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The Community Perspective on Reselling
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Comments
;)
And before @rocao makes good on his word and takes action against people who have not introduced themselves etc, lemme introduce myself, I am from the Great Northwest, Washington state , have a very modest collection, love to collect Creator houses and scour Fred Meyer for Lego deals :-))
i have never sold even a single brick but have traded here exactly 3 times. And I love to read the Marketplace thread in the hopes that someone will have a Theodon or Merry minifigs for trade. :-))
I have made plenty of comments and have started many discussions, but a lot of my comments are senseless humor...most of the time to keep the peace. I also can "read between the lines" very well LIT ;)
Worth every penny. I do realise some may disagree!!
I respect your opinion and share it in spirit but I fear it may be much more imperiling to any community to start making assumptions about others intent.
Food for thought, though: It was an administrative decision to make the "Shopping" and "Buying and Selling" category accessible to members. What is the practical difference between a guest account and a member who has never posted?
Amazon restocked many times, but often just 60 of them at a time, and of course those were gone in minutes.
Even today, a year post release, Amazon restocks hundreds of copies and they are gone in a few hours, a day at the most.
This is a set that has demand out of all relation to production, so it really isn't a fair example in that regard.
But anyway, what policy are you saying TLG has instituted solely because of the Minecraft situation?
So again, there is no other case where someone could claim a reseller prevented a person from acquiring a production set. Even 41999 was available for close to three weeks here in the US
But that restock ended up being very telling about who was buying sets and the effect of resellers. When S@H restocked they stayed in stock for 3 days. With a set so amazingly popular that others retailers were selling out within minutes (of admittedly small supply), how did S@H stay in stock for so long?
Was the price unattractive? It was being sold at MSRP but shipping wasn't free. Still, people had been paying 3-4x MSRP from resellers so price didn't seem to be an issue.
Was the end-user demand satisfied? Factors that suggest this might have been true were that it was after Christmas so that other gifts were purchased or it was purchased already from a reseller at a markup. For the former situation, I can't speak for all parents, but if my child really wanted this set for Xmas, and I had been trying to no avail to get one such that I ended up buying something else, it would have been pretty amazing if I ended up being able to get one anyway. To the latter, you guys seem to be saying that the reseller effect is overstated, so there couldn't have been that many parents who bought it from resellers, could there have been? Moreover, by your own observations, Minecraft has been a brisk seller for most of this year, so there seems to still be healthy demand.
Was the re-supply so massive such that it was selling like gangbusters but there was simply enough to last for three days? It's possible; I certainly think they had a lot. But then why were other retailers getting the trickles that you claim? Why did the LEGO stores not get any? Here is what I say happened, and I think I'm not reaching when I connect the dots this way:
1. TLG had advised much earlier in the year that there would be enough to last through the holidays.
2. We didn't see them restock and expectedly panic ensues. That resellers were also gobbling up sets and selling them at 3-4x MSRP is undeniable and eBay, Amazon, Bricklink,and craigslist were testaments to this.
3. S@H restocks.
4. Frenzied buying still occurred initially.
5. S@H didn't run out of stock in minutes.
6. S@H didn't run out of stock in hours.
7. S@H didn't run out of stock overnight.
8. Aftermarket prices plummeted since the set was now available for MSRP.
9. With the aftermarket prices plummeting, the shipping cost cutting further into the profit margin, and S@H apparently having a glut, resellers thought it was all too risky. They saw that the gravy train was over and moved on,
10. Stock ran out in 3 days, and what we saw was real end-user demand.
As always, I welcome you to poke holes where you can and I welcome your own explanation to see if it survives my scrutiny.
[edited: date of restock discovered in SD thread]
I don't agree with it, my personal experience says otherwise.
I have sold a lot of Minecraft over the past year. Looking at who it is selling to, the speed which it sells at when I have the right price on it, tells me that it is demand from consumers, not resellers, that is driving this set.
But that's splitting hairs. Instead, let's speak hypothetically: if a set is sold out, and a reseller has purchased even just one set, doesn't that mean one end-user was prevented?
Let's say this last LEGO store restock is the last of the 20,000. How many do you estimate have been purchased by resellers?
I'll start you out with a lower bound: 103 have been sold on Bricklink and another 140 are listed for sale. 324 have been sold on eBay and another 171 are listed for sale. LFT can probably provide the number that have been on Amazon better than I can, but I think at least 100 have been sold (didn't a lot of Amazon sellers say that Amazon easily outpaces eBay in reselling volume?) and there are 32 currently listed.
