Hi all,

With another big and fancy 40k box on the horizon, I thought it'd be interesting to do a bit of a litmus test of people's general opinions on reselling products like these.

From what I know, Idomitus is due to be £120 in the UK. If you search for it on ebay, you can already find listings of people doing preorders for them reselling the box. There's one person selling each army for £100, which if you take into account the rulebook is almost certainly reselling the box for more than double its retail value. Another selling is offering £75 per army, which is a little more reasonable. No doubt once Indomitus is no long available from GW, the prices will be jacked up even more. So this leads to the question: How much is too much before it becomes an immoral thing to do?

I've never done it before, but I'm honestly thinking of reselling this box myself. I do take offense from people scalping these products for 2x or 3x or even more times margins, but does it make me a bad person for wanting to flip it for say, £50 profit? I don't know. I would be interested to hear any thoughts on the matter!! Cheers.

I think this is a move.

40k is already pretty expensive so there's no need of it in my opinion

Deleted.

It is moral if you make an honest profit.

Do it as much as you can.

I didnt vote on your poll since you have no positive options.

I'll be honest it has crossed my mind only as a cheaper way to purchase a rule book. Especially if the models in the box aren't going to availae outaide of the box for a while.

 fraser1191 wrote:
I think this is a move.

40k is already pretty expensive so there's no need of it in my opinion

To play devil's advocate a little here: What about reselling it in parts? There are listings currently for the special characters priced at around £12 each, which is cheaper than GW would offer them for individually. If someone wants to pick up just 1 model, then surely that's good for both the seller and the buyer? Even if overall, the seller is making a huge profit over the whole box.

Does splitting it change anyone's opinion?

Buying it purely to then resell it as a unit for a profit is unethical IMO, but buying it to split into a few sections and selling those separately (while turning a little profit in the meantime) is fine as long as you aren't taking the mick with the prices.

So if (assuming the £120 price point is accurate) you sold the Necron models and Marine models for £60 per side and the rulebook for £40, turning an overall £40 profit, that seems fine to me. Selling them for £100 per side and the rulebook for £50, for a £130 profit... not so much. I have no idea where exactly the line between "okay" and not lies, though, but as a rule I'd say the more effort you go to and the more flexibility you offer (i.e. the more you refine the division), the more profit is acceptable.

I chose the second option of the poll because that seems most appropriate, but it needed explanation IMO because you don't differentiate between wholesale scalping and splitting it up for an overall profit.

shmvo wrote:


Does splitting it change anyone's opinion?

No. Its your property. If you can sell each model for 900 bucks, do it.

Why are you feeling any guilt for something you've done nothing immoral in?

The fact you had to come here and ask means you kinda know the answer.

It's not against the law, but it's a gakky thing to do. Decide whether you're ok being an donkey-cave to make some money.

Edited since apparently dakka doesn't censor some swear words lol

Many of those £100 per army sets won't sell fast and there are some resellers who sell things at insane prices on ebay. Heck there's a store in Germany that lists in the UK ebay and every single product is overpriced even compared to brand new retail from GW direct.

In general the overpriced prey on the desperate and impatient and ill informed.



I dislike resellers when a product is true limited and when its clear that its an organised and targeted reselling system that is aiming to strip as much stock as they can. The odd reseller doing one or two things here and there I don't worry about - someone who manages to get a significant portion of stock and resell it at a high profit value, that I do dislike. It's legal, but its not an activity I like and not one I'd want to support.


That said you can bet once this boxed set goes on general sale the resellers will be squashed under a tide of people selling the half of the box they don't want; plus those who get two or more boxes selling off spare rule books. In general that results in the prices going down, often very sharply. But its often very quick and will last perhaps the week or two it goes on sale before vanishing. Depending, of course, on how well the box sells and how fast it runs out of stock.

It can also depend on the rarity and desirability of segments. Eg Feast of Bones the Ossiarch half was harder to get hold of, whilst the Ogor half was harder to sell on. Ogor players only wanted the new lord; whilst Ossiarch players wanted it all.




Personally I plan to get the set and I'll be selling the Marines - likely at the £60 value (half the boxed set) or lower (since the set includes the rulebook). If I get a second set then yep I'll be selling on the rulebook.
I'll generally go for what the market wants.

TBH I bought the custom black Adeptus Custodes dice from GW because I love custodes and loved the dice (I also have the golden ones).

But with Coronavirus I have not even been able to open and use them. Now I see that they are sold on ebay for 80€ without a problem. Thats like 75% of the price of the indomitus box if I buy it from UK at a discount.

I'm a bad person for reselling them? I didn't bought them with that idea but the price difference (They were like 16€) is too big to ignore.

 Galas wrote:
TBH I bought the custom black Adeptus Custodes dice from GW because I love custodes and loved the dice (I also have the golden ones).

But with Coronavirus I have not even been able to open and use them. Now I see that they are sold on ebay for 80€ without a problem. Thats like 75% of the price of the indomitus box if I buy it from UK at a discount.

I'm a bad person for reselling them? I didn't bought them with that idea but the price difference (They were like 16€) is too big to ignore.

Eh there's nothing wrong in reselling.

The moral issue is when someone buys a limited edition product with the intention of reselling purely for profit. Gamers are well known to buy more than we can work with and often have to offload excess, sometimes brand new in the box.

Just remember that sometimes rare items on ebay have a very high price because no one is willing to pay that price. That's why its still on ebay unsold. Instead you might find that sold-listings or trade sites show a much lower price. Sure the item might be out of stock, but there's a cap on what sane prices people will tolerate for a product.

 Galas wrote:
I'm a bad person for reselling them? I didn't bought them with that idea but the price difference (They were like 16€) is too big to ignore.

No. You are a good person if you sell those dice for 500 bucks. You'd be a bad person for feeling guilty for not doing anything wrong.

The only way this would be immoral is if you sold the dice and lied about them in some way, so that the person you sold them to didn't get what they paid for. If you sold 10 dice at 500 bucks, and only sent him 9 dice, then yes, you'd be a bad person. If he wants to buy your dice for 1 million dollars each, and you are not defrauding him, then you are a good person. The dice are your property. You and the other party set the terms for the trade as you two see fit, as long as neither of you are using force against the other.

 Overread wrote:

 Galas wrote:
TBH I bought the custom black Adeptus Custodes dice from GW because I love custodes and loved the dice (I also have the golden ones).

But with Coronavirus I have not even been able to open and use them. Now I see that they are sold on ebay for 80€ without a problem. Thats like 75% of the price of the indomitus box if I buy it from UK at a discount.

I'm a bad person for reselling them? I didn't bought them with that idea but the price difference (They were like 16€) is too big to ignore.

Eh there's nothing wrong in reselling.

The moral issue is when someone buys a limited edition product with the intention of reselling purely for profit. Gamers are well known to buy more than we can work with and often have to offload excess, sometimes brand new in the box.

Just remember that sometimes rare items on ebay have a very high price because no one is willing to pay that price. That's why its still on ebay unsold. Instead you might find that sold-listings or trade sites show a much lower price. Sure the item might be out of stock, but there's a cap on what sane prices people will tolerate for a product.

I know, I know, I have make quite the profite reselling old warhammer fantasy stuff from local stores that had it on stock for ages! But yeah. I can't morally critique anyone for doing this. At the end of the day is scalping of a luxury that isn't even that relevant for the hobby as a whole. Like the catachan colonel. Nobody loses anything relevant for not having it.

 BuFFo wrote:

 Galas wrote:
I'm a bad person for reselling them? I didn't bought them with that idea but the price difference (They were like 16€) is too big to ignore.

No. You are a good person if you sell those dice for 500 bucks. You'd be a bad person for feeling guilty for not doing anything wrong.

The only way this would be immoral is if you sold the dice and lied about them in some way, so that the person you sold them to didn't get what they paid for. If you sold 10 dice at 500 bucks, and only sent him 9 dice, then yes, you'd be a bad person. If he wants to buy your dice for 1 million dollars each, and you are not defrauding him, then you are a good person. The dice are your property. You and the other party set the terms for the trade as you two see fit, as long as neither of you are using force against the other.

You are definitely over simplifying the morality argument.

Say, for instance, someone was dying. They require medicine to live. You have that medicine. You charge them the price of everything they own for it. That would be immoral. This happened with Martin Shkreli; he bought and raised the price of a life-saving AIDs pill by 5000%. That is not 'good business', that's a very very bad man exploiting what people are willing to pay for the sake of his own greed.

I KNOW. THESE ARE SILLY TOY SPACEMEN - THIS ISN'T LIFE OR DEATH. But, the example helps us establish a precident. What could be considered a fair exchange of goods should be an equally mutually beneficial one, not one that is heavily weighted to one side. Just because someone is willing to pay 5x the price of, say, the Sisters of Battle army box, it does not mean that it is a morally sound thing to do.

Reselling a box with a huge markup definitely cannot be described as a 'kind' or 'decent' action; it's taking advantage of - as has been mentioned previously - ignorant or desparate people. That's immoral. At best, it's amoral. But 'amoral', unfortunately, just means 'immoral' in my eyes.



It is a very interesting spread on the poll also, I was expecting this to be a lot more polarising..

Deleted.

Obviously no one gets to define anyone else's morality; that's not the point of any posts in this thread, I'm sure. Having discussions about morality helps us define morality for ourselves. It's healthy.

Also not a comparison; as stated in the post.

shmvo wrote:

Does splitting it change anyone's opinion?

Scalping is detestable but splitting things and selling them for a small profit is fine. Then you're actually providing an useful service to people who are only interested in some of the contents.

Deleted.

I'm goijg to take a slightly different tack here but gicen the price of the box is X yet we expect GW to sell the models contained in said box for Y after the boxset goes away is splitting the box in A B & cC moral as long as A+B+C is less and Y? Is that still true if A+B+C is more than X?

One could argue "A fool and his money...", but scalping does seem pretty scummy. That's why Grotsnik set up his little Facebook group, to combat such behaviour.

Splitting the box up though? That's pretty normal. I fully intend to get an extra set of those new Destroyer people, another of the tall Necron walkers, and maybe even a second set of Primaris bikes once Bits & Kits has them up for sale.

