Scalping and YOU.

I'm put off by the forms you have to fill out to buy a doll from the official website, so I prefer buying from a person..it's faster and less complicated. If that means I have to give them profit, then it's worth it to me. There's also a shorter wait for the doll! I'm not entirely against scalping, because even if the scalper didn't buy the doll with the intention of giving it love, the person that buys the doll off of them will care for it instead. Yes this inflates prices, but it's supply and demand...people will pay whatever it takes. If someone refuses to buy the expensive doll, then another person will. The person that didn't get to buy the doll because a scalper took their place can still get the doll right? The second-market is always an option if you want the doll badly enough.
I draw the line when I'm shopping(on Ebay for example), if I see an item being sold double it's value then I simply don't buy it. Sure enough said item is gone the next day, someone was willing to pay. How I spend my money doesn't really make a difference does it? There will always be someone willing to pay what I won't.
So before I start rambling, I'll just say...if you don't agree with the price, just don't buy it. ^^ There will always be a better deal out there anyway, even with scalpers, you just have to look harder, but the effort will be worth it.

 

I'm glad to see several people bringing up the recent LE Masha from the nyc dolpa. Her release really made me think about the whole scalping debate in a more personal light. I went to the dolpa, but did not put in for Masha. As some other folks have said, she just wasn't the doll for me. Even so, there are many people who have been waiting for years for a Sasha rerelease. When Masha came along, she was produced in a very small number (even for a LE). One had to register for the Dolpa in April, and the identity of the LE wasn't made public until June. Basically, if you didn't go to the Dolpa you had no chance of getting her...unless someone who did attend decided to sell theirs.
It's easy to judge someone for making a quick re-sale if you're not interested in the doll in question. However, when I think how I would feel if Volks re-released Chii for example, in the same way that Masha came out, I'd be down on my knees praying for someone to change their mind (and the sooner the better!)
True Scalping, placing a doll for sale a week after the event at a 200% mark up is beyond tacky. We all see those auctions. The more people who refuse to pay grossly inflated prices the less repeat offense scalpers there will be, but that's something the market has to decide.

 

See now Misa hit the nail on the head. To me, scalping is committed when someone goes out to purchase something (dolls, concert tickets etc) for a reasonable price with the full intent of bumping that price up for the secondary market, not people who simply changed their mind or decided the rent/medical bills etc needed to be paid before another doll came home.

I do agree that there are some killer, long time scalpers on Ebay and YJ! and I wish them evile death. Especially since they always seem to have my dream dollies and are selling them at prices I simply can not justify spending.

 

I've just seen the very limited (one of a kind) DOT Black elf Ducan for sale on ebay... The seller is american, so I'm guessing that the Hong Kong winner sold it and it's being resold again... I'm not criticising either of them by the way.

The question is... why buy something so incredily limited and expensive, taking the opportunity away from someone else who would LOVE to have him, if you can't really afford it and when something comes up you can't or won't keep it and just decide to sell. Is it to make a profit? Is it because of impulsive buys?

Would you do this?
And...
Would you feel comfortable buying a 4500 USD doll from ebay (that's the "buy it now" option for this auction)?

I apologize in advance if the question is too similar to previous ones or if this auction has been mentioned already

 

The problem with OOAK is that if you don't buy it when the opportunity arises, then that's that. If you find an attraction towards a doll, purchase the doll, and realize it just didn't work out, you can always sell or trade it for another doll. I don't see anything wrong with that. In specific regards to OOAK's, if it didn't work out, I'd try my hardest to find someone who really wanted the doll I purchased and offer it at cost to him/her.

Saying that you take the opportunity away from someone isn't really fair either. I mean, when OOAK's are released, you (general) can't say that someone has really planned for that specific doll anyway. OOAK's are usually short notice releases.

