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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

My solution for scalpers is simple.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

G.A

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

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


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



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

MDG's underlying point is simply:

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

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

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

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

This group seems to serve a similar purpose.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 Undead_Love-Machine wrote:

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

This is the biggest issue, IMHO.

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

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

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

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

"They might not sell out in 1 minue!"

"..."

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



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

You're not going to stop scalpers.

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

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

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

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

They brag about how easy it is.

Why don't GW make more?

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

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

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

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

Cheers