Everything that we have seen and know about the Indomitus box suggests that you're probably not going to be able to successfully scalp the Indomitus box because the quanitities its been produced in are fairly ridiculous. We've seen the import logs of the box set into the US already, the number of copies shipped is large. Very large.

The other issue is that far as we know no content is unique to that box and if it is then its likely to only be the push-fit versions (which arguably are the less valued at large). The new four legged walker for the Necrons, for example, will likely be more valued as a complete kit with its optional weapon and other parts; than as a single version pushfit.

So whilst there will no doubt be active trading and purchasing of it when the boxed set is new, its price won't go that high and its unlikely to gain any long term value. If anything once the regular kits come out they will be the "best" price you could possibly get; and for pushfit people will typically pay less.

The only thing that might be scalpable is if any of the heroes are unique and the limited edition rulebook itself. Though the former we might not learn of for ages and the latter is likely to take ages before the stocks run fully dry. Plus its a big rulebook - once you're past die-ahrd collectors (who will likely jump on it very fast) the market gets quite small for limited edition rules and such. Esp when the edition itself has a limited lifespan of a few years.


It's a splitters dream, but not a scalpers dream. A scalpers dream is more the 1500 limited edition book that went on sale last week - very limited production; totally unique content that won't be released outside of it and very unlikely to get a reprint (and if it does then we are likely talking years away). That's what scalpers really want - something that will gain value over time and which starts out pretty high anyway. Right now if you want one then a scalper is about the only option (a reseller seling excess hobby is possible considering how corona is messing up a lot more people financially; but its very unlikely). So its a sellers market and they can set whatever insane price they want.

shmvo wrote:
You are definitely over simplifying the morality argument.

Say, for instance, someone was dying. They require medicine to live. You have that medicine. You charge them the price of everything they own for it. That would be immoral. This happened with Martin Shkreli; he bought and raised the price of a life-saving AIDs pill by 5000%. That is not 'good business', that's a very very bad man exploiting what people are willing to pay for the sake of his own greed.

I KNOW. THESE ARE SILLY TOY SPACEMEN - THIS ISN'T LIFE OR DEATH. But, the example helps us establish a precident. What could be considered a fair exchange of goods should be an equally mutually beneficial one, not one that is heavily weighted to one side. Just because someone is willing to pay 5x the price of, say, the Sisters of Battle army box, it does not mean that it is a morally sound thing to do.

Reselling a box with a huge markup definitely cannot be described as a 'kind' or 'decent' action; it's taking advantage of - as has been mentioned previously - ignorant or desparate people. That's immoral. At best, it's amoral. But 'amoral', unfortunately, just means 'immoral' in my eyes.



It is a very interesting spread on the poll also, I was expecting this to be a lot more polarising..

Uh, no. That's demonstrably not how any of this works.

What you you have here is a logical fallacy. It's mostly an appeal to reason / falsely equivocating, or honestly even a strawman.

To put that simply: Life saving medicine (or anything which is required to live) is not even remotely equivalent to toy soldiers. The main reason being that one of them is purchased for a dopamine rush, where as the other has to be purchased to stay alive.

In more complicated terms, the immorality of gouging for essential services (usually healthcare / medicine) is that they're essential. People will be forced to pay, no matter the cost, because it's something fundamental which they cannot live without. This means that you'll be forcing people to choose between death, willing robbery, or sacrificing their own morality via forcing them into theft / something else And that's to speak nothing of pain & suffering, which is inarguably something someone would face if forced to - say - spend all their food on medicine to stay alive, and were then forced to subsist on molding bred and rotting rat carcasses.

Plastic models are not in any way critical to anyone's survival, and are in fact a luxury good. This means that there is no morality based pricing structure because purchasing them is completely optional. No one is going to die this month because they didn't' get some Necron Warriors, nor will you have dramatically increased chance of heart attack / heart failure because you couldn't afford to pick up that extra box of Possessed this month. Furthermore, this allows the market to self correct, because value is assigned on an individual based and isn't tied to anything such as... your life.

So even if some absolute madman purchased every Indominitus Box around the globe and posted them for $5,000.00 a piece, so that no one could secure a single box for less, there would be no moral issue with this. That person would (probably) lose money as (I assume) a majority of people in the world would recognize that price point as being much to high, and therefor not buy. This would inevitably lead to the market correcting itself as the price gradually lowered in order for that mad lad to make sales and earn his money back. This is (once again) in contrast to medicine because no one will suffer any kind of harm or reduced health as a result of not getting their hands on an Indomitus Box. Unless you put a gun to their head and make them purchase one on thread of terminal lead poisoning.

So yeah. This analogy is wildly, wildly off base.

A better one would've been to compare life saving medical procedures with cosmetic surgery such as breast implants or nose jobs. Or scalping Indomitus boxes vs your FLG jacking up the price on their remaining stock as soon as it became clear that there was no remaining stock at GW.

I'm after the rulebook and maybe some accessories. I have no interest in either army seeing as Im stuck with failcast models for my faction.. I might as well get the rulebook+bits for free and make a bit of a profit going towards some fancy FW model or somethign I can butcher for a conversion.



From experience the marine stuff sells at premium...

Scummy move IMHO. But people do it all the time. Big reason why GW's constant limited boxes is bullgak

I agree with the poster that said that ultimately it's on GW for deliberately stifling supply in order to artificially raise its value. I couldn't with a good conscience deliberately price gouge, but I don't think too poorly of people who do.

Have at ‘er. People make money in all kinds of ways. The entire premise of Business is you make a profit.

So, if you wish to engage in business, you take a risk and reap a reward... hopefully. Consider that if you purchase the boxes, and don’t sell them... sucks to be you. So that’s the nature of profit. Risk and reward.

So buying and reselling is ok. Because there’s no guarantee of profit.

In fact the price of the box is what I need to decide if I either buy the box from GW and try somehow to find an exit for those necrons (maybe eBay resell them or give them away for free) or just wait for the scalpers to split it and just buy the Primaris half I am interested in. If it is truly 120£ (140-150€?) Then I'll buy the box and sell the necrons for 50 or 60. If it is over 200, then yes, I'll save myself the hassle of either reselling or finding them necrons a worthy owner and just go to splitscalpers on ebay.

Extracting value without the addition of any productivity, via the creation of a product or service, is deemed inefficient by every school of economic thought afaia, (splitters are creating a new product so i don't really have an issue with that). its no different to ticket scalping for instance.

So many people in this thread seem to be confusing the right to do something with it being the right thing to do. if you're only argument is 'it's not illegal' then you might want to re-examine your position.

Scalping is poopy and bad. But being a chucklehead and getting scalped is more bad.

Meh, it's annoying behavior but it certainly ranks low on the outrage scale.
It's not some life-critical resource - it's a box of things that are probably not really that remarkable even in the context of our hobby! These units are going to be available in other ways.

It's GWs fault for selling the box in limited amounts. And the people who buy them on ebay this way are also to blame. The ones whoresell are just opportunists in a bad system, they are not to blame.

 Overread wrote:
The other issue is that far as we know no content is unique to that box and if it is then its likely to only be the push-fit versions (which arguably are the less valued at large). The new four legged walker for the Necrons, for example, will likely be more valued as a complete kit with its optional weapon and other parts; than as a single version pushfit.

Of course we may never get a full kit for that, or any of the things in there. We know that the other new Necron walker is also an EZ2B model. Maybe we're lucky and it does have alternate parts, but we're still in the dark there.

Aelyn wrote:
Buying it purely to then resell it as a unit for a profit is unethical IMO,

Do you have some objection to how stores work? I mean, when my box arrives at my FLGS I'm sure they aren't going to only break even on the thing.
So if it's ethical for the local shop to make a profit, hows it become unethical for the guy who buys it from them to turn around & make a profit?

Aelyn wrote:
but buying it to split into a few sections and selling those separately (while turning a little profit in the meantime) is fine as long as you aren't taking the mick with the prices..

So let me get this straight. You're saying it's unethical to make your profit in one lump sum, but fine as long as you A) make it spread out over several smaller sales - requiring more listing fees/shipping/effort/etc B) only make profit that doesn't exceed some random persons benchmark?

What if I'm that random purchaser, I'm fine with the asking price(s), and I buy multiple lots from the same seller? Or even the whole thing?

So if (assuming the £120 price point is accurate) you sold the Necron models and Marine models for £60 per side and the rulebook for £40, turning an overall £40 profit, that seems fine to me. Selling them for £100 per side and the rulebook for £50, for a £130 profit... not so much. I have no idea where exactly the line between "okay" and not lies, though, but as a rule I'd say the more effort you go to and the more flexibility you offer (i.e. the more you refine the division), the more profit is acceptable.

Scalping is just gambling by another name. Is gambling immoral? Is playing poker immoral?

I purchase a box I intend to resell (placing a stake or bet).

I venture this against the belief that someone will pay more for it than I did (convince someone to put more into the pot than their hand will be worth).

If I venture correctly, the value of my goods will increase (playing a winning hand). If I venture poorly, the value of my goods will decrease (playing a losing hand).

No one is forced to buy (entering the game is voluntary).


The “value add” is the risk taken by the initial purchaser. If the box sale flops, they’re left holding the bag... or box in this case. I’m not saying it’s wise. Gamblers fail every day. But that’s what it is. Gambling. Not moral or immoral.

I think the scalpers currently advertising may find themselves looking pretty stupid once this box goes on general sale as I'm not convinced it's going to be limited in the way many people are assuming. Attempting to charge £100+ for each half of the models before you even know how scarce they're going to be isn't something I can get worked up about.

I don't get people's outrage over this in general but maybe that's because I've never been overly bothered about limited edition shiny stuff, especially at GW prices. If somebody wants to try to make a profit by capitalising on a company's enforced scarcity of product that's fine by me. If someone wants to pay a huge mark-up to get their hands on a limited edition book or box set the market is clearly there for it.

Scalping like this is not gambling.
Gambling is just that, it’s a gamble.

You cannot weigh the odds to your own devices while gambling (not legally anyway)

Buying a limited box from GW to sell on isn’t a gamble in any way.
As long as it’s a decent box (you know this before buying) then it’s a guarantee you will make money.


From a collectors perspective I can’t stand scalping.
It all depends on the scale of it though.


