peghound
Superstar
Joined on: Aug 27, 2012 0:43:35 GMT -5
Posts: 964
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Post by peghound on Sept 5, 2012 0:11:45 GMT -5
Oh I mentioned lodging....
What I meant is everyone who pays rent is paying more than the property is worth (99% of the time). Reason is the owner of the building needs to pay the property managers, maintenance, insurance and themselves.
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airbud
Superstar
"Attack me if you dare, I will crush you."
Joined on: Oct 6, 2005 2:41:33 GMT -5
Posts: 970
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Post by airbud on Sept 5, 2012 0:13:18 GMT -5
After 10 trips and $4.35/gallon gas I went to my TRU today and came across 3 Natalya's that were put out on the cube. I'm going to trade them on this site for similar valued figs. I feel great about it. I hope I'm not making any enemies because I'm new around here but everyone should think about how EVERYTHING works. It's all based on margins and profit. Think about gas, food, your pay, your lodging...everything. You can't boycott everything because a profit is made. World would crumble. You said "lodging." Where do you lodge on these epic figure hunts?
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Post by Emerald Enthusiast on Sept 5, 2012 0:14:23 GMT -5
After 10 trips and $4.35/gallon gas I went to my TRU today and came across 3 Natalya's that were put out on the cube. I'm going to trade them on this site for similar valued figs. I feel great about it. I hope I'm not making any enemies because I'm new around here but everyone should think about how EVERYTHING works. It's all based on margins and profit. Think about gas, food, your pay, your lodging...everything. You can't boycott everything because a profit is made. World would crumble. I wish I could boycott the auto industry. Now that's scalping. Not only do you get to pay tens of thousands to buy one, you get to pay hundreds or thousands every time it has a problem. What a joy. Unfortunately, I haven't figured out how to live without a vehicle as a father of two kids. Time to go back to my nerd cave and work on the teleportation machine.
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peghound
Superstar
Joined on: Aug 27, 2012 0:43:35 GMT -5
Posts: 964
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Post by peghound on Sept 5, 2012 0:15:22 GMT -5
I live in a condo, downtown San Diego.
The point is I'm willing to pay the price the market bears...
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Post by Emerald Enthusiast on Sept 5, 2012 0:18:55 GMT -5
Those are more along the lines of a switcheroo, which is ultimately stealing. I have no problem with a free market flip, but no five-finger discounts. And if I was hard up for cash, figure collecting wouldn't be in the equation. It's not like you can eat an Elite or wash your pits with a Defining Moments, although it would be cool too see someone try. Lol. I'm happy you didn't take offense to my post.I think you'd be surprised at how far a few Elite Nash's could get someone who is living at their parents house with no bills to pay. They may not be able to eat the physical Elite figure, but use the money to eat McDoubles for the next six months. Nope, no offense at all. Actually, I think the Mods should give this thread (or one like it) a sticky since this debate pops up on a regular basis and it always seems to draw a crowd.
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Post by onleeone643 on Sept 5, 2012 0:30:27 GMT -5
I don't have a problem with someone making a little from a figure, I just can't stand the scumbags that wait in front of stores in the morning hogging all the goods like scavengers. I buy multiples if I happen to run into something while on a random trip to the store, but some of these people call the stores and already know when its shipment day.
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Post by comintogetcha on Sept 5, 2012 0:37:47 GMT -5
I don't get it... Everyone gets up so early just to go to their Walmart, Kmart, TRU etc and get the latest figures. Instead of wasting your time and fuel, why can't you guys just ring up the stores you intend on going to beforehand and asking their toy department if they have any of the Elite series (whatever number). Then they can put it on a side for you? Therefore you will save your time and gas money instead of going to multiple places and finding nothing That's what I do I know you said you live in Australia, but this never ever works in the United States. Most stores no longer have dedicated employees assigned to specific departments, so if you called say, Wal-Mart and asked to speak to someone in Toys, they would transfer you to the nearest phone in that area, and you'd talk to whichever employee happens to answer. Now this person doesn't work in Toys specifically, and doesn't know one action figure from the next, so the odds of you getting useful information are pretty close to zero. Or worse, they'll just tell you yes to whatever your asking to get you off the phone, and you'll waste a trip to the store anyways. The same thing goes for people scanning SKUs at Toys R Us and Target. Target's system is a little easier since you can do it on your own without an employee, but even if the scanner says there are more in the back, the chances of you finding an employee willing to look for them are very much not in your favor. To search for figures via SKU at Toys R Us, you have to ask someone at the customer service desk, and most likely they won't have a clue what you're talking about, or will pretend they don't anyways. Even if they do know, they may very well refuse to do it for you. And if you buck the odds and do find an employee who knows what you are talking about, and actually does search the computer for the SKU number, you're not likely to get very much useful information out of this anyways other than whether or not there's more stock in the back. This however is useless information, as it never specifies WHICH stock is in the back, and odds are it's just more shelf warming exclusives, or Heritage Series junk, but in all likelyhood they're just going to tell you that they can't put new stock out until they sell whats already on the shelf.
