Brickset ForumHome›
Shopping at LEGO or Amazon?
Please use our links: LEGO.com • Amazon
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
Please use our links: LEGO.com • Amazon
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
The Community Perspective on Reselling
This discussion has been closed.
Shopping at LEGO.com or Amazon?
Please use our links: LEGO.com • Amazon
Recent discussions • Categories • Privacy Policy • Brickset.com
Howdy, Stranger!
Categories
- All Categories
- 16.2K General
- 3 Announcements
- 3.1K Collecting
- 3.7K Everything else LEGO
- 1.7K Building and Techniques
- 2.3K Brickset
- 14 Ambassador
- 1K Introduce yourself
- 385 The Database
- 438 Brickset.com
- 315 Forum Operation
- 15 FAQs
- 13.9K Shopping
- 1.7K Shopping USA/Canada
- 337 Shopping Elsewhere
- 11K Marketplace
- 1.2K Other
- 571 Community and Events
- 262 Photography/Video
Brickset.com is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, the Amazon.com.ca, Inc. Associates Program and the Amazon EU Associates Programme, which are affiliate advertising programs designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
Comments
What I am seeing here are people saying that it is ok to speed, but get mad when someone faster passes them up...
This thread- in a nutshell.
I'm sure they will be fIne once they wander over to the Predictions/Reselling thread to gain some insight.
Your incessant unfunny jokes in the Predictions thread are just barely tolerable but they are excused because that thread is such a mess. However when it spills into the rest of the forum, as it often does, it is terribly distracting. Even worse is that the jokes are becoming more and more lowbrow, crass, and downright vulgar. To top it off, when people show disinterest or disgust, rather than curtailing the jokes, you bemoan how unappreciated you are in a display that is pitifully attention-getting.
Or should I say "pitfally" ;)
Which is why I was so shocked by the response, it felt like I had just said, "oh yea, I was a bit late for work so I had to drive 50mph in a 40mph zone", and the replies were, "oh my gosh, you're evil, how dare you, that is the same as driving 135mph, you should be ashamed of yourself."
Let's try another analogy...
If you smoke crack once a week and I smoke crack everyday, do you have the right to call me a crackhead..?
We can all debate the pros and cons of resellers and "bemoan" the behavior of some resellers, but we are a Lego community and we are all "friends" here and I hope we can all be honest with each other :)
There are some large sellers on Bricklink that do seem to fit the description and probably employ the same tactics of the resellers that are being vilified here. But there are also a lot of smaller operations that are selling used and spare parts.
Personally, I use Bricklink exclusively for parts, and they are definitely providing me a service by enabling me to buy individual parts, often in large quantities. I was not able to do this from the sets they took off the shelves to part out. That is value-added. I think this is more of a service than a reseller who bought as much Minecraft or 41999 as he could, doing his part to deplete the supply, and profiting without adding value. As doriansdad so eloquently put it: "Open box, remove packing slip, slap on label and collect $100 for passing go."
Whether you are a BL parts seller or MISB reseller, I don't have a problem if you buy as much clearance stock as a store will allow. The stores are happy to unload the stock and there typically aren't limits. Some share this view and some don't.
I have a bit of a problem with the shortages of these limited sets that are becoming more and more common. I acknowledge that TLG is partially at fault. But, in nearly all instances, there are quantity restrictions in place. Just because the mechanisms to enforce the limits are not ironclad, it doesn't mean they should be disregarded. In truth, I don't even have that much of a problem with this type of reselling. The pragmatist in me understands that where there is money to be made, people will be there to do exactly that. But that doesn't stop the idealist in me from thinking it's a shame.
So if I claim to have little to no problem with reselling, what is my gripe? It's the tone of some of the discussions here... on a website built for fans of LEGO. It is the commodotizing of a product that I've always held dear to my heart, and to this day still look upon and see a bit of magic. They aren't widgets or doodads to me or a lot of other people here. I took exception when people were counting down the stock level of 10212 Imperial Shuttle and were popping champagne when it finally went out of stock. Did fans of the Lotus Esprit celebrate when production ceased? Did Beatles fans celebrate when they broke up?