For example, I still play a ton of epic.
Expanding my tyranids is something I do whenever I see stuff for a reasonable price.
Scalpers cause an issue here massively though.
Epic zoanthropes? Usually sell for around £3-4 each.
1 certain ebayer though buys them the second they hit the site, then asks for £18 per model.

What does this achieve?
They have over 200 of them for sale, none left at a reasonable price and they haven’t sold one in over a year.
For things like this I see it as a dick move as literally no one benefits, it just ruins the market.
People then use these prices to try and sell their ones and wonder why no one is buying.

 Elbows wrote:

PS: No one gets to define someone's else morality.

Yes we do. We all get to judge Nazis.

ccs wrote:

Aelyn wrote:
Buying it purely to then resell it as a unit for a profit is unethical IMO,

Do you have some objection to how stores work? I mean, when my box arrives at my FLGS I'm sure they aren't going to only break even on the thing.
So if it's ethical for the local shop to make a profit, hows it become unethical for the guy who buys it from them to turn around & make a profit?

If the intent is to abuse its limited nature by artificially restricting supply and profiting as a result (which is implied by the term "scalping"), yes. If you ignore that context, my point doesn't necessarily stand.

If your FLGS sold the box for £120 to begin with, but when you came in you were told it was the last one so it was now £150, would you consider that okay?

There was an example someone gave earlier of one person buying literally every copy of Indomitus and then reselling them at £5000 apiece. Do you consider that absolutely fine and dandy, or would you agree that's a dick move?

ccs wrote:

Aelyn wrote:
but buying it to split into a few sections and selling those separately (while turning a little profit in the meantime) is fine as long as you aren't taking the mick with the prices..

So let me get this straight. You're saying it's unethical to make your profit in one lump sum, but fine as long as you A) make it spread out over several smaller sales - requiring more listing fees/shipping/effort/etc B) only make profit that doesn't exceed some random persons benchmark?

Point A: That's correct, since at that point you're providing a service and adding value into the supply chain.
Point B: There's a point at which it is definitely not a problem to split something up and resell it, and a point where it is clearly attempting to take advantage of people who either don't have any other way to obtain it, or who don't know better. I don't claim to know where exactly it goes from one to the other, which is why I gave my examples in terms of what I personally consider okay.

I'll point out that the entire point of this thread was to gauge "random people's benchmarks".

ccs wrote:
What if I'm that random purchaser, I'm fine with the asking price(s), and I buy multiple lots from the same seller? Or even the whole thing?

That's your prerogative, same as it's your choice to buy half a dozen separate cans of a soft drink instead of buying a six-pack even though it costs twice as much.

ccs wrote:

Aelyn wrote:
So if (assuming the £120 price point is accurate) you sold the Necron models and Marine models for £60 per side and the rulebook for £40, turning an overall £40 profit, that seems fine to me. Selling them for £100 per side and the rulebook for £50, for a £130 profit... not so much. I have no idea where exactly the line between "okay" and not lies, though, but as a rule I'd say the more effort you go to and the more flexibility you offer (i.e. the more you refine the division), the more profit is acceptable.

Pfft....LOL. Just absurd.

Do you have an actual point here, or are you just throwing around aimless derogatory comments?

Yes, the line between "I consider this okay" and "I don't consider this okay" is blurred. The entire point of this thread was to get people's thoughts on whether scalping was okay, so I gave my thoughts.

Sometimes a player wants to buy a single mini without buying the whole thing, or just missed out on an exclusive product....

 Elbows wrote:
If it's not illegal? Go for it. It's the result of GW producing limited quantities of sought-after product to falsely boost their "brand value", etc.

Do I like it? No. But, if it's not illegal, then I rightfully have zero say in the matter, so go nuts. I can consider someone sleezy (not you, but major eBayers whose business practice is continual resale at marked up prices) and still respect their right to do whatever they want to do within the bounds of the law.

If you're that concerned about it, consider auctioning it on eBay. Start it low and reasonable. If it ends up going for an insane amount - good, that's on the buyer, not you. If you're not buying up 20-30-40 boxes, I don't think reselling a box is a big deal.

Morality and the law are not the same. Imagine two countries, one where it is illegal to steal and one where it is legal to steal. Is it okay to steal in one and not the other? You do have a say in the matter, you can report it to GW that their products are being upsold on eBay and have them change their policies in terms of who and how they sell their product or make them increase their price to decrease the profits of the price gougers.

Let's say you are a millionaire, is it okay to steal a piece of candy? You are a millionaire, you have the money to purchase the candy, but you choose not to, is this wrong? Just because a shoulder check isn't attempted murder and doesn't deserve a prison sentence, it is not right to manipulate markets for your own benefit. Stuff like causing a panic in a market and then buying up all the shares is wrong, whether the local government has means by which to prosecute you or not. Instead of reselling limited edition items on eBay you should get an honest job. Go paint someone's miniatures, make the world a less grey place.

An honest merchant can make money, there is real possibility in a free market for both parties that participate in the transaction to make a wellness profit, but if you sell faulty products or buy up limited product just to resell it then you are decreasing the wellness in the world. By all means, if you need half the box you should sell the other half at market price, even if the market price is inflated because of scalpers, but if you get the product purely because you want to scalp then you are a bad person.

 BuFFo wrote:

 Galas wrote:
I'm a bad person for reselling them? I didn't bought them with that idea but the price difference (They were like 16€) is too big to ignore.

No. You are a good person if you sell those dice for 500 bucks. You'd be a bad person for feeling guilty for not doing anything wrong.

The only way this would be immoral is if you sold the dice and lied about them in some way, so that the person you sold them to didn't get what they paid for. If you sold 10 dice at 500 bucks, and only sent him 9 dice, then yes, you'd be a bad person. If he wants to buy your dice for 1 million dollars each, and you are not defrauding him, then you are a good person. The dice are your property. You and the other party set the terms for the trade as you two see fit, as long as neither of you are using force against the other.

I agree, but only because Galas bought the dice with the intention of using them.

 posermcbogus wrote:
Scalping is poopy and bad. But being a chucklehead and getting scalped is more bad.

I think this is an important part of the discussion, all the idiots buying scalped products are making things worse for everyone. Let the scalpers sit on the product for 6 months and then have them take a loss because of inflation.

Gitdakka wrote:
It's GWs fault for selling the box in limited amounts. And the people who buy them on ebay this way are also to blame. The ones whoresell are just opportunists in a bad system, they are not to blame.

That's a silly ideology, you can never condemn anyone when your morality only lets you see systems at fault. Not every system can be made 100% perfect, sometimes individual people have to take responsibility and not be asshats.

 greatbigtree wrote:
Scalping is just gambling by another name. Is gambling immoral? Is playing poker immoral?

I purchase a box I intend to resell (placing a stake or bet).

I venture this against the belief that someone will pay more for it than I did (convince someone to put more into the pot than their hand will be worth).

If I venture correctly, the value of my goods will increase (playing a winning hand). If I venture poorly, the value of my goods will decrease (playing a losing hand).

No one is forced to buy (entering the game is voluntary).


The “value add” is the risk taken by the initial purchaser. If the box sale flops, they’re left holding the bag... or box in this case. I’m not saying it’s wise. Gamblers fail every day. But that’s what it is. Gambling. Not moral or immoral.

The potential buyers never sat down to play Poker with you, they just want their plastic crack. It's not wrong to play tag, but it's wrong to go around poking random people on the street and saying "tag, you're it" and then running away laughing like a madman, however fun you find that to be, whether poking people is considered assault or not in your country, it is wrong IMO.

ccs wrote:

Aelyn wrote:
Buying it purely to then resell it as a unit for a profit is unethical IMO,

Do you have some objection to how stores work? I mean, when my box arrives at my FLGS I'm sure they aren't going to only break even on the thing.
So if it's ethical for the local shop to make a profit, hows it become unethical for the guy who buys it from them to turn around & make a profit?

If the store isn't scalping then it's not doing anything wrong, if the store is scalping then it is doing something wrong. A store can also provide additional service which an eBay reseller might not, stuff like customer service and a play area for the men to play with their toys. Maybe you knowingly overpay for product to help pay for the space the store has and to keep the employees employed at the store. Is anyone buying from scalpers because they love getting scalped? Or is it waiting for the product another week because scalpers have bought all the product so you can't get it immediately from GW that people love?

Scalping limited-stock items is gacky.
Reselling limited-stock items with a small markup to markets that cannot otherwise get them is OK.
Scalping limited-stock items that we know is going to get restocked later is bad for the scalper, so I'm all for it. It raises the numbers-sold, and makes that type of product more likely to be repeated in the future.

 greatbigtree wrote:
Scalping is just gambling by another name. Is gambling immoral? Is playing poker immoral?
I purchase a box I intend to resell (placing a stake or bet).
I venture this against the belief that someone will pay more for it than I did (convince someone to put more into the pot than their hand will be worth).
If I venture correctly, the value of my goods will increase (playing a winning hand). If I venture poorly, the value of my goods will decrease (playing a losing hand).
No one is forced to buy (entering the game is voluntary).
The “value add” is the risk taken by the initial purchaser. If the box sale flops, they’re left holding the bag... or box in this case. I’m not saying it’s wise. Gamblers fail every day. But that’s what it is. Gambling. Not moral or immoral.

What you do there is remove an item from the normal market and move it out of the reach of a lot of potential customers.

It depends.

I’m solidly against scalping, hence founding the loot group.

But, here it depends on how much they’re asking for. A small profit say, £20 across the lot? Not great, but not awful.

But when they’re trying to double their money they can just eff off.

Say hello to capitalism

Don't think its unethical.

Its just a function of supply and demand. Ultimately GW will stock break most things in this box (I know there have been a few exclusive models over the years) - but at a far higher price.

I mean lets say the box genuinely costs £120 (would be amazed tbh but it seems legit).
Well the Marine half alone is 5 characters and 4 kits. At regular GW prices (£20 a character, £30 a box), that half alone could retail at £220.

So what is the scalp? If someone were to offer you those Marine kits at £150 - you could say its clearly a massive rip off versus the whole Indomitus box being £120. But it would simultaneously be a massive discount versus buying them individually from GW if you had to pay £220.