 

And I agree with you actually, but for this doll in particular to have two different owners in such a short time just seems weird to me, maybe I'm just too cheap to spend so much money on something I don't absolutely want and need... Yeah.. I'm cheap

 

I strongly disagree about buying a limited and then reselling it right after you get it. For one, it takes away from someone who really wanted it but didn't buy it on time.

But the benefit of reselling is that someone who didn't buy it in time would now have an opportunity to purchase it a second time, other than when it was released.

 

First of all, I'd say a problem with that case is that you can't quantify love. Heck, you can't even define love-- one person might "love to have" a doll because they want to own it, while another might "love to have" the doll as an investment, knowing that they will eventually resell it for a profit. The latter case might not fit the traditional concept of "love", but it's no less valid. That's the problem you get into when you try and make a value judgement based on something without value.

I'm cynical (if the first paragraph didn't make that painfully obvious ) so I'm inclined to believe that at least one of the people involved has purchased this doll as an investment, just as many of the first batch of XBox 360s and Playstation 3s were purchased for no other reason than to go straight to eBay at drastically inflated prices. If someone were selling just because they had make an impulse buy that they couldn't financially maintain, they wouldn't be inflating the price beyond their own purchase point-- they'd simply try and recoup their own losses.

Quite simply, money talks. As long as someone is willing and able to pay the price, what they do with their purchase is basically up to them (obviously, I don't mean some ridiculous slippery slope "What if someone bought a gun? They're not entitled to shoot someone with it!) In the case of luxury items like dolls, you can't base distribution on a need-based scale; any kind of exchange has to be dictated by the exchange of something of perceived "fair value". That's the hazard of the free market, but I don't know of a olution that would still be fair.

No, and no. If I had the kind of time and money I'd need to secure a OOAK doll, well... there are better, more profitable scams than that.

For the second question, I said no-- but that means I wouldn't be comfortable buying a $4500 doll from eBay. I'm not saying I would never do it. If I wanted a doll bad enough, and I knew that spending that amount of money would secure the doll for me, then I can't rule it out of the realm of possibility.

 

I saw the auction you were referring to, and it reeks of nothing other than scalping. :[ To me, this wasn't really a question of buying an adored OOAK, but a greedy scalper who purchased a doll, claimed it didn't work out, only to pocket a couple thousand dollars.

A doll isn't really something you need. xD Want, yes, and no, you aren't cheap for not wanting to drop so much cash immediately. Not many people have that kind of money to spend it on something as a doll. ^^

 

Well honeyedbiscuit, I meant "want" and "need" in a general way... like... if instead of a doll it was something I needed desperately to be able to live and I had the money I would get it of course, despite it being expensive.

But I sometimes feel I "need" some dolls too In a more: I-wish-I-had-it-right-now-it-would-make-me-so-happy sort of way

 

Your logic is as usual very sound. I agree in that there is no way to quantify love, and there is no way to argue that this is need-based. However, I do think that the fact that the Western doll market and the English-speaking doll community overlap so much makes it impossible to think of scalping in purely economic terms.

One of my biggest objections to doll scalping is that I really take exception to people preying on fellow doll owners. Scalping a PS3 on eBay, someone is most likely to sell to someone they've never interacted with before. The English speaking doll community is really very small; almost everyone knows everyone else. That means that scalpers are taking advantage of people they know, maybe even friends or friends of friends.

It also means that if someone is a scalper, people know. Even if someone sells on eBay under another name, word gets around. There are certain members who somehow always are trying to sell items within hours of the end of an online Afterevent... and people who, without exception, will "fail to bond" with any LE doll that is going for more than $200 over retail on the second-hand market. While DoA doesn't allow price policing, many people do shun scalpers or write their true (often angry) feelings in their LJs. People do notice. People want scalpers to fail. They want to see the items sitting unsold in the Marketplace. They want to see the scalper have to lower her price, offer splits, layaway, free shipping... before slinking off to eBay.

Someone may be well within their right to buy up as many of the Dolpa LEs and then scalp them... and it may be economically sound. But it does not make it an admirable thing to do, and it is certainly not the way to make friends or influence people.