How you can cry foul on one person for reselling sets while you knowingly, willingly, and comfortably buy your parts from resellers is completely ignorant...
And I bet everyone of you guys here bitching about resellers has bought from them...
How many of you noble white knights here have got an email notice that a certain part that you were waiting for had been added to a bricklink store and then you went in and bought up every single part in their lot because the seller had them at a price that was too good to pass up even though you bought way more than you needed to buy..? I bet you weren't too concerned with the next guy who could have used them....
But, alas, by fixating on that one word, you're really missing the point of my post.
Oh, and just to illustrate the importance of the word "probably", I will take your bet that everyone here complaining about resellers has bought from whichever Bricklink sellers you are mentioning. PM me the Bricklink store(s) and I can show you my Bricklink order history. Had you added "probably", I couldn't collect on this bet that I will certainly, most definitely, unequivocally win.
Yes, if everyone was saying, "Reselling is evil! Now I'm off to buy parts on Bricklink!" then your point would be merited. But that's not what's happening, so you're largely sounding off against a phantom issue.
I got a 10 says pass the pepper.
That's just it, they are not saying anything about it..
Here is my issue:
My wife is a seller on bricklink which makes her a reseller because she is reselling parts from new sets for a profit...
I also resell things, but in a different way than the rest of you do and I occasionally buy sets on a small scale and resell them if I don't need them for any future use or if I recognize a good deal.. Now I don't buy them up in huge numbers, but regardless, if I buy even one set with even the intention of selling it down the road, that makes me no better than the guy who bought 100 of them with the exact intention...
I don't know any single one of you here and everyone of you may be the most sincere people on this planet, but trying to convince me that it is appropriate to condemn some guy who anticipated a good deal while you buy your parts from a second hand Lego dealer is pathetic...
First, the store manager never said I was unwelcome, not sure where you got that. They love me there (AFAIK) and are always happy to take my money.
Second, the limit was 2 per order, it is questionable if it was really 2 per person/household because some people placed multiple orders from the same account and all were shipped as far as I have read.
Finally, as to an honest response as to why I ended up with 6 of them, rather than 2? Because this is what I do for a living and I didn't feel like letting this deal pass. It is very rare that I'd bother to have family order something for me, this is maybe the second time ever I've done that.
Frankly, I feel there is a difference between doing it a little bit, every once and awhile, and doing it a lot, all of the time. Some people will disagree with that, but that is how I feel.
I'll point out again that this situation is completely of TLG's making. Resellers had nothing to do with the creation of this situation, so if you want to blame anyone, blame TLG.
Resellers are just playing the cards that are dealt, no more and no less. Suggesting that they leave money on the table to make random people feel warm and fuzzy... is actually quite insane. No, they aren't... but you know what? They are to TLG... that is something that is often forgotten by many fans. The manufacture is just running a business selling widgets, it is the fans that put the emotions onto them.
The LEGO fan in me continues to find it an amazing product, I love what can be done with LEGO. Then I stare at a shelf full of LEGO and see a balance sheet of widgets. I'm able to do both at the same time. :) The fan in me is sad to see it go, but the widget seller in me is happy to start selling my stashed copies. :)
TLG can't sell every set forever, so at some point they have to go.
Oh, nevermind, I'll just look myself. [goes to look]
I'm back. Wow, you're right, it wasn't hard. There are 6 stores worldwide that have 2 million or more new parts. And only one of them is in the USA. So if I can demonstrate that I'm not a hypocrite because I haven't ordered from them, I win, right?
I must confess though, that I might not qualify for your bet because, even though you seem to be addressing me, I actually didn't sling any mud at a reseller. It's not really surprising that you wouldn't understand my position though, because you don't seem to be processing what anyone is saying.
Here I was giving you cliff notes to this discussion thinking you were new to it since you didn't seem to grasp the history of the thread. But then I found that you actually had participated previously:
"Crowkillers
December 2012
I didn't read through this entire thread as I am not exactly sure what the point was, but how are people supposed to get sets that are retired if it was not for resellers..? Or do people think that resellers are supposed to sell 5 or even 10 year old sets for what they paid for them...?"