If GW sells a limited volume product at a price far below what the market will bear, there is nothing unethical in buying it and then selling it to someone who will pay that far higher price. That may be bad for some people, who want the product at a low price, but by definition, a lot of people are going without, hence the willingness to pay a higher price. If say I was willing to pay someone £150 for the Marine half of the box - and my only other option was to go without - what unethical thing has occurred?

Ultimately the price the box will sell for - and so the uplift given to the scalpers/stockbreakers, is purely a function of this relationship. If Ebay etc is flooded with kits, they won't sell for very much. If however no one wants to sell them, the few people who do will make a large profit. See for example how unsuccessful the scalping of that Lumineth box is going.

Do it, if you can make profit, why wouldn't you?
Item is worth it as much as someone is willing to pay for it...especially when it comes to toy soldiers...because you are such a bad person for earning profit on some toy soldiers, which are totally not essential to anyone...yea, you are worse than Jeff Bezos...

Perfectly acceptable. If everyone agrees the price is too high, no-one will buy it and the price will naturally go down. If people are willing to pay the inflated price, well then that is the correct price for the product.

Simple supply and demand.

Buying with the intention of selling only a part of such a box would be scalping or not?

I collect both Necrons and SM but some of those units leave me indifferent (bikes, assault intercessors, eradicators) so I'll probably sell them.

 Aenar wrote:
Buying with the intention of selling only a part of such a box would be scalping or not?

I collect both Necrons and SM but some of those units leave me indifferent (bikes, assault intercessors, eradicators) so I'll probably sell them.

Scalping is purely when you buy an entire product with the intent to sell it on again at a profit.

Buying a multi-part product for one part and then selling on the rest isn't scalping unless you put an insanely high price on what you sell on.

 Overread wrote:

 Aenar wrote:
Buying with the intention of selling only a part of such a box would be scalping or not?

I collect both Necrons and SM but some of those units leave me indifferent (bikes, assault intercessors, eradicators) so I'll probably sell them.

Scalping is purely when you buy an entire product with the intent to sell it on again at a profit.

Buying a multi-part product for one part and then selling on the rest isn't scalping unless you put an insanely high price on what you sell on.

So basically everything sold is 'scalping' ...your LGS bought for example product which it then sells for profit.

 Overread wrote:

 Aenar wrote:
Buying with the intention of selling only a part of such a box would be scalping or not?

I collect both Necrons and SM but some of those units leave me indifferent (bikes, assault intercessors, eradicators) so I'll probably sell them.

Scalping is purely when you buy an entire product with the intent to sell it on again at a profit.

Buying a multi-part product for one part and then selling on the rest isn't scalping unless you put an insanely high price on what you sell on.

So is FLGS scalping? They bought the set and are selling it at higher price than they paid in full for profit.

This reminds me when I messaged an ebay seller to ask why they were selling a box of old sisters of battle box on Ebay for three times its retail price.

When that exact same box was currently in stock and available through GW to anyone that wanted it.

They never got back to me. Funny that.

There's a lot of mental gymnastics and people trying to pull logical gotchas here to justify something that has always been considered a gakky practice in every industry.

FLGS are retailers, they're offering the service of making a product available to locals. They're not scalping because no one else can buy at retailer rates, so they haven't stolen your opportunity to buy the box for that cost.

Scalpers aren't offering a service, they buy something so someone else can't, with the hope of then selling it to that same person for more money.

You want to be an donkey-cave and scalp then fine, but don't cry when everyone calls you an donkey-cave for doing it.

I didn't vote, but one of my four local shops was allocated 55 box sets. I don't think we will have much of a shortage.

It's not gambling, it's arbitrage, because there's essentially no risk to the reseller. Still nothing wrong with it, IMO. It's a luxury product. You should feel free to sell it for as much as people are willing to pay for it. If GW want to artificially limit the supply of their products, that's on them, not the resellers. The moral outrage I see directed at 'scalpers' (not just here but in society in general, e.g. towards 'ticket touts') has always made me roll my eyes. Ultimately, if you feel really strongly about it being some sort of scourge on society, you should lobby your government to ban the practise. Or complain to GW and ask them to stop artificially limiting supply. You probably won't get very far, but some governments have banned or limited the resale of sports match and events tickets, so it's apparently not a totally lost cause.

 Duskweaver wrote:
You probably won't get very far, but some governments have banned or limited the resale of sports match and events tickets, so it's apparently not a totally lost cause.

That's because it became a farce where the tickets were sold out within seconds for a match and then resellers were selling them online through the ticket vendors legitimate reseller website. Basically because there were no protections the scalpers took pretty much ALL the stock and then resold it. Meanwhile the ticket company selling had no reason to want to stop it because they basically got to profit twice from every ticket sale.


GW's scalping problem is FAR less of an issue typically. It's there and it has risen over hte years, but its nothing like the situation where the only way to get a box is through scalpers. I'd argue much of the stock going out of sale is going to gamers, its just that GW is not able or unwilling to take the risk to produce too much excess. Also a good few of their limited duel boxes are not true limited editions, but just short term limits. A year later (at worst) and the unique new models go up for individual sale anyway.

Scalping is an anti-concept.

There is nothing wrong/bad/immoral about scalping. Scalping is just a way for a third person to attempt to leverage morality into a trade they are not a part of so they can make those parties feel guilty about their actions in hopes the third person can get a better deal, punish them, etc. It's ethical manipulation.

The owner of Game Workshop sells an army box at $100 to retailers. The individual who owns a store buys it for $100 then resells it on a shelf for $150 bucks. Bob walks into the store and buys the army box for $150 bucks.

Bob resells the army box to a Jamal for $250 bucks. Jamal realizes the army box is no longer sold in stores and really wants the new models. Jamal agrees and buys the box for $250.

Jane witnesses the sale and calls Bob a scalper. Based on what, exactly? Jane is trying to make Bob feel UNEARNED guilt for being a good/moral person and trading with Jamal. There is no fraud here. Jamal is getting the entire box.

Scalping is an anti-concept designed to obliterate honest trade.

Whether you own some medicine, water, movie tickets or warhammer figures, that is your property, and you can trade that to whomever you want at any price you and the other party agree to. Unless you're advocating using force against a producer, which I know no one here does, right?

Or, is the owner of GW scalping everyone by selling a box of plastic that cost him 50 cents to make for $100?

In the end, to the Original Poster, never allow a collective to tell you how to think. They do so by leveraging morality against you and hoping to intact guilt on your part. Morality is objective. Once you feel guilty for something you shouldn't feel guilt for, you are easier to manipulate, and other people then take advantage of you changing your mind and lowering a price.

The box is yours. Sell it for $9,000,000 if you can, and know that you are a moral person for doing so.

There's a lot of different ways to look at this from a buyer and seller perspective:

Some people might only want one army (or part of one army) and just sell off the rest to offset some of the cost.

Some people will buy and sell either full sets or part units on when demand means more money.

Some people will buy these part units because they only want specific pieces, don't want to shell out for the whole set or couldn't get hold of it.

People will only pay as much as they believe something is worth. if someone sets the price too high, then it's probably not going to move unless it's the cheapest option and someone is willing to pay the cost. I see if fairly often browsing Ebay, someone will list a model kit (In the case I saw, the Master of Possessions) for a ridiculous amount and it just won't move at all.

Lol you can tell which people have "Libertarian" on their Twitter profiles.

Edit: posted that before I saw the Rand quote ahaha.

If GW makes too many of these boxes, they can repackage the sprues into individual unit kits, and sell on again. I expect this is partly how the box-specific units over the past couple of years end up on shelves after a few months. The unsold boxes (if any) are returned for a refund, and split up for repackaging.

So, GW cannot loose out by making too many.
If they did this enough, scalping would go away for these. It's not as though the boxes with rulebooks in are likely to sit on shelves long anyway.

Oh I remember the sororitas box. I wanted it but could not manage to get it before it sold out. (I think in less than a day)

Fast forward a couple of days and people were all over ebay and the like selling it for twice its value.

Fast forward a couple of months, and I bought it from ebay, sealed, for like 5€ under its original value.

Sometimes it is a matter of patience

 Duskweaver wrote:
It's not gambling, it's arbitrage, because there's essentially no risk to the reseller. Still nothing wrong with it, IMO. It's a luxury product. You should feel free to sell it for as much as people are willing to pay for it.

That's not entirely true since in order to effectively "scalp" you need to gamble that the product is going to be scarce before you buy it - if it's genuinely scarce and you wait too long you lose out on your chance to buy. If you're wring about either the scarcity or desirability you lose out as a reseller. I remember it happening years ago with Dreadfleet. Space Hulk was the first limited edition boxed game GW produced in a short series that all came out the same time each year and it sold out really quickly then became highly sought after because the miniatures were awesome. People tried to cash in the next year on Dreadfleet and got caught out when it was nowhere near as popular or desirable.

 Duskweaver wrote:
. If GW want to artificially limit the supply of their products, that's on them, not the resellers. The moral outrage I see directed at 'scalpers' (not just here but in society in general, e.g. towards 'ticket touts') has always made me roll my eyes. Ultimately, if you feel really strongly about it being some sort of scourge on society, you should lobby your government to ban the practise. Or complain to GW and ask them to stop artificially limiting supply. You probably won't get very far, but some governments have banned or limited the resale of sports match and events tickets, so it's apparently not a totally lost cause.

I think the difference with tickets for events is the one-off nature of the event itself. You're selling an "experience" and quite often the people putting on the events have a vested interest in keeping their fans happy, so trying to limit ticket touts is much more in the interests of the original sellers and people who put on the shows. When the thing being exploited is more of a product than an experience I think it's seen as being a slightly different issue.

As above, reselling is a gamble. It may be a “good odds” gamble, but if you purchase something, your money is gone.

You *hope* to be able to sell the item for more than you paid. Literally how all stores that sell products have done business forever.

As above, if I buy ten boxes, hoping to sell for a 20% margin / 25% markup... but demand is less than original supply from the source.... then I won’t be able to sell for any profit. I gambled and lost. Chances are good I’ll have to sell for less than list price, to entice people to take a risk on buying 3rd party.

There are *no certainties*. Functionally, a person can choose to act as though something is certain. And they’ll likely be correct most of the time.