 

Thanks!

I think scalping is totally reprehensible. It keeps items out of the hands of people that actually want them, and rewards people for doing the "wrong" thing. I just don't think there's an easy, across-the-boards solution for the problem.

I think you discuss one of the better solutions there-- the idea that the community can police itself and put some serious pressure on those members of the community to be fairer in their dealings with others. That's one of the nice points of having a (relatively) small community. Word gets around; we can watch each other's back. As diverse as the doll community is, it's still possible to set the tone for what will and will not be accepted. Thankfully, the BJD hobby is also still enough of a niche market that you've got to be pretty knowledgeable about it to be aware of it. Informed members are less likely to be fleeced by some scalper.

One other possibility comes to my mind. It's a different kind of situation, but because of the particulars of the BJD market/community, it might be salvageable. Again, I go back to the XBox 360/PS3 eBay situation. To capitalize on the buying frenzy, people that were guaranteed a console (paid-off preorders, basically) were putting up auctions a week in advance of the actual release of the console, so they'd be getting a quick turnaround on their purchase. This allowed the game retailers like Gamestop to check eBay and cancel the preorders of people that were scalping systems on eBay. They also configured their system so people couldn't put multiple systems on preorder, etc.

BECAUSE of the size of the community, and the close relationship that doll companies have with doll owners, ideally the doll companies could put the kibosh on sales of limiteds/one-offs to known scalpers. A pipe dream, I know.

 

Speaking as one of the vocal ones who does hate scalpers and flippers
Yes, I keep a list of these people, from here, Ebay and Y!J and I pass it around.

While its true a person has the freedom to scalp if they wish, I also have the freedom to point it out to everyone that I see and encourage them not to support a person who has no regard for anyone but themselves and is willing to take advantage of people they hang out with on a regular basis. Personally, I won't even interact with them at all anymore and I encourage others to do the same. Why do I want to hang with people who only see me as a mug and want to rip me off?

 

I am not understanding why one would express the idea of not liking scalpers or the idea of it, call it as you may, but still participate in the activity by buying the doll. The only reasson why scalpers exsits is because people buy from them.​

 

Because some people are bothered less by the behavior and will buy anyway.
Also, for some people who have the money, it is more important to them that they get the doll they really want than join in some mass protest against "scalping."

 

I don't buy from scalpers and I avoid selling to them if possible. It's not a matter of "joining in some mass protest." I personally don't want to support scalpers, and I want to interact with them as infrequently as possible. It's just a choice that I and many others have made.

 

I think most people agree that scalpers are in the wrong, and no one wants to pay a higher price for their doll.

However, I'm going to play devil's advocate here, and point out another oppinion.

In a free market society, inflation and driving up prices of something in limited demand is so normal that it can't be policed. With luxury items like this, it's a personal choice to spend the money. Scalpers and flippers are taking a risk by buying a doll and trying to sell for profit. If people simply refuse to pay more than the value they want to spend, that person gets stuck with a doll they don't want. The market would end up punishing them, and they would take a loss. They cannot make the market value higher alone. So in many ways, the buyer is just as guilty for driving up the price. I would put just as much blame on the buyer who spent $4,500 on an auction, thereby driving the price up and keeping dolls away from people who don't have that money, as I do on the seller.
So, the moral is, if you buy something at a price you don't want to pay, it's kind of your fault as well.

And putting aside who's fault it is that the price is high, it's hard to say that selling at high prices is really EVIL anyway. If dolls like that go at an extremely high value, and you own one you wouldn't mind selling, the high market price may end up paying for your college tuition, or you could put it up for cherity aution. Is taking advantage of high demand wrong then? After a price increase the luxury item can be sold to buy necessities. I'm not sure I can call that wrong, even if I would love to own a limited Black Elf Ducan and know very well I will never be able to afford him.