It appears as though you were just as lazy and willfully ignorant then as you are now, and rather than have a meaningful discourse that progresses by understanding each other's point of view, you prefer to just shout at the wall.
Selling parts has more value added. Parts sellers buy sets and turn them into a different product. I think it's more of a service to the community than sitting on sets for some time is. Of course BL parts sellers are also in it for the money. So what?
Allow me to take it and fix it. :)
You want to feed people in some country, I'll make one up called "Hungrystan".
In Hungrystan, there are 50,000 people who need to eat, but you've decided to only prepared 20,000 meals. When you ship these meals to Hungrystan, people like myself are paying attention and show up at the docks before everyone else does and start buying meals from you.
You don't actually pay any attention as to how many meals are being purchased by any one person, so you end up selling, say, 6 meals to me.
You then run out of meals, I turn around and sell those meals for twice the price I paid to whomever has the most money.
30,000 people were going to go hungry regardless of what I did or did not do. 20,000 people still get fed, the only difference is that they paid more because I knew what was going on and they did not.
I profited because I put in the time and effort to pay attention to the meal market full time and know what was going on. In return, I was rewarded for that effort with profits.
Had you brought 100,000 meals, or enforced purchase limits, or simply not disclosed how many meals you were bringing, this situation would not have happened.
So blaming me for buying up meals is absurd. Blame yourself for not making enough meals and for letting me know how many you did make.
------------
You're implying that I'm somehow to "blame" for knowing something that someone else does not.
Welcome to life... my plumber can charge me $85/hr because he knows how to replace a toilet and I do not... I can charge him $150/hr because I know how to fix his computer and he does not...
Knowledge is valuable, that is not going to change. It seems that the idealist in you somehow doesn't want the rules of life to apply to your favorite hobby, but that is a fantasy that will only bring you frustration and pain.
Something to think about...
And that you took your family's details along in case they imposed per person limits.
You also forgot that you're (well not you so much, but forgive me for bundling you all together) are walking around, into the homes of hungry people who have or have not got their meals and saying look, I've got 6 meals and I'm not even hungry. Again what a lovely member of the hungrystan community you are.
A nicer person would surely put personal gain to one side, and say, there are 50,000 hungry people and 20,000 meals. We either need to prioritise so those that need one most get one or divide them up so we all are less hungry in hungrystan. Wow, that would be a nice thing to do, almost a responsible thing, almost something that would help improve society. But ofcourse, you wouldn't make your money off of hungry people... wait a minute, thats exactly what TLG tried to do with the limit - the limit you chose to bypass.
I have to say it was a stupid hypothetical but oddly chosen by yourself - it seemingly just makes you look worse than just talking about LEGO!
You keep bringing morality, empathy, little Timmys and other shit into play, but then why don't you start working for free? Why don't you complain about doctors not treating their patients for free? Why can't you get food for free? Or why don't you go directly to LEGO and tell them to give turn their heads to profit and start spreading Lego to all Little Timmys who can't afford it?
It's all about the profits and it ever will be so.
This is getting ridiculous, and bringing words like pirates and robbers and whatever into play is downright lame and offensive.
-Rocao FoodCo told you they could only bring 20,000 meals and asked you to limit yourself to 2
-You got back in line 3 times, taking an extra 4 meals that may have gone to 4 fans of food, 2 combo fans or 1 scalper
-You rationalize it by saying you could have gotten in line more times but didn't and that it was Rocao FoodCo's fault for not having Food Security in place and/or not making enough food
-You previously were allowed to buy right off the boat but were buying too many and lost that access
-You bemoaned your loss of water taxi rights with the group here and that you had been fully compliant once warned
-Anyone who sells their corn on the cob or buys a corn on the cob is a hypocrite if they give you grief for selling full meals during a food shortage (per Crow)
Or the more realistic and relevant scenario is, what if so many thousands of people turn up you are uncertain if there are 20,000 or more present? Or is that why you only bought 6 meals?
Of course, what you're really championing is the right of the individual in a capitalist society which we can all do until we are blue in the face. But I question whether Hungrystan is truly capitalist, I think they might be AFOList. I don't know precisely what that word means as I just made it up, but I think it's the question truly at debate here. Morality is not clearly defined by law in Hungrystan, but it is clearly valued more highly than in many other countries. Many people, I would wager the majority of the population, believe that is important to protect.
