I have no problems with sellers trying to make a profit. However what I see more and more is sellers buying at the going rates then attempting to drive up the prices by a huge amount. I have seen high price items put at BINs which are triple their market value.
Lets not forget our friend Cougie who attempted to buy every H1 on the face of the planet. To what end? So the buyers such as my self are forced to purchase at inflated prices? Fine I will (and did) but not one cent of my money went to that idiot.
Sea-to-sky-games wrote:Don't be fooled. Every store on Earth is price gouging you as best they can... all the time. When you are buying food they are charging the most that they can get away with -- subject to competition -- so long as you are willing to pay.
One of the big differences between RPG collectibles and other collectibles is that the former can actually be used for something fun and useful, namely playing the game.
What can you do with a baseball card besides frame it or look at it... and there are thousands and thousands of them printed, they're not unique like artwork. It's amazing that baseball cards were ever worth as much as they were.
I don't agree with this point. Don't get me wrong I am in no way naive about it, stores are in business to make money, but I do not believe that they try to gouge there customers to the limit. Case in point, Wal-Mart the company that everyone oloves to hate, does and in the past has been known to take losses on certain toys and other things that they sell in an effort to drive more customers to their stores. Of course this is done with the hopes that these same customers also buy other things, but they are in fact taking losses on specific items with the hope that they will pick up residual sales that help offset and overcome those losses.
This thread is starting to remind me of the owner of the comic/game store from Eastern Canada that came on here about a year ago with the argument that the listings on The Acaeum are underpriced just because he was able to gouge far larger amounts of money from his customers.
Sea-to-sky-games wrote:Sure, if you want to get into subtle practices of advertising and what not, then of course not every item you buy will come at your maximum willingness to pay. Moreover, the store cannot identify perfectly what each an everyone is willing to pay for something (though they try.. coupons anyone?).
Sea-to-sky-games wrote:He did that? Seems pretty difficult to do..
Sea-to-sky-games wrote:Anyways, no one is forced to buy an H1.. just like no one is forced to buy a Tsojoconth. I mean, all you serious collectors prevent me from owning one by driving up the price. When it gets down to $100 I'll start to hand over my money.
For one, I don't consider anything Wal-Mart does to subtle. For two its not even something that Wal-Mart advertised, it was something that their competion advertised by thier complaints about this practice.
Missed the point. I bid, win one and move on. I don't hang around bidding on every auction and driving the price up for all other buyers. Getting back to our car example earlier in this thread. Imagine you find a car you like. You put in an offer only to be beaten by another seller who then tries to sell you the same car at a higher price. No one is forcing you to by the car. So you don't. Now imagine this happens everytime you try to buy a similar car.
Sea-to-sky-games wrote:That notwithstanding, businesses operate to maximize profit which -- as a whole -- means they will charge the highest amount of money for a good that they can get away with.
We DO have issues with those who pay stupid prices for items and then try to flip them for even stupider amounts. This concept may be hard for you to grasp, not being an actual collector and all, but when some asshole who is only interested in money pays a fortune for a rare item, it fucks us all. It removes it from the collecting pool, and insures that no one who cares about it for it's historic value will ever own it, since we are not typically willing to take it up the can.
I can tell you are American, since the concept of running a business to make a living, not to fuck everyone possible, is foreign to you.
bclarkie wrote:Believe me, I know all about Baseball Cards, I used to collect them. Not signifigantly, but I did have a fair sized collection back in the early 1990's.The fact of the matter is that with Baseball Cards a few things really destroyed the value. First off and foremost market saturation in both new companies producing the cards and the sheer volume of the cards being produced IMO was the primary reason for the signifigant drop. The second culprit in the market collapse on cards was in general the world wide web and more specifically online auctions sites like Ebay & Amazon(in the early days). People started to find out that the cards that owned or aspired to own were not quite as hard to find as once thoght they were prior to the internet. I can specifically remember reading an article in the newspaper(I think it was the Boston Globe) back in 1997 or 1998 about the big hubbub about a Nolan Ryan rookie card that sold at auction for $1600.00. Now, you can hop on Ebay 10 years later and pick one up a lot of times for $250 to $300. granted thats not chump change, but it is a signifigant price drop for a collectible over a 10 year period. With D&D stuff these days, those issues are either completely moot or have already been addressed.
bclarkie wrote:If that was really the case then why don't all stores(and I mean grocery stores, gas stations Wal-Mart, etc.) Just either have huge prices or run auctions all day. I mean they could really be screwing themselves out of good money. There might be some buyer out there that values that pack of toliet paper to the tune of $100. Store owners(both on and off Ebay) who have ridiculous prices believe that the marketplace is a lottery there for them to get rich in hopes some fool and his money will stroll along. This is what makes them shady.
improvstone wrote:I have no problems with sellers trying to make a profit. However what I see more and more is sellers buying at the going rates then attempting to drive up the prices by a huge amount. I have seen high price items put at BINs which are triple their market value. Lets not forget our friend Cougie who attempted to buy every H1 on the face of the planet. To what end? So the buyers such as my self are forced to purchase at inflated prices? Fine I will (and did) but not one cent of my money went to that idiot.To Brian and the rest of the crew who flag those shady sellers out there. You have my thanks. Keep up the good work and don't let the current discussion disuade you. I would rather have the opportunity to read this discussion and form my own opinion of a seller.
jasonw1239 wrote:As stated in the past, some of the sellers with the outrageous BIN's make regular sellers look like they are offering fabulous bargains. JasonW
Sea-to-sky-games wrote:I'm not an American, but still:Suppose there was a store that just wanted to "make a living" (whatever that means), by selling a good for less than a buyer was willing to pay. When such a discrepancy was noticed -- probably by an entrepreneur -- that person would make a profit by just buying low from that store and selling high. Does it make a difference whether the store gets all the profit or it is split by the store and entrepreneur? The consumer is still likely to get gouged, or however you wish to express it. Pricing efficiently coordinates market activity, sending goods to where they are needed and wanted the most. If people didn't do that, we'd be like the Soviet Union.