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dxwwecollector
Jobber
Joined on: Sept 1, 2012 20:02:18 GMT -5
Posts: 13
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Post by dxwwecollector on Sept 5, 2012 1:09:46 GMT -5
The way it works in my area is that I would call Walmart Customer service and ask for Toy Department and no one would pickup so they bring me back to customer service and repeat until they just hang up the third time.
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Post by BCizzle on Sept 5, 2012 1:14:17 GMT -5
Sometimes I wonder what would happen if all the scalpers died all at once. A massive worldwide heart attack which took them out of our society.
Would collecting become a much more enjoyable past time? Or would new scalpers slowly rise up from the ashes, with greed in their hearts?
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Post by Next Manufactured’s Sweater on Sept 5, 2012 5:27:32 GMT -5
Sometimes I wonder what would happen if all the scalpers died all at once. A massive worldwide heart attack which took them out of our society. Would collecting become a much more enjoyable past time? Or would new scalpers slowly rise up from the ashes, with greed in their hearts? They'd be replaced. There are people who have posted in this thread who endorse scalping and would love to be scalpers, and the only thing that currently stops them is not finding the figures to scalp.
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Post by PJ on Sept 5, 2012 5:51:49 GMT -5
The difference is while T0y W1z does have accounts with the toy companies they send people to all the stores in a good 50 mile radius and clean them out of anything that is "hot" or "popular" at the moment. They then about every other month they take all the pegwamers that they get in their shipments and dump them at the 2 closest area Targets. That is business. They do have Mattel accounts and other figure company accounts. I know this for a fact because they still manage to get some figures in advance months before they hit retail. They only seem to do this with any in store exclusives, going to the store to pick them up so they have everything to sell on there site. Hey when something is hot and going to sell, you can't blame someone for helping others out. I can't make it to toys r us, and most times, i rely on the TW to get those exclusives in stock asap so i can pick them up at a reasonable price, and that they do. There human just like the rest of us and running a business. If I was running a business like that too, and something was not selling after a while, I would dump it off also so my money is not so tied up constantly. I don't think he is doing what your saying though and buying from a Toys R us and returning them to a target because to do this, you would need a receipt from target to exchange the item back. On top of that, you only have 30 days to return an item and that's hardly any time to post it up online and see if it will sell. All I'm saying is they take a lot of heat from ppl much like RSC does and both are legit American businesses working the market to make money. Sure they are out to help there customers, and keep there business so that they keep coming back to buy more, but most importantly they got bills to pay and mouths to feed too. There not businesses made on helping everyone out for free. Well like I said in the very first sentance they do have accounts with the toy companies...And yes they do what I've said I've seen them do it many times at our local TRU/Targets/WalMarts/Disney Stores. There's the owner, his mom and 2 other employees that go to as many stores as they can. I see at least one of them on a daily basis...and if it's new and they see it they'll gab it all. Latest was the TMNT and Basic 18 at TRU. TRU put out and endcape filled with the new turtles and they put every one of the 4" figures in their cart. Then they took all B18 Kelly's, Cara's & Rhodes. The owned and mother will run you over to get to get the figures they want. So in the past when I'd see them at Target or WalMart I'd put all the DCUC & other hot figures from other lines in my cart and walk around the store with them until they left then put them back. The other 2 employees aren't bad and they'll at least ask me if there's something I'm looking for and let me have it before they go for it. As for returning yes they do I have seen it with Jakks CS lines. It works at Target because all figures in each line share the same DPCI #'s. And they have done it recently with the Elite 12 Orton figures and ML Piledriver & Klaw. I was hitting these stores on a daily basis looking the ML2 Captain America & Booker T when he was first reported there. One store had an Elithe 12 Orton, Shango & Bryan on the pegs with no other Elites in the stockroom the next day they had 15 E12 Orton's and nothing else. And with the ML they had nothing the day before, but that morning they had 20 mix of Piledriver & Klaw. The other Target also recieved a similar stock of the same 3 figures over the night. Both these Targets are within a mile of TW's store. (one's right across the street)
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Post by master of the WORLD! on Sept 5, 2012 7:32:46 GMT -5
When I was a manager at kb toys years ago we use to have scalpers wait outside the store for an hour before we opened on shipment day along with the obsessive collectors. Most of them seemed to be older guys def over 50 with nothing better to do then wait outside a store at 8 in the morning . Most of them were nasty too and demanded stuff
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tampatoys813
Superstar
Joined on: Apr 30, 2012 9:03:00 GMT -5
Posts: 909
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Post by tampatoys813 on Sept 5, 2012 7:34:20 GMT -5
If you guys really have that big of a problem with "scalping" (selling for a profit)..... then you have a problem with the entire economic system of the world....