So just counting the ones that have been listed on Bricklink, eBay, and Amazon, and ignoring those that have yet to be listed and other marketplaces like Craigslist, we're up to 870. Oh wait, I remember @doriansdad said only noobs, the weak, and the lazy (or something like that) would sell early, so I imagine his aren't listed yet. Add 5 or 6 more to 870... there's your baseline.
Oh, and while we're talking about personal experiences and accounts, here are 81 posts, mostly from resellers. Let me know if it jives with my conjecture or whatever yours is: http://slickdeals.net/f/5746258-Lego-Minecraft-Instock-Lego-com
Seriously... read the thread.
I'm sure dougts will chime in, but it sounds like he's suggesting that if a non-reseller consumer wanted the set, they could have purchased one (provided they were adequately prepared to buy it, and provided they were well informed). That, for all reasonable intents and purposes, is factual.
You're suggesting that resellers buying even one set is depriving a non-reseller consumer of a set. While this also may be true, the only consumers being deprived are ones who were unprepared, uninformed, etc. Unfortunately, that's pretty much the way life works, for better or for worse.
In so many ways, you're both right; the two scenarios do not have to be mutually exclusive.
There is a huge amount of risk buying something like that, paying RRP plus shipping, 1 per order, only to get them a week post-Christmas.
In the event, it still would have been a good deal, but we didn't know that at the time.
I do remember seeing that, but passing because of the risk involved. There were other deals to be had that week as well, I believe that is right around when Target did their Christmas clearance before Christmas, which was odd, but great because sets were, if memory serves, 30% off, then they added BOGO50% to it as well.
Limited capital, unlimited places to spend it, S@H on Dec 17th wasn't the place to be, and I think most of the resellers agreed with me.
Also, keep in mind that lots of people don't know S@H exists. Something else to consider.
So, my assertion remains. We have *ONE* example - out of thousands - of a production run set where resellers could have even possibly prevented an end user from obtaining the set. And I will point out that even in that case, the set is still being produced and supplied, so one could make the argument that even in that case no consumer was deprived of an opportunity to buy at RRP.
But that doesn't mean resellers cant still indirectly hurt consumers.
- Wiping out Clearance (or Promotional) aisles at Walmart/Target affects consumers
- Wiping out BOGO stock once a sale goes live online affects consumers
- Skirting designated buying limits affects consumers
Now, if someone is holding out for 50% clearance, then yeah, I guess you are going to be "hurt by resellers" who clear the shelf, but I'd say that's just an unrealistic hope/expectation to begin with, and the consumer should adjust their expectations.
The depletion of stock from Walmart.com, Amazon.com, and barnesandnoble.com took only minutes, even in the dead of the night. It was pretty obvious that people were using trackers, and I think most people savvy enough to use trackers would know about LEGO S@H (which is also a searched vendor on the major trackers).
I might add that it's also possible to get around limits unintentionally. On three occassions I have made purchases beyond the limit Lego set (in each case five). All three times were the result of my internet seemingly dropping during bad weather, me refreshing the screen and then finding out that the order did indeed go through before the connection was broke.
The first time this happened, I ended up with 6 of a set that was limited to 5. The second time, I ended up with only 2 of the set out of two purchases of 5 each due to them running out of stock (it was a discontinued set which had reappeared that morning after being gone for months). The third time that I had multiple orders that would have bypassed the limit, Lego simply cancelled the second order thankfully.
1. brand new product, supply is temporarily limited while production and distribution catch up. this is not a problem, everyone knows the set will be available for some time to come. no one is prevented from acquiring a set (eventually), even if people skirt the limits at release time. It's rude, but no actual "damage" to a potential consumer is caused.
2. EOL product, supply is dwindling. Often accompanied by a sale to clear out remaining inventory. In this case, the product has been available for months or years, and has almost certainly been on sale somewhere, multiple times, over that course of time. If a potential consumer loses out at this point because people are skirting buying limits on the last gasp sale, again, they had more than ample opportunity to acquire the set sooner.
3. Christmas shortages. This isn't unique to LEGO, and likely occurs even in cases where no skirting of limits is happening. LEGO did a terrible job in delivering enough supply for the Christmas 2012 season, and this wasn't because resellers were snatching up multiples of items (Minecraft and the ridiculous city Mine sale being exceptions). S@H was out of 10229 WVC from early December, and 10220 and 10226, among others, for most of the month. Resellers weren't snatching these all up at RRP in some hopeful speculative bid. It's Christmas - if you HAVE to have X for little Timmy, buy it early (and this goes far beyond LEGO).
