In some cases (diamond especially) the wholesale price is more than wal marts retail price.

My comic shop owner went outside of diamond to get his, he is at least getting some shipments now rather than cancelled oreders and is able to sell them at normal retail.

On the scalping thing I am a bit less inclined to be generous since I used to run a comic shop. I made plenty on ebay with ML's but I never boosted beyond my retail, if it went over it was bid over. The most Ironic case of this was some family guy figs that ended up going for $60.00 a piece, yet sat on my store shelf for a full month. Weird.

Still I never had the time/patiance to run to the toystores and scalp, maybe that is what did me in, no it was the one place in town that comic geeks all worked shutting down really, but that is all beside the point now.

Well, you knew you'd hear it because thats exactly what it is. It's a fact.

As has already been noted in here, Diamond's wholesale price to comic shops for toys are generally even higher than store prices. And quite frankly, I think you are at least as much in the wrong as this guy. At least he doesn't make any bones about getting the figures-you resorted to a sneaky underhanded trick. You are no more entitled to that or any other figure than he is, regardless of what he wants to do with it.

And also mentioned many times, if you don't like the "scalpers", don't buy from them!!! I sure as hell don't! And if someone else does want to, it sure as hell ain't any of my business.

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and they're too stupid to realize the time and gas they burn trying to "make" money ends up costing them more in the long run.

it was kind of funny though to listen to smodcast #50 or 51 when walt flanagan talked about driving all over NJ to buy up figures and in some cases swapping them out just to sell at their comic book store lol.

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After reading this thread I wonder if things I've done have been mistaken for 'scalperism'.

This is just an internal query I'm verbalizing, no one here has accused me of anything. I'm talking things I've done in stores.

If I find a toy I am interested in/can use/want to army build/or find on clearance I tend to get as many as I can.

Maybe it's the pack-rat in me.

I admit I did try to be a nice guy and leave some comic pack Oktober Guard sets on the pegs a few years back, now I wish I had grabbed as many as I could find.

I've never had someone ask me if I was ashamed to take toys away from kids. I've never been confronted in a store about the number of items I'm putting in a cart or basket.

Still when I think back to all the surplus Star Wars figures I still have carded or the boxes of GIJOE figures I've gotten through various clearances, I wonder.

I'm not buying it with the intention of making a huge turnaround profit. I'm buying for personal use or as trade material, even to help out someone here.

I don't like scalpers, but what do we call the people that buy extra stuff for their own use that leaves holes on the shelves?

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To buy from Diamond, or have an account straight with Hasbro, it does cost more. The over all price has to be a little higher. BUT, that is helping the consumer. That's a way an individual can help cut scalpers out of the loop. Sure the figures cost the consumer a little more if the person is honest, but it cuts off the oxygen supply to scalpers. The more places consumers can find stuff is the less that scalpers will step in and go Ebay crazy.

Nobody is "helping the consumer" by not having a regular job and having the time to hang at stores to get all the items out before those of us with jobs can get there. There a lot of the people that will hit every store every day and buy up anything they can make money on. The bad thing is, they're not making much and they still keep doing it.

Stores can help the consumer too. If a person in charge sees a scalper come in and they haven't put items out, don't wag your butt to the back and bring it out for them. Many times I have seen this and even seen the scalper go in the back with the person. If it's an item that's going to sell and you know it, don't sell to the scalper. Through the whole popularity of Transformers, I made sure many kids got Bumblebee and not some stupid scalper. Believe me, there was a bunch that wanted it . There's no reason to sell to known scalpers unless it's an item they took interest in that's not selling. But a lot of stores usually have people that do not know stock even if it were to bite their butt.

The worst ones actually are the toy companies. Yeah, not the scalpers. If they see a product selling, they should boost the production. Instead they use the scalpers to bring a false popularity to the product. It's obvious that it doesn't work well. I mean you drop production to allow the scalpers to make more money off your product while slowly your piss off core fans that stop buying your product? It doesn't look like a good business practice to me and there's many clearance items in the past to give proof. Throw some product out there and promote it, don't just put 2 cases out in store to gain scalper interest. Once they catch on, they buy up the few cases that come in and if it doesn't sell, they bring it back to stores and get their money back after damaging the package. They end up not selling to anyone else which creates the snowball of blocking new product from coming in and eventually kind of what we're all seeing with the 25th Anniversary stuff.

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I've been shopping at that comic shop for years. I know the guys that work there & have met this new owner before the Toys R Us encounter. I would go there to buy my comics & figures that AREN'T AVAILABLE AT PLACES LIKE TOYS R US OR TARGET.

I know that when ordering through Diamond, the comic shop dealers pay higher than the big retailers. I've worked at a comic shop for many years. I also worked at Toys R Us.

The thing about me being a jerk to that guy was this, he orders 'JOEs from Diamond. He can price them at what ever he wants. I don't buy them. I don't buy from the secondary market. Not for a figure that's BRAND NEW. Those figures that he had in hand, figures I could buy at a regular retail price, he would want to sell to me for DOUBLE what he was paying. Like I said, I waited for him outside & we "talked" about it.

Here I can't find a figure I want at retail, but I see them at the comic shop for $16?! I call B.S. on that. If he tacked on an extra $2, that would be one thing, but jackin' up the price as much as he does, no way. That's fine if it's something he got from his distributor. Let that be the "convenience" for his customers that don't feel like going anywhere else to grab their 'JOEs. Leave the ones in the aisles at Toys R Us for those of us that go there to buy them at regular prices.