Reselling a box of minis is like playing the stock market. You buy something, hoping demand will increase and you can resell your something for more money. But sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes things go really wrong.

I have a problem with these people profiting from someone else's misery. Food and medical supplies, for example.

Little men and swanky books in a box...its not hurting anyone, and if someone wants to pay an obviously stupid price for what is essentially a second hand item...thats up to them.

If enough people complain to GW that they did not produce enough of this set then I'm sure they'll do a second run, much like they did with the Adeptus Titanicus Grand Master set. Which was a game with basically a fraction of the popularity of 40K.

Besides, I'm sure there is a "Dark Imperium" version of this set on the way...

 BuFFo wrote:

Whether you own some medicine, water, movie tickets or warhammer figures, that is your property, and you can trade that to whomever you want at any price you and the other party agree to. Unless you're advocating using force against a producer, which I know no one here does, right?

I mean if we are talking about actual essential life saving stuff it might be warranted or at least some people will think that it is. Rich people monopolising basic necessities or artificially inflating their prices is how you get communistic revolutions. Those tend to get messy, so it is probably better to not let things get that far. Granted, a limited edition Warhammer box seems like somewhat unlikely inciting incident.

This box set is supposedly a limited time, not limited numbers. Assuming that is true, anyone who wants a set and has the money can pre-order a set.

Anyone buying up extra sets to divvy up and resale is fine, they are not depriving anyone of a box.

If there was a truly limited number, then it's equivalent to ticket scalping and needlessly driving up the price for people who wanted a set from the beginning. However...

Several of GW's policies simply feed the scalpers/resellers. Two-sided boxes you can't get the one army separately for (Shadowspear being a rare side-step of this), convention/store opening/store anniversary models, limited edition stuff. I'd much rather GW abandoned these tactics than rail on scalpers for taking advantage of the opportunity they present.

 John Prins wrote:

Several of GW's policies simply feed the scalpers/resellers. Two-sided boxes you can't get the one army separately for (Shadowspear being a rare side-step of this), convention/store opening/store anniversary models, limited edition stuff. I'd much rather GW abandoned these tactics than rail on scalpers for taking advantage of the opportunity they present.

Absolutely agreed.

Why not just release limited edition "start collecting" sets instead? The Asuryani half of BOTP was right up my street and would have done it.

Also, with such dissappointment, similar Kill Team sets wouldn't go amiss either and are better suited for that two-army format. KT players are likely to be collecting more factions than they would in 40K, and that game's release schedule isn't exactly busy...

 Kithail wrote:
Oh I remember the sororitas box. I wanted it but could not manage to get it before it sold out. (I think in less than a day)

Fast forward a couple of days and people were all over ebay and the like selling it for twice its value.

Fast forward a couple of months, and I bought it from ebay, sealed, for like 5€ under its original value.

Sometimes it is a matter of patience

It was amusing seeing all the complaints when my local GW still had a couple of those boxes until the codex finally dropped.

shmvo wrote:

I've never done it before, but I'm honestly thinking of reselling this box myself. I do take offense from people scalping these products for 2x or 3x or even more times margins, but does it make me a bad person for wanting to flip it for say, £50 profit? I don't know. I would be interested to hear any thoughts on the matter!! Cheers.

Why would it matter if you resell it for £50 profit or £500 profit?

If you have a moral issue with reselling you shouldnt do it at all.
If not, then why wouldnt you try to make the most profit out of it? Its your stuff, you bought it and can do whatever you want with it.

 Kanluwen wrote:

It was amusing seeing all the complaints when my local GW still had a couple of those boxes until the codex finally dropped.

And my store couldn't even get a single box. On the other hand, before closing it had 5 of the limited edition SoB characters. Outside of US and UK, it sometimes is strange what shops get and what they don't get. We had people want to buy 7+ riptides, over 2 years our store got 2. On the other hand they wanted to force the store to buy something like 30 AoS starter sets, same with the dark empire sets.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Kithail wrote:
Oh I remember the sororitas box. I wanted it but could not manage to get it before it sold out. (I think in less than a day)

Fast forward a couple of days and people were all over ebay and the like selling it for twice its value.

Fast forward a couple of months, and I bought it from ebay, sealed, for like 5€ under its original value.

Sometimes it is a matter of patience

It was amusing seeing all the complaints when my local GW still had a couple of those boxes until the codex finally dropped.

Some GW stores still have them - I know someone who got one earlier this week.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Kithail wrote:
Oh I remember the sororitas box. I wanted it but could not manage to get it before it sold out. (I think in less than a day)

Fast forward a couple of days and people were all over ebay and the like selling it for twice its value.

Fast forward a couple of months, and I bought it from ebay, sealed, for like 5€ under its original value.

Sometimes it is a matter of patience

It was amusing seeing all the complaints when my local GW still had a couple of those boxes until the codex finally dropped.

Well my city's store ran out. I only spoke on the phone to the GW stores in the closest two cities and they had run out as well. That's when I hit ebay and I saw the ridiculous prices of people selling the boxes and in large quantities. (Having 10 items for instance). Then the kits came out and I checked again (start of 2020). The same guys were selling their remaining boxes for under detail price as noone else wanted them. I wonder if I should do the same thing with indomitus. I did buy a split of shadowspear over ebay as well for exactly half of the retail price. No idea how that people were scalping for no profit.

do we know when this si going on sale ? I want the BRB.. looks fancy.

 Kithail wrote:
I did buy a split of shadowspear over ebay as well for exactly half of the retail price. No idea how that people were scalping for no profit.

That doesn't sound like someone buying the set for a profit, but rather looking to recoup part of the cost on the half they didn't want - unless, of course, there were multiple sets available.

I consider it very wrong indeed.

After all, ripping off customers is GW's job.

 BuFFo wrote:
Scalping is an anti-concept.

There is nothing wrong/bad/immoral about scalping. Scalping is just a way for a third person to attempt to leverage morality into a trade they are not a part of so they can make those parties feel guilty about their actions in hopes the third person can get a better deal, punish them, etc. It's ethical manipulation.

The owner of Game Workshop sells an army box at $100 to retailers. The individual who owns a store buys it for $100 then resells it on a shelf for $150 bucks. Bob walks into the store and buys the army box for $150 bucks.

Bob resells the army box to a Jamal for $250 bucks. Jamal realizes the army box is no longer sold in stores and really wants the new models. Jamal agrees and buys the box for $250.

Jane witnesses the sale and calls Bob a scalper. Based on what, exactly? Jane is trying to make Bob feel UNEARNED guilt for being a good/moral person and trading with Jamal. There is no fraud here. Jamal is getting the entire box.

Scalping is an anti-concept designed to obliterate honest trade.

Whether you own some medicine, water, movie tickets or warhammer figures, that is your property, and you can trade that to whomever you want at any price you and the other party agree to. Unless you're advocating using force against a producer, which I know no one here does, right?

Or, is the owner of GW scalping everyone by selling a box of plastic that cost him 50 cents to make for $100?

In the end, to the Original Poster, never allow a collective to tell you how to think. They do so by leveraging morality against you and hoping to intact guilt on your part. Morality is objective. Once you feel guilty for something you shouldn't feel guilt for, you are easier to manipulate, and other people then take advantage of you changing your mind and lowering a price.

The box is yours. Sell it for $9,000,000 if you can, and know that you are a moral person for doing so.

Scalpers are deliberately making your life worse in the hopes of making a buck, this is wrong, you should not try to make the lives of innocents worse. Imagine you are about to get in line at the candy store, then an organized group of 24 people hurry up in front of you to each buy a 10 cent piece of candy, they offer you to go in front if you pay for their candy. Nothing wrong with doing this right? They can buy as little or as much in the store as they want and you are free to either pay for them or wait in line. What if they did this to every customer and the last 23 would get out of line if you didn't pay? What if there were organized candy gangs in every candy store making it borderline impossible to buy anything without paying a candy tax to the candy gangs? Scalping is a concept developed to make people stop predating on innocents and actively hurts capitalism because it makes the system overall less efficient, increasing the price of an item because you have leftover stock from when it was available and deliberately hoarding stock to later increase the price are two different things. The very concept of scalping was to change people's actions by making people aware that scalpers are asshats, like asking to see the manager when you have nothing to complain about or cheating on you SO.

The idea is that a store is providing a service. They are providing you access to a product and sales support. They might also offer other benefits, eg a game store might have tables to play; market locally to increase local interest (more gamers more games); support competitive events with sponsored prizes etc... The store is providing you a valid benefit for which you pay through purchase of product from them.

In many cases if a store isn't present you cannot get a product - if you've no icecream store you cannot buy icecream.



Scalpers are purely adding middlemen into the process for no net gain for the customer. A scalper isn't providing you greater access to a product or support. They are in fact denying you access to a product and then charging you extra to gain that access that you otherwise would have had were the scalper not there.

We also generally consider it scalping on a question of scale - one person buying one packet of sweets and selling it on at a higher price purely for profit is scalping, but its so small scale its basically negligible.
At the other extreme sports event ticket scalpers were getting so good that they could buy a majority bulk quantity of tickets, making it very near to impossible for regular fans to buy a ticket directly from the sales office.

 vict0988 wrote:

Scalpers are deliberately making your life worse in the hopes of making a buck,

This isn't always the case. For example, a scalper might buy tickets from a season's pass holder for game they cannot attend, or tickets from someone who has to cancel their plans. This puts more tickets into the wider market. It's a similar thing with convention exclusives or GW 'store anniversary' exclusives - not everyone can make it to these events and they would be SOL otherwise.

Reselling doesn't have to be cancerous, though often it can be when (as you mention) organized gangs start to monopolize things.

I agree. It's a grey area, but to be "scalping" there needs to an element of exploitation of scarcity, often that the scalper themselves have contributed to.

 John Prins wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:

Scalpers are deliberately making your life worse in the hopes of making a buck,

This isn't always the case. For example, a scalper might buy tickets from a season's pass holder for game they cannot attend, or tickets from someone who has to cancel their plans. This puts more tickets into the wider market. It's a similar thing with convention exclusives or GW 'store anniversary' exclusives - not everyone can make it to these events and they would be SOL otherwise.

Reselling doesn't have to be cancerous, though often it can be when (as you mention) organized gangs start to monopolize things.

