I saw my local comic shop owner at Toys R Us. He comes up to me with some single carded 'JOEs in hand & asked me what I thought of the condition of the cards. I asked, "What do you mean?" He told me how he wanted to resell them at his shop but he wasn't sure if they'd sell because of the condition of the cards. I asked to see the Viper. He handed it to me, I said, "Thanks." & went to the register & bought it. I waited for him outside & got into it. I asked why he's gotta be a scum bag & buy the figures WE want just so he can resell them at a higher price. He told me it's for convenience of the customers. Meaning they only need to stop at his comic shop to get their comics AND 'JOEs. I told him it's B.S. what he's doing & he's robbing me & other collectors out of money. The creep can & does get his G.I.*JOE figures from his distributor. He doesn't need to pilfer the local Toys R Us & Target stores. (He has the Cobra Legions 5-Pack with the clearance price tags of $12.93 from Target on them. He's trying to sell those SAME boxes for $39.95 with HIS price tags over the Target ones!)

What a dirty guy.

I'm also in the south bay, what TRU and comic shop are you referring to?

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I never ran into anybody like that, it's cool that when he handed you the Viper you went to the register and bought it, but that's how some people are, scalping so much it hurts people like us who just want a couple figs. Good for you that you did what you did.

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Eh... it's capitalism. Yeah, sometimes it sucks, but I don't know as I'd label it as "dirty" without knowing the guy. I worked in toy retail management for several years and have dealt with many secondary store owners who purchased stock for resale. Buy low, sell high, it's the essence of capitalism, and they were not all bad guys in the least.

Doesn't really bother me one way or another, and I just hope we don't get inundated with dozens of "scalperz sux0rz!!!" threads here like I see on other forums. Nothing we can do to change it, might as well just accept it.

Justin

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I think a lot of comic shop guys do this. I've seen TRU stickers on comic shop toys plenty of times.

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I knew I'd hear a "capitalism" something in here. I used to work at a comic shop when I was a teenager & my boss would let scalpers sell stuff through our shop on commission & I got into it with him all the time over that. I know lots of people do it, but it still don't make it right.

I hate that I'm having a hard time finding these figures & distribution aside, these scalpers make it harder AND they wanna rip us off.

I'm not trying to start a "scalpers sux" (or whatever) thread, I just wanted to let my frustration out.

Au contraire mon frere!

Best way to get rid of scalpers is to not feed them. If you know they're reselling stuff from TRU or Target, or wherever, shop somewhere else. Same goes for EBay.

My comic shop gets their toys from Diamond, there's no reason anybody else couldn't do the same.

And however you say it, it's true: Scalpers sux.

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Maybe we should start buying joes from a distributor... a Joe Customs Comic collective because you know those comic shop guys are buying from our source!

Steve

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If ya don't agree with it, the best thing you can do is not buy from secondary markets.

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I agree Scalpers suck,

But I enjoy beating the scalpers to the punch since I work near a bunch of stores, I even got into a power walking race worthy of sitcom one morining with the matchbox man of Baltimore in the target next to my office, and even had an argument as two hands touched the same toy at the same time. If I see something on the shelf I'll text a pal and ask if they want it and then I'll get it or leave it.


I feed the scalpers sometimes when I need (well want is the correct word), but i find usally just waiting long enough you;'ll find what you want. I still reel at what I spent on a Horro Show a few years back...

I know everyone is gonna hate for this part but I have to say you asked the to see something that he planed on buying regardless of his motives you then went and bought it for yourself? ...I hate to be a jerk but frankly I don't think that was a cool thing to do...yes he is scum for scalping and he was stupid for handing it over and with out keeping his hand on it but if someone did that to you would be in here saying how mad you are at that person for tricking you.

As for Diamond their price to a local guy is frankly no that low, I have a pal who has a comic shop in MD and he will not sell toys because not enough of his cusotmers buy them for him to get a low enough from diamond for example some of the same stuf that Suncoast sells that TRU or walmart sells are all different prices -I asssume that dealing direct w/ Hasbro would be the cheapest route.



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Yeah, if he cares so much about the convinience of his customers he can buy them wholesale thru Diamond and sell them at the MSRP. Due to gas prices this would *easily* make me a return customer of his since his argument would then be spot-on. Otherwise he's just a greedy douche.

Shame you had to get such a crummy fig to prove your point, tho.

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Wholesale prices for smaller retails is more than WalMarts wholesale price.

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My local comic guy buys a case of each wave of Joes for me. Diamond cuts deals on buying toys and for joes he gets 25% off he charges me 10% more what it costs him, not a bad deal since they wind up costing me about 7 bucks a figure with no worries about being able to find them at target or Walmart.

Scalpers are a pain in the ass and one of the reasons things like toy collecting are quickly becoming less fun. The toy companies fuel them by creating chase figures and short packing to create "heat" for a brand, and Fan Boys feed them buy buying their marked up product. Same thing went down in the 90s for comics and helped lead to the inflated value of such classics as the death of super man and Young blood #1, neither are worth much these days. The only way to fight them is to not buy from them, and to encourage others to do the same. Of course looking out for fellow board members always helps.

Other then that there isn't much you can do. If you have a local comic guy that's cool I recommend hitting him up. Of course a stock pre order stock set up at HTS would solve a lot of the problems.

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That's my feeling. I don't like scalping. But, the people with money to burn use them and there's no changing their feelings. My take is that if you can't beat them: join them. I just sold some figs like Docs and a Wave 1 Flint on Ebay. From those three figures, I made enough to buy all the con attendee figures. I guess that's "wrong" but I'm past the point of caring. If guys want to overspend for items, it's their money to do with as they please. I might as well get it and respend it on items that I care about.

Getting into fights either online or in person just isn't worth it for little plastic men. In the long run, pretty much everything becomes available for cheap prices. You just have to be patient. If you can't do that, well, then you spend big bucks for items that will be collecting dust in closets for years. It's your choice and I'm not really about to get into an argument trying to prove to someone they're "wrong".

Plus, to be frank, I don't see how a scalper is any worse an affect on availability than a big time army builder. One guy buying up all the Vipers in town for his own little army is just as bad for availability as a reseller buying them. Something to think about....

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I may be a little biased as someone who works in a comic store, but I don't see a problem with this. I know for a fact that the store I work in makes ALOT less when they buy stuff at retail and resell it, they really do it for customer convenience. Unless you're talking about a store like Toywiz(wizard magazine's store, which is near me) - they jack the hell out of everything and then put it in their magazine as the "hot toy" at their price to justify it.

As for you buying the guy's viper, I agree that's not cool. If I were him, I wouldn't sell to you in my store or I would have at least confronted you. I'm not defending scalpers, I hate them, but to me this is different. The guy's making a living selling stuff he gets wholesale and is providing stuff he maybe can't get wholesale as a convenience or to get people into his store.

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