IMO there is no line. I guess if there is a line, the line comes from intention rather than numerical quantity. Doing it because you love the product and are a collector? Fine. Doing it because with you're bulk buying you intend to make money of it? That's what puts someone in to "leech" territory to me.

The number of people I've known who go to an event, and pick up two of an event only item, one for themselves, and one to put online to cover the cost of the double purchase, is not small. Yet they're 'leeches'?

Blimey mate, that's a pretty hardcore moral compass you've got there.

I didn't really think it was all that difficult a concept to grasp. I used the term "leech" for a reason. Are your intentions parasitic? Then you're a leech.

If we're talking SPECIFICALLY about an event specific item (that I assume is unlimited at the event but completely unavailable outside of the event) then sure, buy lots and on sell them.

Why doesn't it make you a leech? Because you are adding value to the product. A leech means you're a parasite, parasites suck out without giving back. Buying an event specific item to on sell it, you aren't sucking out of the community by providing a product that previously wasn't available, at worst you're sucking out of the original manufacturer/publisher/retailer by devaluing the event.

If you went to an event and bought ALL the exclusive items then you'd be falling back in to the parasite territory because you're back to depriving other people at the event from buying it. But from my understanding most events don't let you do that and have limits on how much you can buy early on so everyone has a chance to buy it.

Event Exclusives is another area where FW are streets ahead of GW proper.

Im not sure that I would call selling FW event exclusives " scalping " , as it is not possible to buy them all out.

If they run out at the event, you can order more and they will cast them up and send them to you the following week.

You can techinically scalp on Event and WW exclusives.

Via my little group (nearly 250 members now!), I'm reliably informed that getting hold of Grak and Crumbleberry for Bloodbowl is tricky, because there's locals in Nottingham who'll go in and buy out the stock, then whacking it on eBay.

Which is a pain - because for most of us, a trip to WW is a once-in-a-while, if not once-in-a-lifetime treat, especially for those who's pilgrimage has involved international travel.

In response? WW have now limited it to One Per Customer. Despite that somewhat putting the brakes on my group's intentions, I fully applaud that. It's meant to be a bonus for those getting to WW, not a get-rich-quick scheme for the unscrupulous. And it is being treated as such. I mean, just look at those prices

We can still do our re-distribution thing though - for instance when I go up in June, it's for a long weekend (four days), so in theory I'll be able to pick up a maximum of four - one for me, and up to three 'slots' for group members to bag one (I won't max out potential purchasers without buyers in the wings) We may not be able to reach everyone, let alone satisfy all demand, but I can hope our collective efforts make it far less of a sure thing for Scalpers, discouraging them from taking that financial gamble.

Then you have the FW store - I've seen with mine own eyes that they have, out on the pegs, Event Only models of yesteryear. That's handy, and a good way to defeat the aims of Scalpers who bought in bulk, and held off selling until the model was ostensibly OOP. Next visit, I'll be creating a spreadsheet of what's available, and how much, because there's more there than they're letting on

I dont agree with buying out all the limited edition stuff and then selling boatloads of them, like the BB dice and the pitches, I could not live with myself doing that.

I dont see anything wrong or unscrupulous with those FW LE auctions, my brother and I sometimes sell the FW stuff, I start the auctions at £5 more than the cost to cover my expenses and then whatever happens happens.

Its the buyers that push the prices that high, not the sellers.

I think it is unfair to blame the sellers, its capitalism as far as I am concerned.
Not everyone is capable of working full time and this is a way for some people to make a few quid, my brother for instance has learning disabilities and this was actually suggested to him by a GW employee, in fact you will find that at these events FW openly encourage you to buy more than you need.

I have noticed that a few buyers buy out his cheaper priced LE items and then resell them at a higher price, but again, is that not just capitalism ?
Afterall the buyer is willing to pay that much.

As for the redistribution thing, I have been doing that a while, I just dont make it public because you tend to get inundated with requests. Good luck though, I feel sorry for those on the other side of the globe that GW is holding to ransom.

It's not capitalism. It's sheer, naked greed by engineering false scarcity.

And for the most part, the victims of scalpers pay their insane markups because they feel there's no other way to get the toys they want - often because said same scalpers swooped in to ensure they're now the only avenue to get said toys.

Thankfully, GW do seem to be trying to tackle this. Dwarf Dice and Dwarf/Skaven board are no longer listed as 'no longer available', instead being 'email me'. So we can reasonably assume there'll be at least one re-stock - and we can but hope they become permanently available items from GW direct (I mean, who wouldn't want a pitch and dice to match their chosen team?)

Where do you draw the line though ?

It does not seem that straightforward to me, it definitely does not seem fair to label everyone that resells a few Items as a scalper.

Most of those people selling the Items via ebay auctions are not creating false scarcity.

They are just buying a few extra items at the events and reselling them to supplement their spending.

Buying a few extra items at events, preventing others attending said same event form buying those items, because they've been sold out.