Scalping is a term specifically used for those who are buying with intent to deny customers a product at retail price so that they can upsell them the same product at a higher price. It's a negative term for a specific subset of secondhand sellers.

Sure functionally they might appear very similar. However the person who buys a ticket and later has to sell it because of financial pressure or no longer being able to go to the game etc.. is totally different from a person who bought 1000 tickets and was never going to attend the game. Purely using those 1K tickets to upsell them at a higher price to customers.

Sticking up for scalpers. Jesus. Sure it may be legal but actually taking the time to stick up for them....

What a world.

 BuFFo wrote:
Scalping is an anti-concept.

There is nothing wrong/bad/immoral about scalping. Scalping is just a way for a third person to attempt to leverage morality into a trade they are not a part of so they can make those parties feel guilty about their actions in hopes the third person can get a better deal, punish them, etc. It's ethical manipulation.

The owner of Game Workshop sells an army box at $100 to retailers. The individual who owns a store buys it for $100 then resells it on a shelf for $150 bucks. Bob walks into the store and buys the army box for $150 bucks.

Bob resells the army box to a Jamal for $250 bucks. Jamal realizes the army box is no longer sold in stores and really wants the new models. Jamal agrees and buys the box for $250.

Jane witnesses the sale and calls Bob a scalper. Based on what, exactly? Jane is trying to make Bob feel UNEARNED guilt for being a good/moral person and trading with Jamal. There is no fraud here. Jamal is getting the entire box.

Scalping is an anti-concept designed to obliterate honest trade.

Whether you own some medicine, water, movie tickets or warhammer figures, that is your property, and you can trade that to whomever you want at any price you and the other party agree to. Unless you're advocating using force against a producer, which I know no one here does, right?

Or, is the owner of GW scalping everyone by selling a box of plastic that cost him 50 cents to make for $100?

In the end, to the Original Poster, never allow a collective to tell you how to think. They do so by leveraging morality against you and hoping to intact guilt on your part. Morality is objective. Once you feel guilty for something you shouldn't feel guilt for, you are easier to manipulate, and other people then take advantage of you changing your mind and lowering a price.

The box is yours. Sell it for $9,000,000 if you can, and know that you are a moral person for doing so.

The difference is in buying a product with zero intention besides inflating the price rediculously to make a profit when selling said item isn't your business. And generally buying more than one of them to 1)further limit availability 2) making more profit.

A company like your FLGS isn't scalping because they are offering the product at the retail price, having bought it wholesale. Scalpers are charging far above retail.

There isn't anything "wrong" with the concept in a business sense, but are you as happy with your idea of a free market when N95 masks went for $1.50 pre 2020 and are now $75? Taking advantage to grossly inflate ROI is a dick move. Morally it may not be wrong but ethically it is.

It's okay to charge for providing a service. Buying the box and splitting it at a small markup is providing a service to people who don't need the whole box. Reselling the whole box at triple price is not providing a service, possibly the opposite if you noticably reduce supply of a limited item.

 Dysartes wrote:

 Kithail wrote:
I did buy a split of shadowspear over ebay as well for exactly half of the retail price. No idea how that people were scalping for no profit.

That doesn't sound like someone buying the set for a profit, but rather looking to recoup part of the cost on the half they didn't want - unless, of course, there were multiple sets available.

Exactly what I thought at first, but then again they had like 6 or 7 items in stock. I plan to do exactly that with the necron half of indomitus by the way, sell it by half the retail price without the book. I guess the person buying it will pay a small markup and shipping

 Kithail wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Kithail wrote:
Oh I remember the sororitas box. I wanted it but could not manage to get it before it sold out. (I think in less than a day)

Fast forward a couple of days and people were all over ebay and the like selling it for twice its value.

Fast forward a couple of months, and I bought it from ebay, sealed, for like 5€ under its original value.

Sometimes it is a matter of patience

It was amusing seeing all the complaints when my local GW still had a couple of those boxes until the codex finally dropped.

Well my city's store ran out. I only spoke on the phone to the GW stores in the closest two cities and they had run out as well. That's when I hit ebay and I saw the ridiculous prices of people selling the boxes and in large quantities. (Having 10 items for instance). Then the kits came out and I checked again (start of 2020). The same guys were selling their remaining boxes for under detail price as noone else wanted them. I wonder if I should do the same thing with indomitus. I did buy a split of shadowspear over ebay as well for exactly half of the retail price. No idea how that people were scalping for no profit.

Primaris are far and away more popular than Sisters. Hell, I bet Necrons are probably more popular. Most people seem to like Sisters, but they're definitely not one of the more popular factions - vocal to be sure though. Shadowspear wasn't all 'that' limited since it was out in the wild for a few months. I imagine that enough people are going to buy this box that if you sell the models separately, you'll make back your money and then a little bit extra - or at least if you keep the rulebook you'll basically get it for free - but it won't be selling for big bucks in the way the Guard Colonel is.

 lord_blackfang wrote:
It's okay to charge for providing a service. Buying the box and splitting it at a small markup is providing a service to people who don't need the whole box. Reselling the whole box at triple price is not providing a service, possibly the opposite if you noticably reduce supply of a limited item.

Plus it makes the store pull merch from the store. If the space hulk box goes for 3-4 times the retail price on ebay, there is no way a FLGS owner is going to sell it at the GW price.

I have seen it happen with MtG prodcuts, when you pre order stuff and suddenly, when a set turns up to be really good, the store informs you that they didn't get it. But you see people working at the store put up singles and whole boxs on sale online.

I did something similar to this on eBay...

You know the 3rd Edition metal Stormtroopers? They used to be listed on eBay for around $1.50 each. Then the news about the new Militarum Tempestus Codex at the end of 6E came out (this meant there would be a drive for older models instead of the new Scions.

So I got started by buying lots of them (I had 650 at my maximum count) and then reselling piecemeal for $15 each, I made quite the profit. At the time they funded my GTX 1080 Ti SeaHawk. It's all about reading the current upcoming content, and acting preemptively.

Karol wrote:

 lord_blackfang wrote:
It's okay to charge for providing a service. Buying the box and splitting it at a small markup is providing a service to people who don't need the whole box. Reselling the whole box at triple price is not providing a service, possibly the opposite if you noticably reduce supply of a limited item.

Plus it makes the store pull merch from the store. If the space hulk box goes for 3-4 times the retail price on ebay, there is no way a FLGS owner is going to sell it at the GW price.

I have seen it happen with MtG prodcuts, when you pre order stuff and suddenly, when a set turns up to be really good, the store informs you that they didn't get it. But you see people working at the store put up singles and whole boxs on sale online.

I think we established a long time ago, Karol, that your ex-store - you did say it'd closed down, right? - and the people who frequented it were not a good example of how things should be done, in any context.

This isn't like hand sanitizer bottles selling for hundreds of dollars after the lock down for covid which amounts to war profiteering.

This is a box for a game that will be available in huge quantities for a long time. Don't want to pay 3x the price on ebay? Go to your local store and place an order for MSRP.

The issue is it's limited and usually sells out instantly with a lot of people buying multiples only with intent to sell them for double that. Legal perhaps but IMHO unethical and a scummy move.

Wayniac wrote:
The issue is it's limited and usually sells out instantly with a lot of people buying multiples only with intent to sell them for double that. Legal perhaps but IMHO unethical and a scummy move.

Not at all, they are doing it for investment purposes, so kudos to them.

If reselling it in 6 months time for 5x the price is their plan so they can buy a Warlord Titan, then so be it.

It's like gemstone dealers - fantastic Burmese top quality Ruby only comes onto the market rarely, and they are always snapped up by investors who have zero intention of putting them into rings. In 15 years the price of a 5 carat, top quality Burmese Ruby has gone from $2,000 per carat to well over $250,000 per carat.

And again, just go to your local store and place an order. The first shipment won't be the only shipment. These box sets are available for years to come.

I've never understood the malice that is shown to people who buy with the intent to re-sell later, I've always seen it as most similar to buying gold (i.e. a luxury good that is very likely, though never truly guaranteed, to be worth more later.)

As long as the investor buys them through the same channel as the average punter, i.e. they sit refreshing the webpage to try and buy as soon as they go live on the website - rather than underhand ways like say bribing a store owner to keep a bunch aside for them then surely it's fair game on the acquisition side.

Similar to when it comes to sell, yes it's always a bit painful to see things listed for 5x the cost on eBay Buy It Now but if they do sell then surely someone got something they wanted for a price they considered acceptable right? Maybe not considering the general consensus here.

But then what about auctions? You can't possibly say someone is scalping because their low start price auction did well right? What if they do an auction then list another on BIN for the same price as the auction final bid? Surely that's a good way to gauge the current market cost?


As a personal example I bought multiple copies of the Warcry starter set at launch with the genuine intention of building an amazing gaming board, I really thought the terrain was amazing! When I got them I listed some of the extra warbands/ cards/ rules etc on eBay for £1 less than the lowest from anyone else to get a quick sale, ended up making most of my money back at the time. Fast forward to a few months back and I knew that project would never get done so I sold the (now very desirable) terrain for the same £1 less than anyone else on eBay and made a lot of profit. Finally I auctioned one of the two still sealed copies, made more profit still. Then finally I sold the last sealed copy at the final auction price on BIN.

I'm curious as to when in that sequence of events did what I was doing become unethical or even "scummy"? I hadn't set out to make profit, is that enough? Was it as soon as I bought multiple boxes, or somewhere later on.


Also as an aside, splitting boxes is fairly costly compared to retail before you start making profit. Say for the Indom box split into three (so Marines, Crons and book) You're looking at box cost plus packaging, postage, ebay fees, paypal fees and some amount for travel to the post office. Say the box cost me £80, I'd need to sell it all for £115 to break even, let alone make any profit.


Cheers
Chris

Scalping is an issue when a product is of limited stock and the population desiring the stock is greater than the total amount of stock.

At which point you've a product where not everyone will secure a copy of the product.

If its only fans buying it then if you miss out you just miss out.

However if you miss out because a large quantity of the stock was bought by a group who then turn around and sell the product at a higher price, then those who wanted the product at the original retail price feel disgruntled. The only reason they don't own the product at the original price is because someone else bought it and raised the price.


