[Snowflakian]

Quote:

Originally Posted by hurricane

oh, so your argument is that BBTS is only trying to "HELP" people that can't go, right? They aren't selling these to make a profit. They are only looking out for collectors that didn't get to make it to SDCC. I love BBTS as much as the next guy, but I don't see how anyone can possibly see this as BBTS simply trying to help people get these items.

I don't care when they mark up items they get directly from a vendor. That is business and I understand why they need to and have a right to. But when they make an effort to get exclusive items that they have buy from other retail locations and then sell them at a markup, that is scalping. Anyone with a brain can see that.


as for going to the con and why an SDCC goer has more of a right to get an exclusive. By definition, these are meant to be SDCC exclusives sold at the con. If you go to the con, you should be able to buy them because they were meant to be sold there to YOU. The intended purpose is not for them to be hoarded up by scalpers and sold to others that didn't go.

This is generally why cons have a so and so amount limit per customer. If that's in place and they can't just buy the con supply out. It's not scalping. Scalping is about cornering the market to make sure demand stays high. The limit hinders that and keeps it within confines that would match even a greedy collector.

How fair is a con exclusive if the first person in line buys 20? Take the helicarrier for instance. If someone in line wanted a fleet of those, you'd be just as screwed as BBTS buying however many for pre-orders. They are at the con, they have just as much right to buy those 20 helicarriers as you do your one while visiting the convention. This is why they generally have that limit of roughly 2 or 4 per customer. So it keeps both the amount of resellers and the amount of over-troop building in check to better meet the needs of those who like multiple and those who just at least want one.

That's why I had said before it falls into one of those areas of just assume everyone in line is buying the max they can get and hope for the best. That's the way items released of this nature are handled and the expectations around them anyway. It sucks, but it's a convention exclusive. It's going to be sought after and people are going to sell them to those that couldn't be at the con. Con exclusives by nature cannot be considered 'scalping' unless the scalper is cornering the market on them to artificially inflate the price(buy cheap online early, resell high online later).

Mass Retail items are another matter, but as long as they aren't cornering the market and making it impossible to find certain things it's not a big issue. Then again though really, a sale is a sale. And the more product moved for MU the better.