I say all this to say this: while abusing buying limits is wrong, to say that it causes the end consumer to not be able to acquire a set they want, just isn't born out by the facts. The end consumer has all the power in the world to take the situation into their own hands and ensure they can acquire whatever sets they want to buy, at no worse than RRP. These aren't rare or hard to find items - they are mass produced and widely available for months, and in most cases, years. Don't blame others for your fate - take control of your own situation. In the LEGO world, any consumer can EASILY avoid being harmed by clearance shelf clearing and buying limit abuse
As such, resellers absolutely affect consumers.
If Jinx received 100 copies and S@H received 20,000 copies, then the above information isn't all that useful. :)
No, that is not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that at that time, on Dec 17th, it wasn't the deal to be had, there were other deals.
Had S@H had the exact same stock 3 weeks before, I think it would have been gone much faster, in my opinion.
I guess my irritation is when people on either side refuse to accept that the other is in anyway right.
On one of my family excursions to Legoland (small one) in Dallas, TX...there was an ENTIRE endcap of them. This was before Christmas. This was when they were selling for 2xRRP aftermarket. I picked on up. I refused to pay that threshold for the frenzy, and it paid off.
After that, I waited for S@H to get back in stock, and ordered my own copy after Christmas. I feel so abused by the system! Not really. If you are a consumer, and want a set....either get one on the front side of supply, wait for an opportunity, or deal with the aftermarket.
Everyone uses Minecraft. It was a frenzy involving non AFOLs in excess of any other time I can really think of. I had family members ask me about buying and reselling them. It's really just an unfair example.
I just think they are going about it the wrong way.
My personal opinion? To cut down on the "bad parts" of resellers, you must build up the "good parts" of resellers.
You can't take without giving, that is the way of things, and right now it is all take.
Support the good that resellers do (offering large amounts of MISB product after EOL to AFOLs) and you'll have fewer problems with the bad short term flipping of current sets (which I get is the real problem).
It is good for the AFOL (or kid) that missed the set as they can get it later (although at a cost).
It is very good for the reseller that charges 2xRRP or more.
But it probably means that money is not spent direct with lego / on current lego. Of course, lego make the initial sale to the reseller, but if they offer resellers discounts on RRP, then it means that they are not getting full value for that set - which they possibly would have done if the AFOL had bought it direct.
Point 2: This affects everyone, preventing them from getting the deals, including other resellers. For the BOGO (or any good sale), this is just managing the price as opposed to the availability of a set or sets. It's not preventing people from getting a set, just a really good deal on the set. Again, this again is a knowledge/preparation/experience/luck thing. Limits would help enormously here, because with them, the BOGOs will last much longer into the day (assuming we ever get another useful BOGO again).
Point 3: This is mostly about preventing people from getting the only copies of a set that will ever be (e.g. #41999). Some retailers have better controls in place to prevent skirting than others. Amazon is easiest because everything is online, so it's already tied to ID information (name, address, ccard, etc.). Even trying to skirt with multiple accounts runs the risk of banishment from Amazon, which is a big deal for people to risk when you think about it. With B&M stores it's a little more difficult, but not impossible to prevent 95% of the skirters with a bit of effort to track the same data (name, address, ccard, etc.). This is assuming the retailers care about doing so, which really, they absolutely do not. The primary reason they may appear to care is because they want to avoid PR backlash.
So yeah, I agree with your initial point that resellers do not prevent people from getting sets in general. But, I don't think they hurt other consumers as much as the retailer practices have let them be able to hurt the consumers when it comes to taking advantage of great deals.
I think a lot of the discussion is for more recent retirements, meaning flipping for 2x RRP in a year or less. It gets hazy there because people do have to ask "why do I have to pay $400 for this set when it was $200 a month ago?" yet they don't ask "Why do I have to pay $500 for Cafe Corner?" The first is confusing and can be frustrating, the latter is accepted as the market price.
It's nice to know that lego holds it value, but I wouldn't buy more than I would have otherwise because of it. After all, a significant amount of lego sets do not hold their value, especially when opened and played with.
On one hand, we talk about the glut of resellers holding down aftermarket prices, on the other, they are "bad" for aftermarket sets somehow?
You can't have it both ways. :)
Look at MMV? It can still be had for close to RRP 9 months post retirement. That is largely because of the huge number of sets stocked by resellers.
That is good for AFOLs who missed it and now want a copy. A few years ago that would have been an instant $200 set.