People don't like paying more and an organised scalping group with significant investment and good computers can buy up significant quantities of stock in a very short span of time. Again the football tickets were a prime example where scalpers were able to buy up vast numbers of tickets within seconds of them going live.


It's not illegal, its pure capitalism, but that doesn't mean people "like" it. Furthermore the more a products price rises the more people it locks out of being willing/able to afford it.


IF GW sell a box at £120 and then a scalper puts it up to £160 then a portion of people who were able at the 120 mark are now unable to buy it at that price and are forced to buy it at the £160 if they still want it. However some of that bracket won't have the extra £40 to spend or can justify spending that much extra.




Again its not illegal, but its not something most people like (unless you happen to be doing it yourself or you don't want the product so its more of a situation you can "stand back" from).

 Snotcatcher wrote:
I've never understood the malice that is shown to people who buy with the intent to re-sell later, I've always seen it as most similar to buying gold (i.e. a luxury good that is very likely, though never truly guaranteed, to be worth more later.)

As long as the investor buys them through the same channel as the average punter, i.e. they sit refreshing the webpage to try and buy as soon as they go live on the website - rather than underhand ways like say bribing a store owner to keep a bunch aside for them then surely it's fair game on the acquisition side.

Similar to when it comes to sell, yes it's always a bit painful to see things listed for 5x the cost on eBay Buy It Now but if they do sell then surely someone got something they wanted for a price they considered acceptable right? Maybe not considering the general consensus here.

But then what about auctions? You can't possibly say someone is scalping because their low start price auction did well right? What if they do an auction then list another on BIN for the same price as the auction final bid? Surely that's a good way to gauge the current market cost?


As a personal example I bought multiple copies of the Warcry starter set at launch with the genuine intention of building an amazing gaming board, I really thought the terrain was amazing! When I got them I listed some of the extra warbands/ cards/ rules etc on eBay for £1 less than the lowest from anyone else to get a quick sale, ended up making most of my money back at the time. Fast forward to a few months back and I knew that project would never get done so I sold the (now very desirable) terrain for the same £1 less than anyone else on eBay and made a lot of profit. Finally I auctioned one of the two still sealed copies, made more profit still. Then finally I sold the last sealed copy at the final auction price on BIN.

I'm curious as to when in that sequence of events did what I was doing become unethical or even "scummy"? I hadn't set out to make profit, is that enough? Was it as soon as I bought multiple boxes, or somewhere later on.


Also as an aside, splitting boxes is fairly costly compared to retail before you start making profit. Say for the Indom box split into three (so Marines, Crons and book) You're looking at box cost plus packaging, postage, ebay fees, paypal fees and some amount for travel to the post office. Say the box cost me £80, I'd need to sell it all for £115 to break even, let alone make any profit.


Cheers
Chris

I think I know the reason you don't get this malice. From what I gathered its is certain members of the community feel GW miniatures are somehow a "necessasity" because "they want" to be in the hobby, or they want others to be in the hobby but never ask the question if they can reasonably afford it or justify it. It's a needless plastic pile of crap that's a luxury product like comic book statutes, jewelery etc.

So they feel entitled to the stuff and somehow you are now allowed to do with it what you want.. Be that put it int he bin or re-sell it at double the ££

The GW price hike thread shows some interesting perspective.

 Snotcatcher wrote:
I've never understood the malice that is shown to people who buy with the intent to re-sell later

Pick something you personally like to have and can afford, and increase it's cost two, three, fourfold until you are uncomfortable paying for it.

The reason for the increase is that an intermediary has stepped in between you and the supplier and is demanding this extra payment.

Now you probably don't need this thing that you like, but "cough up or sod off" is still a bitter pill.

I don't have any issues with buying a product to split it, and making a small profit off of the various lots.

Your the person who took the time to buy it, split the box, package each lot, and ship it. It can't be expected for the seller to sell it at cost, as they are losing money at that point.

I buy from bits sellers and people who split lots, I don't often want or need the whole box, and paying a small convenience fee is acceptable to me.

For a while I was also buying lots of models, stripping them if needed, and reselling them for a slight profit... But it is a lot of work and time out of your day, more so if you work a full time job. I commend the bits sellers and people who split lots, it is a lot of work, and with how little PayPal does to protect sellers you always run the risk of the buyer trying to scam you, and PayPal forcing you to give them a refund when the models were delivered. So you need the other sales from the box or lot be able to cover a loss in the case that happens.

A.T. wrote:

 Snotcatcher wrote:
I've never understood the malice that is shown to people who buy with the intent to re-sell later

Pick something you personally like to have and can afford, and increase it's cost two, three, fourfold until you are uncomfortable paying for it.

The reason for the increase is that an intermediary has stepped in between you and the supplier and is demanding this extra payment.

Now you probably don't need this thing that you like, but "cough up or sod off" is still a bitter pill.

Except there is virtually nothing stopping that person from ordering directly from GW in the first place when the pre-order goes up...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 NH Gunsmith wrote:
I don't have any issues with buying a product to split it, and making a small profit off of the various lots.

Your the person who took the time to buy it, split the box, package each lot, and ship it. It can't be expected for the seller to sell it at cost, as they are losing money at that point.

I buy from bits sellers and people who split lots, I don't often want or need the whole box, and paying a small convenience fee is acceptable to me.

For a while I was also buying lots of models, stripping them if needed, and reselling them for a slight profit... But it is a lot of work and time out of your day, more so if you work a full time job. I commend the bits sellers and people who split lots, it is a lot of work, and with how little PayPal does to protect sellers you always run the risk of the buyer trying to scam you, and PayPal forcing you to give them a refund when the models were delivered. So you need the other sales from the box or lot be able to cover a loss in the case that happens.

Nonsense... they are evil for putting in time, effort and risk to make a profit . How dare they.

 Argive wrote:
Except there is virtually nothing stopping that person from ordering directly from GW in the first place when the pre-order goes up...

In this particular case that is probably true - but then nobody minds scalpers when they are buying up something that is readily available regardless.

A.T. wrote:
Pick something you personally like to have and can afford, and increase it's cost two, three, fourfold until you are uncomfortable paying for it.

The reason for the increase is that an intermediary has stepped in between you and the supplier and is demanding this extra payment.

Now you probably don't need this thing that you like, but "cough up or sod off" is still a bitter pill.

Oh believe me I know it hurts to have to pay over the odds for something, I've done it plenty! I'm more curious about people's opinions on when investing in something turn into scalping.

I think people maybe look at it differently when it's Warhammer rather than other luxury goods.

Also as an aside, an intermediary stepping in between me and the supplier is surely the exact definition of my local game store (or really any independent retailer.) They make profit on the sale and I don't mind it, even if I don't get anything more from the deal than the product itself.

Tldr: not saying overcharging is at all good or positive, I'm just curious exactly when it supposedly becomes bad or ""immoral."


Cheers
Chris

 Argive wrote:

 Snotcatcher wrote:
I've never understood the malice that is shown to people who buy with the intent to re-sell later, I've always seen it as most similar to buying gold (i.e. a luxury good that is very likely, though never truly guaranteed, to be worth more later.)

As long as the investor buys them through the same channel as the average punter, i.e. they sit refreshing the webpage to try and buy as soon as they go live on the website - rather than underhand ways like say bribing a store owner to keep a bunch aside for them then surely it's fair game on the acquisition side.

Similar to when it comes to sell, yes it's always a bit painful to see things listed for 5x the cost on eBay Buy It Now but if they do sell then surely someone got something they wanted for a price they considered acceptable right? Maybe not considering the general consensus here.

But then what about auctions? You can't possibly say someone is scalping because their low start price auction did well right? What if they do an auction then list another on BIN for the same price as the auction final bid? Surely that's a good way to gauge the current market cost?


As a personal example I bought multiple copies of the Warcry starter set at launch with the genuine intention of building an amazing gaming board, I really thought the terrain was amazing! When I got them I listed some of the extra warbands/ cards/ rules etc on eBay for £1 less than the lowest from anyone else to get a quick sale, ended up making most of my money back at the time. Fast forward to a few months back and I knew that project would never get done so I sold the (now very desirable) terrain for the same £1 less than anyone else on eBay and made a lot of profit. Finally I auctioned one of the two still sealed copies, made more profit still. Then finally I sold the last sealed copy at the final auction price on BIN.

I'm curious as to when in that sequence of events did what I was doing become unethical or even "scummy"? I hadn't set out to make profit, is that enough? Was it as soon as I bought multiple boxes, or somewhere later on.


Also as an aside, splitting boxes is fairly costly compared to retail before you start making profit. Say for the Indom box split into three (so Marines, Crons and book) You're looking at box cost plus packaging, postage, ebay fees, paypal fees and some amount for travel to the post office. Say the box cost me £80, I'd need to sell it all for £115 to break even, let alone make any profit.


Cheers
Chris

I think I know the reason you don't get this malice. From what I gathered its is certain members of the community feel GW miniatures are somehow a "necessasity" because "they want" to be in the hobby, or they want others to be in the hobby but never ask the question if they can reasonably afford it or justify it. It's a needless plastic pile of crap that's a luxury product like comic book statutes, jewelery etc.

So they feel entitled to the stuff and somehow you are now allowed to do with it what you want.. Be that put it int he bin or re-sell it at double the ££

The GW price hike thread shows some interesting perspective.

Toy soldiers are not like "comic book statues" and "jewelry." Or any other thing that just sits there looking nice. Nor are they indulgent. They're game pieces, made in a manner and of such materials as to be reasonably expected to be widely attainable.

Scaliping is absolutely scummy. Selling bits is one thing, since GW refuses to include all options within the kits, and we all have our little projects, but buying something at the store just to mark it up on eBay is taking advantage of people, especially when the supply is limited.

 Snotcatcher wrote:
Tldr: not saying overcharging is at all good or positive, I'm just curious exactly when it supposedly becomes bad or ""immoral."

Immoral... i'd say if it's something that others genuinely need or will suffer without - for example right before the lockdown here some guy cleared out the entire shelf of childrens cough medicine at the local store (via self checkout) to resell for profit.

'Bad' is highly subjective. You see a kid reaching for the last toy on a shelf, get it before him, and then offer it back to him at twice the cost. As you a bad person or is it fair game? What if it's not a kid, what if you were there well in advance, etc.