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Deleted
Joined on: Sept 28, 2024 3:29:08 GMT -5
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Sept 5, 2012 7:42:09 GMT -5
I collect as a hobby for fun because Ive loved collecting wrestling figures since I was a little kid. It sucks people scalp, with the way Mattel short packs figures & their poor distribution to boot its hard enough finding figures without people swooping in & buying up all the good stuff just to sell. To me it's a s**tbag thing to do, I have a job so to buy a bunch of figures away from other collectors in my area who would actually enjoy them just to make a couple bucks which I would make more than in a few hours of my job is pretty lame & not worth my time let alone the opportunity to get figs that id be taking away from others. But alas, this convo has been going on since I had my original account on here like 6 years ago & it's always the same...cool people don't scalp figs, d-bags do, that's just the way it goes.
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Post by mrhoss on Sept 5, 2012 8:18:34 GMT -5
Before I came to WFigs, I had never heard of flipping a collectible for profit referred to with the negative connotation of "scalping". The process is commonplace (and has been for decades) in various collectible markets like sports cards, comic books, barbies, matchbox cars, etc... The sports card and comic book market never fully recovered from the 80's and 90's. I'm not including the vintage market. Soon everyone who paid $100 for Nash is going to look at it and question their sanity. Then they will try to sell it and they'll get 30% back on a good day. That leads to frustration and then they leave the hobby. It happened with cards, it happened with comics. Are Beanie Babies still worth anything? If you guys really have that big of a problem with "scalping" (selling for a profit)..... then you have a problem with the entire economic system of the world.... There are a ton of ticket scalping laws that vary by state. Somebody must have thought scalping was wrong.
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Post by poindizzle on Sept 5, 2012 8:35:25 GMT -5
I was born in 1986, so I didn't get into action figures until the 90's. I have never lived in a world that didn't have scalpers. I don't care. I still find everything I want, I just have to be more diligent. These figures aren't impossible to find, and I live in a fairly podunk town that doesn't get very much stuff. Scalpers aren't going anywhere and aren't doing anything illegal (well, maybe T0yw1z, and obviously the switchers), so it's just a pitfall of the hobby.
Also, since someone brought up comic books, do prospectors count as Scalpers, if the only reason they bought so many copies of a comic book was to resell it later at what they thought would be a premium. (I remember the local shop when the Death of Superman (superman 75) came out had begun selling them at $75 dollars an issue, and now a sealed 'Death Bag' will run you about $20 if it's in good shape.) I remember this guy who came into the LCS with a collection of longboxes that had multiples of all these 90's titles that ended up being worthless and blown out at 50 cents a book. He had 25 copies of that first Peter David X-Factor alone (don't remember the issue number).
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Post by mrhoss on Sept 5, 2012 8:50:55 GMT -5
^^Yeah, comic book speculation. That's what I was thinking of and why I think overly high prices on new items hurt the hobby in the long run. Honestly in all my years of collecting, I can only confirm one time that I was beaten to an item by a scalper. The stores cause more problems with their lack of ordering.
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Post by AlexWestCollects on Sept 5, 2012 9:32:17 GMT -5
Here's where I stand on it, if you're buying a hot figure here or there to make $$$ to continue to fund ur hobby I have no problem with it. When u make ur job to go into stores every morning to buy and sell toys it's pretty sad. Those dudes are always fat, bald, 40 something yr old virgins with no lives.
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tampatoys813
Superstar
Joined on: Apr 30, 2012 9:03:00 GMT -5
Posts: 909
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Post by tampatoys813 on Sept 5, 2012 11:21:48 GMT -5
I don't get it... Everyone gets up so early just to go to their Walmart, Kmart, TRU etc and get the latest figures. Instead of wasting your time and fuel, why can't you guys just ring up the stores you intend on going to beforehand and asking their toy department if they have any of the Elite series (whatever number). Then they can put it on a side for you? Therefore you will save your time and gas money instead of going to multiple places and finding nothing That's what I do If that works for you, more power to you. I cant tell you how many times I have called a store, only to go there anyway and see a ton of stuff. These store employees dont care about you and will tell you anything to get you off the phone smh.
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Post by fallbrawl on Sept 5, 2012 11:30:18 GMT -5
I understand why so many people get upset when they see someone buy multiples of a figure they can't find anywhere.
I don't mind paying a little bit of a markup for a hot figure. But when someone is trying to triple there money that is where i draw the line.
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