And art of all kinds raises in value once supply is cut off. After a well-loved artist dies, their artwork becomes twice as valuable. So say there's a painting you wanted to hang in Aunt Millie's hospital room, to cheer her up and help her recover. If it suddenly raises in price, you may not be able to get it for her, unless there's a really sweet person who cheritably gives it to you, or sells it at a low price (which is also cherity, as they are loosing potiential money.) Likewise is a limited doll, of which supply has been cut off. You may want it for any reason. Maybe it's your first doll, or it reminds you of a long-lost friend. When someone sells at a very low price, dispite high demand, they are loosing potential money by being cheritable to a buyer who cannot afford what the market would be willing to give. That's a wonderful act of cherity, and I applaud them. But financially speaking, it's foolish if they do not know the buyer. (As pointed out earlier, who knows if that buyer will turn around and 'flip' sell it again.)


These arguments are all pretty brutal, and I'm not saying scalping and flipping is a good thing, by any means. It's a pain in the bum and many companies do their best to stop it from occuring as it is. But the issue is bigger than just saying "scalpers and flippers are wrong."
While we complain about the high prices and hope we can get the doll we love for the lowest price possible, we do have to consider the nature of a luxury hobby like the one we are all a part of.

 

QFT. The only reason that people can scalp dolls is because they know they'll get away with it-- that is, they'll get at least an equal return on their investment. Good ol' economics-- if there wasn't a demand on something at a given price, there wouldn't be a supply.

This echoes my sentiment that you "can't quantify love" in a way. At the same time, though, this is something of a special case-- it sounds like you're implying that someone has owned a doll for a period of time, and they're basically parting ways with it for the opportunity it provides them. What I fear happens all too often, though, is that someone buys a doll for the express purpose of selling it at an inflated rate. Sure, they could go on and put what they get from that sale towards college tuition, or a life-saving surgery, or they could Feed the Children. But why couldn't they have just not bought the expensive doll, and put their original money towards those positive ends? Quite simply, most of these kinds of cases are nothing more than gambling. You buy the limited/OOAK, playing the odds that someone wants it enough to buy it for more than you did. THAT I can call wrong, but I'm kinda simpleminded that way.

 

I agree with you ChiByakko.

I can't read and write long and complicated English easily = it always requires a lot of time of mine, and I'm not so free, so I hadn't joined in this thread by now, but my opinion is quite similar or same with you.

Especially I always feel this way how you mentioned,

I've queued in the lines at Dolpa and AE in Japan many times and all of them were indeed hard. One day it was in the snow, one day it was under a hot weather bottom. We always queue in the lines with NO guarantee for a long long hours. I've picked a bad number MANY times and couldn't get ANY limited doll at MOST of these events. Even we could get good numbers we have to queue for a long hours again to make a payment. At this line, all people have to wait for really a long hours, especially at AE.

I have never passed Volks events without request PMs from DoA members. I don't know most of them at all or only can recall "Have I seen their name? maybe." Honestly I don't want to queue for people whom I don't know well. Why do I need to work hard to get limited dolls that can mark very high secondhand prices with no fee or with very low fee for whom I don't know well? I'm not a volunteer. If people think it's easy to ask me such favors and "to pay any fee is wrong! why ria_ria can participate in such a limited event but won't help me with no fee?! / doesn't accept it for reasonable (I mean "low" this time) fee?!", I can't stop feeling they are rude and greed and in fact I've had it which someone had had such feelings.
(I've tried limited dolls/outfits/other items for very close friends with no fee. I've also tried them for members who had done similar things for other members before, because I know how hard it is well and adore their kindness.)

When I watch these type discussions, I sometimes feel "You're greedier than "real" "scalpers". " or feel "hypocrisy...". I can't see ALL of them who talk "scalping/flipping is evil" had NEVER done it, although I can see some of them REALLY hate it and are actually acting to reduce/erase scalping/flipping. But as ChiByakko said in a free market society it is a natural phenomenon.

I think so, too.