 Snotcatcher wrote:


Oh believe me I know it hurts to have to pay over the odds for something, I've done it plenty! I'm more curious about people's opinions on when investing in something turn into scalping.

I think people maybe look at it differently when it's Warhammer rather than other luxury goods.

Also as an aside, an intermediary stepping in between me and the supplier is surely the exact definition of my local game store (or really any independent retailer.) They make profit on the sale and I don't mind it, even if I don't get anything more from the deal than the product itself.

Tldr: not saying overcharging is at all good or positive, I'm just curious exactly when it supposedly becomes bad or ""immoral."


Cheers
Chris

A few thoughts:

1) It's not just warhammer, but this is a warhammer site so things focus around it. Were it football or any other market we'd likely be complaining about those scalper issues too.

2) A shop is different to a scalper for a few reasons:

a) A manufacturer might not sell direct to customers and instead relies on distributors and shops to distribute the goods to the customer. In this situation the store is essential to the distribution of the product. Without the shop you'd not be able to buy

b) A shop won't typically sell a product above a manufacturers recommended retail price (and in some cases are forbidden by contracts). The shop profits because they get the product at discount to sell on.

c) A shop typically works to locally promote a product line and support the needs of the consumer. Sales support, repairs, consumer advice, shops can provide a lot locally. For wargamers they might even support local clubs and act as a recruitment hub for the area - helping to promote the products.

3) Scalping happens in every market, where it comes to harm the market is when the scalpers move from being a one or two product affair to buying out entire supplies of stock in one go. This, of course, works best for them when the product is strictly limited in quantity, thus allowing them to make a known investment (purchase) to secure the majority/all of the stock. At this point the scalper (which might be several different people/groups all scalping at once) has taken the majority of the supply of the product and denied the customer the option of buying from the manufacturer and/or a retailer. The scalper then raises the price and provides from the resell of the product.
At no point was the scalper needed to help bring the product to the market; nor to support the market with pre and after sale support. They are purely invested into it for the money and profit they can make.

People understand the value of retailers and shops in local supply and consumer aid. They dislike scalpers because the scalper is offering no benefit, no gain to the consumer. They are purely buying-out a product and raising the price for profit. This can mean that the company actually loses out on potential investment, because now their customers are having to buy products from the scalpers, which means that the number of sales of items per customer might go down if they are having to spend more per product (this assumes the scalpers are targeting specific products not the whole product line). If you had to pay £30 more for a boxed set then that's £30 you won't be spending on models from a store/GW instead.

Blastaar wrote:

Toy soldiers are not like "comic book statues" and "jewelry." Or any other thing that just sits there looking nice. Nor are they indulgent. They're game pieces, made in a manner and of such materials as to be reasonably expected to be widely attainable.

Scaliping is absolutely scummy. Selling bits is one thing, since GW refuses to include all options within the kits, and we all have our little projects, but buying something at the store just to mark it up on eBay is taking advantage of people, especially when the supply is limited.

Uh, toy soldiers are exactly like jewelry / comic statues / comics / any other purely luxury product. They're purely vanity / pedestrian, and in no way something which people absolutely need access to.

Trying to differentiate them from comic book stuff, of all things, really puts this into perspective. You can live without your plastic army men. And if you're so tuned into the dopamine rush of purchasing them that you think you cant, then scalping is probably the least of your worries.

Never new Morgan Freeman collects miniatures

This isn't limited like the holiday bundles limited, it's not selling out anytime soon.

Scalpers wouldn't do it if people were not willing to pay for it. Vote with your dollars and democracy will decide. As long as people are willing to pay scalpers will keep doing it.

One of the big issues with scalpers, is they will utilise services like returns often.
Buy up stock, company restocks and then suddenly gets returns as the scalpers try and get out if they didn’t plan well.

So it can effect things that don’t have a limited time sale, but realistically take time to make and restock to keep up with unusual demand.

It’s difficult also in that with pop culture they may buy things up and only display one or two in a store, as the intent is to have some stock left to sell over a few years. Very different but looks the same at the offset.

 Argive wrote:


Except there is virtually nothing stopping that person from ordering directly from GW in the first place when the pre-order goes up...


.

There is taxs the store doesn't pay, if they buy stuff from germany, instead of UK. And GW has, or at least seems to have a priority based on where the shop is. Non GW shops in US seem to get their stuff on time, while in other places GW is always late with shipments, and when I say late, I mean like 4-5 weeks late.

And this is for the non limited preorders or pre orders that are technicly limited, but in reality are huge, real limited pre order stuff is always going to be bought up by people with better internet connection.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Lance845 wrote:
Scalpers wouldn't do it if people were not willing to pay for it. Vote with your dollars and democracy will decide. As long as people are willing to pay scalpers will keep doing it.

That doesn't work when people that play the game in some countries earn 450-500$ per month, and others earn that in a week. May as well say that those who can't afford scalpers prices will not get the stuff till they rotate out or become bad.

On one level, I kind of despise it. On another, I think it's awesome. I dislike limited product being taken from intended end-users who may want the entire set and are forced to pick it up at an increased premium, and the price increases the captured supply imposes on the market aren't good for the intended original end user either. At the same time, many end users are ultimately often going to end up trashing half the set or reselling it anyway, and a lot of people may only want a specific piece, and the resellers are just more effectively distributing product across the entire spectrum of market demand.

So, on the whole, I think it's an unavoidable reflection of the reality of the market, and issues like large quantities of demand being more granular than the supply allows.

Well things are different of course depenending on situation.
Someone buys a box of space hulk, never opens it, 2 years later sells for profit. nothing wrong with that.

Store owner, taking the preordered sets and re selling them online or doing the whole, WotC didn't send us promos or box toppers, is another.

Someone buying out both the sister starters, so localy no one starts the army, so they don't have to worry about spliting the models at the store with others, is also different from someone just going to the store and buying a starter set to paint it.

 Lance845 wrote:
Vote with your dollars and democracy will decide.

*Plutocracy.

A.T. wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:
Vote with your dollars and democracy will decide.

*Plutocracy.

*Capitalism.

A.T. wrote:

 Argive wrote:
Except there is virtually nothing stopping that person from ordering directly from GW in the first place when the pre-order goes up...

In this particular case that is probably true - but then nobody minds scalpers when they are buying up something that is readily available regardless.

In my experience, "Scalping" is used to refer specifically to cases where people are trying to take advantage of limited availability of an item by bulk-buying it, therefore introducing an artificial scarcity which they then abuse by ramping up the price.

It's very specifically about manipulating supply and demand, so in the cases where it's not possible to meaningfully manipulate that, it's also not possible to effectively scalp.

I just made a post on here about someone selling on an E-Bay auction an old Goblin box for $200.00, which retailed for 35.00. There are certainly are plenty of fools out there with too much money on their hands. My thought process is that you could buy a whole army from an alternative manufacture, or save your money for a good 3-D printer down the line and print out something compatible.

I picked the last line, and not because I am fan of scalpers. My E-Bay practice is to put something at $5.00 and let the buyers decide what they are willing to buy. Ironically enough you get exactly what someone is willing to pay for it, and that is what will happen this time around. Its called a market, and it will form at places like E-Bay. However, like scalpers at an event, their window to make money closes. In this case it closes when these are sold at every GW store and LGS that live around you. Until that window closes, I have no sympathy for anyone who is foolish and impatient enough to pay significantly more for a bunch of toy soldiers.

For me personally, when this comes out, I am not sure if I am going to buy the box or not. I have some interest in the Necrons, but it is a new army for me so I am not sold just yet. I may take more interest when someone has broken it down and painted the miniatures up so that I can see them in real life. I did the same thing on the AOBR and the Skull Pass box sets. I bought the AOBR and passed on the Skull Pass. Either way I can wait, and those that missed their chance to get on the "early bird list" can wait too or pay through the nose for their impatience.

blaktoof wrote:
This isn't limited like the holiday bundles limited, it's not selling out anytime soon.

It's going to sell out in mere minutes imho.

TinyLegions wrote:

I picked the last line, and not because I am fan of scalpers. My E-Bay practice is to put something at $5.00 and let the buyers decide what they are willing to buy. Ironically enough you get exactly what someone is willing to pay for it, and that is what will happen this time around. Its called a market, and it will form at places like E-Bay.

Bidding markets can both over and undersell on what the market is willing to pay for an item.
I've seen people bid up prices on ebay to more than retail value and I've seen things that should sell at top price sell for almost nothing. Sometimes its a misslisting or missunderstanding; other times a product is just listed at the right or wrong time and the price reflects it. Eg perhaps listing a rare product for sale when a majority of that products customers have moved on and aren't looking for it. Something that should command a high value that doesn't because its not being looked for nor expected to be found so you only get a few hits.

Or perhaps you put something up and two novices with money but perhaps not as much awareness/experience of the model range; bid like crazy. A bidding war starts and something sells for way more than normal.


Auctions are always open to such inconsistent results. Ebay slightly less so because of its massive market reach; local auctions you can see this have far more impact. I've also seen a local auction house steadily grow more and more popular and saw the average prices creep steadily upward. Because as popularity grew; awareness grew and more and more people were paying attention, which mean more competition for items.

I never understood how this was even a thing. If you want to spend money on something with the intentions of reselling it, go for it. It’s not like GW will only be releasing 10 boxes, so chances are people interested will be able to find a copy at retail or even less. Those that only want SM or Necron probably won’t mind spending a bit extra (per half) if they can save some off the total cost.

As for the price hikes; they will only see for what someone is willing to pay.

OOP minatures are something else IMO. They are more towards collectibles than gaming miniatures in the sphere of object use which reflect the price I think.

Like OOP WHFB is selling at a massive premium. Any dogs of war units are really rare and there weren't that many kicking about in the first place.

Surely it's the buyers responsibility to decide. if things are at a price point at which they are comfortable.
Just cos something is listed at a gazillion pounds, doesn't mean it's selling anything at that.

I'm probably having 2 boxes and will be flogging off the extra rulebook and both sets Astartes stuff.
Will be an auction format though, so a slight point of difference.
I'm happy s'long as I get closer to a box value back, I get a chunk of Necrons as a starter army.