I know I ain't gonna change the world here.
I ain't looking to start any arguments.
It's just rough when something BRAND NEW comes out & ya can't get it because some scalper wants t' sell it to ya at a higher cost. It gets real aggravating.

Local Comic Shop Owner Is A Dirty Scalper!

never met one that wasnt.

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I'm surprise people actually play devil's advocate for the scalper. Still a horder can cause equal damage. Only difference is money is only exchanged once.

You are under no obligation to buy ANYTHING from him, regardless of price. If you don't like his prices, way he does business, hair color, cologne, or whatever, don't buy from him plain and simply. Leave him alone and buy elsewhere where your expectations as a buyer are met.

You are not obliged to stand by his methods whatsoever. TRU exists to sell products, they don't care who buys them or what they do with them as long as they sell. If you can't find what you want at that TRU, try somewhere else.

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What is sad is the whole debate would be over if hasbro would just increase production like they said they would 8 months ago.

Scalpers are trying to make money, they ruin it for everyone. Capitalism or not they take something enjoyable and turn it into a chore. I wouldn't want to collect anything if I had to pay a sweaty fat guy three times retail value for it.

Yep, exactly. Exactly what I was saying in my other post, yet your's is summed up rather than my rambling, hehe. And here I go rambling more.

If Hasbro or any of the toy companies would just increase production, scalpers wouldn't have a reason to exists. It's a false popularity to ship 2 cases only to a store and know that scalpers will be the ones to buy it. Hasbro doesn't gain as much as they could by just getting the figures out there. Sure they've got those extra sales from scalpers that otherwise wouldn't have bought the figures, but if they don't sell the figures they take them back to the stores that will take them back.

I've had a no scalper policy with my collecting. If I don't find what I want in store I don't buy from a scalper. Yes I consider the real online stores to be good places to buy from. They get figures from orders straight to the companies and do not go to stores to get extra. They don't jack the price up $20 or more beyond the original sticker price just because they can get it either.

But yeah, that's all it takes. If everyone would stop feeling like they have to be first to own something, or they need to pay a scalper to get something, some of this would stop. It always amazes me that people are still willing to fork over $60 or more for a single figure that only costs $6 - $9 normally. It's a whole different thing for selling old figures no longer in store and these scalpers should focus on that.

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You know that is one of the things that kill me, I have mentioned before that a large part of me thinks that this is being done on purpose to create a false popularity (ie PS#, X-box 360 ect) and people say "HAsbro wouldn't sabotage themselves." Really how are they.

They sell out, its not like they spend extra on production costs with smaller orders, if anything its an all win situation, so really how unrealistic is it to think maybe we've been had by the big H.

Consperocy, eh maybe, but really explain the "stores aren't ordering" switch to "Ramp up production" any other way.

what if they were slim and dry?

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I see it regularly. Working at KB, not only does a case that comes in show you what yor order to the store is, but it also shows you what is in the warehouse. Popular items like swimming pools. you see a crapload that's ordered. Popular items such as action figures, the numbers are very low as to what actually is in stock. When 25th Anniversary figures have come in the case has shown only around 6 to 10 cases in the warehouse with just 1 case that came to the store I'm at. That's 6 to10 cases to try and stretch to all of the stores. Beyond what comes in that week, more could have come in the following week without the KB I'm at getting any, but those numbers I wouldn't know. It's hit or miss whether they send any at all.

So yeah, product is being short shipped and it's being done so on purpose. Companies have seen people scramble for items that are hard to find so a lot of these companies are trying to build a false sense of popularity. They've been playing with the concept for several years now. There's not really any most lost exactly on items they have not made to sell, but there's no extra money gained either from those people that can't find the items.

I can see what the concept is. They make "X" amount of figures and trickle them out. Scalpers grab up the first amount of shipments to sell and as they are putting these up a few more hit stores. Some people find them in stores and get them and then others buy from the scalpers. The same amount that would have sold still is what sells. That's in the "perfect model idea" the companies have. They live and die by the "research". Truth is, on the street Wal-Mart and other companies screw up their distribution so some areas get a crapload of stock and other areas hardly get any. When people look for other ways to get figures beyond the scalpers and scalpers are stuck with items, they take them back to stores to get their money back. At this point fans already have what they want and these extra figures just sit there. You end up with what we see. The same figure sits and no more come in because store stock shows there are figures on the shelf that are not selling. To the computer, wave 1 and wave 7 are the same thing. If figures are there, no more are needed. Waves get skipped and fans get screwed.

Companies are going to keep looking for the best way to sell products and the least costly way to make them popular. The main goal is to try and keep from having a massive amount of figures they have to sit on and end up cutting deals with Big Lots. Not seeing 25th Anniversary figures in Big Lots or other discount stores shows they have figured out part of the concept to a degree, they just need to figure out the other half so fans will be happy.

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Yeah JMan- but years ago I had two KB employees shake me down on in Long Island and once in Staten Island, the LI one was stocking SW figures puttingthe Jawas off to the side Solo, Skywalker and Vader on the wall Jawa on the floor, Troopers, Fetta and R2 on the wall Jawas on the floor, I reach down took one of the Jawas and he started to say something, I asked if these were not for sale, he jsut shrugged not sure if I was a collector or not then as I walked away he put them back in the box that he took the rest out of.

The second time I was looking for the SW pilot 3 pack...and asked the kid working there "oh no sir we are out of it...it's kind of rare" oh well darn my little cousin wanted it half true) "well what's it worth to you sir?"

Are you shaking me down for a toy?

um no sir, (stammering) just you might want to try ebay ...or a comic book shop...but I'll go check the back for you amazingly he came out with one in a crushed box.

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