If the only way you can have a job is buy buying up items in limited supply, breaking rules to do so and then selling them to exactly the same people that you prevented from buying in the first place at a steep mark up then I guess that's pretty sad - if it was me I think I would try and find a more meaningful form of employment. Just for my own sanity.
What I suspect many don't understand is that we don't think its particularly clever - what was this special knowledge that led to you picking up 6? Most people here who wanted 1 got 1 and I'm sure most could have got 6 if we wanted to break the rules. I'd actually be more impressed if you had 100 of them - that would have shown some ingenuity. What perplexes me more is that some of you have openly stated that you could run ToysRUs better than they do, you could run TLG better than they do, yet you still mess around buying 6 copies of a toy that will make you what $1800 yet still call this the golden goose of reselling? To me that seems like playing in the gutter as you should clearly be on at least a 7 figure salary.
Of course this in a utopia may seem wrong, but this is how reality works. In this case it just involves more emotion, since it's "preying" on the hobby we all share, then it would if we were to talk about cabbage reselling.
Yup, we are not adult fans of cabbages and are unlikely to discuss that here.
But then consider that the businessman is also part of a community and wants to be part of that community. And the community don't mind the profit being made, but does care about the way that the stock is got hold of. Remember that this is the businessman that looks for support in the community when the supply chain cuts him off even though he says he is playing by the rules since being told not to resell items. And the community then finds out he is pushing boundaries to get stock when it suits him. And then brags about it within the community.
But what I don't agree with is the reaction against ALL resellers because a number of members felt the need to brag. And this can extend to any seller doing the same business practice in whatever domain. That's not completely fair now, is it?
A couple of years ago in the UK when there was heavy snow, food distribution became difficult especially in rural areas. A local shop was restricting the amount of bread that customers could buy (two loaves), to help ensure "fair" distribution. Although they didn't have enough to go round so everyone could have bread, they were going to try to help out as many people as possible. One local entrepreneur took his family members along to the shop and they all bought their allowed share and the store was soon out of bread. The guy then sold it out the back of his van for a large profit. So the people in the village couldn't buy bread from the store as it was all sitting in the bloke's van. Everyone wanted some but it was no longer in the shop.
He saw a one-off opportunity, he took it, he profited from it. What a great business man.
But once the profit was made, he was still part of that rural and quite close community. As was his family that helped him remove all the bread and sell it on. How does the community treat that family when it turns out they are in need? Would you help push start his van if it broke down? Would you help out the elderly mother if she needed to get to the shops and had missed the bus? The profit made doesn't nearly cover the years of being shunned by the community you piss on.
PS. It wasn't me that bought the bread.
In some places, similar things happened with drinking water distribution after the floods in 2007. Profits and fights.
When the IS was ticking down, I know I wasn't celebrating it's demise. I was celebrating its retirement as we said goodbye (albeit at MRSP) to one of the most impressive and elegant models that Lego has ever produced. I can see the same thing happening with the FB and DS when it happens too, of course, those will be more heavy with a "sheesh, finally" ironic vibe.
I am a reseller as well a small one to be honest. I do flip for a quick buck, but being part of the community I try to help my brethren out as much as possible as that is what a community should do. In my opinion people who part out sets on BL are helping out a lot of folks to get what they need. Parting out is good as a lot of times it pays you a decent sized profit as well. I mentioned something like 'help each other out and spread the Lego love' the first few days of joining this Forum, but now the trend and things are changing. Its mostly coming down to bragging and flaunting about how lucky a person can get acquiring Lego and how the person is able to override the system or bend it enough. And I know bragging works only one way, as no one would share the story about 'How I helped a fellow Lego lover getting him the Exclusive #41999 without making a dollar on it'.
Why not keep it friendly always and be willing to help anyone who seeks it? No one wants to loose money, but I can guarantee if we would help each other out no one will loose money. And due to what I been reading up so much, sad to say my interest is falling.
My 1 and half cent, blaming it on inflation and frustration :)