SCALPING - Reselling the Indomitus Box

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**Skinnereal**

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.

**Kithail**

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

**Slipspace**

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.

**greatbigtree**

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.

**SamusDrake**

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...

**Crimson**

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.

**John Prins**

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.

**SamusDrake**

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...

**Kanluwen**

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.

**Soulless**

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.

**Karol**

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.

**beast_gts**

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.

**Kithail**

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.

**Argive**

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

**Dysartes**

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.

**vipoid**

I consider it very wrong indeed.

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

**vict0988**

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.

**Overread**

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.

**John Prins**

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.

**harlokin**

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.

**Overread**

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.

**Dai**

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

What a world.

**Kayback**

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.

**lord_blackfang**

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.

**Kithail**

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

**Arbitrator**

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.

**Karol**

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.

**Slayer6**

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.

**Dysartes**

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.

**Lance845**

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.