I saw it first hand at the first HH weekender. Sad little neckbeards waddling off from the sales stands with bulging bags, then plumping down in the bar to put it all on eBay....

That's just not even remotely cool. At all.

Essentially, stop and consider - if you were next in the queue, and saw me doing that - would you, or would you not, be angered by my selfishness?

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Buying a few extra items at events, preventing others attending said same event form buying those items, because they've been sold out.

I saw it first hand at the first HH weekender. Sad little neckbeards waddling off from the sales stands with bulging bags, then plumping down in the bar to put it all on eBay....

That's just not even remotely cool. At all.

Essentially, stop and consider - if you were next in the queue, and saw me doing that - would you, or would you not, be angered by my selfishness?

It depends on if there were still enough left at the event for everyone else who wanted one to get one. If so, then who cares? If not, then that would be quite irritating.

This is why companies would do well to not limit them by production quantity or limiting them geographically by only selling them at events. Sure they can only bring a select amount to the convention, but they should be selling the items on their website for the duration of the event as well. Geographical rarity sucks hard - I'm not flying to the UK to go to Warhammer World to buy a single miniature. If it was something I wanted I'd buy it off their online store that weekend, however.

Event exclusives that are not also sold online for the duration of the event being scalped at super high priced are the fault of the the company selling the model, not the consumers. The company itself is driving the third party price up by introducing artificial rarity and geographical rarity.

This is 2017. We have a global economy and multitudes of ways to pay for items online. Use it to make more money.

 Ketara wrote:


It depends on if there were still enough left at the event for everyone else who wanted one to get one. If so, then who cares? If not, then that would be quite irritating.

I would be a bit miffed off if they sold out and you could not get your hands on any, especially after they have been advertised.

But, if any FW items sell out at these events on the day, you can order them there and then, and they will send them to you the following week, with no postage cost.

This includes the limited early releases and the Event exclusives.

FW handle the event exclusives much different to how GW do the limited stuff on the web.

Not sure if anyone particularly cares, but my wee group had its baptism of fire last weekend - The Heresy Weekender. (A particularly saintly member picked up £1,000 worth of goodies to be sent to Nerds In Need around the globe!)

As the sole Admin, I've had no reports of deals going south, and it seems things are really working

And off the back of that success, we're knocking 400 members, which I'm dead chuffed with.

Also, looking at arranging a group outing to WW so we can meet each other and get some games in - and of course get the goodies to the geeks!

And the email campaign might've made a difference. No response myself, but I'm happy to report Grak and Crumbleberry in particular (BB star players, WW exclusive) are now 1 Per Customer - so the days of local greedy bellends swiping the entire stock as soon as it's on the shelves seems to be over.

It does put a bit of a dent in the group's overall effectiveness of course - we're still 1 Per Customer after all. But given I tend to do long weekends in Nottingham when I go, I can get three per visit, and I'm not the only one making the Nerd Pilgrimage into a City Break

And because we remain Carey-Sharey at heart, membership is always open (and it really is time I created a request spreadsheet or something to keep track of who wants what)

I did my part! Bought a battletome and was offered dice hidden behind the counter as the shop I went to will only sell to people buying the book they go with (and only one set). I have no use for em, and even though I knew I could have scalped em online, I told the guy to save em for the next guy, cuz I'm not gonna scalp my fellow gamers.

Yay!

Little acts like that do help!

Which reminds me. I've got those Thousand Sons dice stashed away. Got various parties asking for them in my group - rather than fastest first, reckon I'm gonna do a competition type thing.

Already I've given away the Knight Scion on Foot (Banner Design compo), and the 25th Anniversary Marine (250th member draw)

To me, its stuff cluttering up my flat. Stuff I'm never to build or paint. To others, a personal Grail Item.

GW have now started one item/order for the new Stormcast limited stuff so far. Possibly a response to community annoyance at the limited quantities selling out so quickly in recent releases.

What with the BB Halfling problem, I'd hope so.

As for the various pricing discrepancies, GW are having trouble getting a box of "Gangs of Commoragh" sent to a GW store. I only ordered it as it is cheaper to get that than two of the DE jetbike kits. It's their fault, and bad timing with the Eldar campaign book out just afterwards. "Gangs of C" not LE or anything, so yet another stocking cock-up.

Just wanted to give the group a thumbs up. A gent is being kind enough to pick me up a limited Alfrid from WHW this week. Good karma all round.

Huzzah!

Should, in theory, have a Grak and Crumbleberry this week meself. Which is nice!

I had a guy send me Grak and Crumbleberry for cost and shipping. It was much appreciated. Somewhere a scalper cried.

Group is working really nicely

Now it's off the ground, lots of people giving props to their Heroic Resin Dealers

And with Tournament/Convention season getting underway, it's a great time to join us!

Smol update to the group rules

Following a bloody good point, the group now caters for all Wargames, on account there's absolutely no good reason it shouldn't

Thousand Sons dice are still on the shelf in my local, must b a regional thing!

Which store is that, and how many sets?