Scalping and YOU.

the sotre needs to make X amount and if the doll V cost sotre ABC 300 dollors and they add a 100 dollors in to make up for shiping cost, lights for the store, running water, power and employs then that is not that bead doll V will still be a fair pirce. But if sotre ABC pays 300 dollors and adds 400 dollors or more then that is not fair.

The base Idea of this still gose with a middle man as well. (a person buying a doll and selling it for way way to much from store ABC)

 

I don't know how many people buy more than one LE doll (of the same type ) with the intention of causing a scarcity and then driving up the resale price. That's probably the only thing I would call scalping. Someone who regularly buys limited dolls because they like the photos, but it also regularly disappointed with the doll that arrives and then resells at market value is not, in my opinion, a scalper. Selling for market value, even if you bought the doll for less, is not unfair. If anything, it's unfair to you that buyers expect you to invest money in an LE doll, wait months and months to get it, and then sell it for the same price you bought it for (which doesn't take into account the fact that you were the one who had to shell out the money when the doll was released, nor the fact that you had to wait a very long time before you saw your purchase).

I also think that is DOA took to price-policing, the market for LE dolls would disappear as sellers took their dolls to ebay or created another forum. It's simply ridiculous to tell people that although they have something that has appreciated in value since they bought it, they can only sell it for what they bought it for. It's like buying a house for $200,000 and then the market rises and your house is worth $1 million but the government says that homeowners are not allowed to sell their houses for more than their initial price. There would be an incredible backlash.

 

Price policing is:

1. Too time consuming. There's too many members/sales threads and not enough mods.
2. A slippery slope. By that logic they could also dictate how much you charge for non-LEs, or accessories, or anything!

DoA's stance is: it's your responsibility. Don't want to pay $3000 for that Sard? Then don't pay it.

 

This.

The sad fact of the matter is the scalpers exist in all lines of hobbies where there's big bucks to be made doing it. It's not illegal, and it's not even necessarily immortal.
It's business. Obtain a commodity, turn around and sell it at a profit. That's pretty much the baseline for all forms of business, this one just happens to be very specialized.
We've proven time and time again that we will pay these outrageous prices on a LE doll. Unfortunately as dedicated hobbiests we feed this market. We allow scalpers to sell us our dream doll because to us it's something more.

Does it suck to be at the receiving end, paying a nearly 30-50% markup? Absolutely.

 

I do believe that this policy pointed out earlier in the thread applies:

It's the cold hard truth. I don't like it but if I really want a rare, limited sought after doll then I have to be willing to pay the price. If I don't then there will be always be someone out there who will.

 

Do I think it sucks that people buy up like 10 limiteds at a time and then resell them at high prices...HECK yes.

However, if you are just a normal person selling your doll and it happens to be limited or rare or what have you, I see no problem with charging more. After all if you put it up for auction people might bid and drive the price up anyway. Supply and demand and all that. If someone is over charging for a doll, then no one will buy it. If someone is willing to sell out the moola, clearly the price is marked well enough...

 

Business isn't about greed. It's mostly about paying the bills and paying the sellers. If you go to a job, you expect to make at least a minimum wage, don't you? Middle men have mortgages and bills to pay too, especially if running a doll shop is their 9-5 job. They pay to get the dolls from their factory to the country where buyers are at. Otherwise we'd be eating the cost of shipping. They buy enough at wholesale to allow for lower shipping and qualify for discounts.

Wholesale is usually 50% of retail price. The book sellers buy the book from the publisher at $5 and the "suggested retail" printed on the book is $10. That gives them leeway to price anywhere from $5.01 to $10 and still make a profit to keep the business in business. Otherwise the business will go bankrupt and shut down and people will be out of jobs and the recession gets worse.

 

I agree with Leloi 100% well said!

 

well, at this point I'd be willing to pay up to $600 for a pair of Beryl hooves...I've tried Amber hooves and Cuprit hooves on my girl but nothing looked quite right. so yeah, I wouldn't mind a scalper right about now as long as they had the part i wanted

 

Yes, but unfortunately that philosophy just doesn't work in reality. There will always be collectors who are willing to shell out the amount of money for that one "holy grail" doll. If they can afford it, why should they abstain from buying the doll to lower the price, so that someone else could buy it instead?

There was a whole thread about the difference between International costs and in-country costs that you might find interesting here: http://www.denofangels.com/forums/showthread.php?t=160499

The "cost of business" when selling and shipping internationally has a lot of extra costs. Hiring a translator or foreign-language representative and paying their wages? The extra bandwidth and web setup for multiple website versions in different languages? Paying someone to keep track of import/export regulations? There's a lot more than even those few... expanding a business outside the country costs money, and they have to make up that money somewhere. Would you rather the doll companies didn't sell Internationally at all?

Personally, I do think ACTUAL scalping (cornering the market and selling items at an inflated value because of lack of supply) distasteful, but I acknowledge it as a "necessary evil" of the hobby. Hating people for selling something at a higher price than one wants to pay just seems like a waste of energy to me... I just shrug it off as tough luck and move on.

Also... I think it was mentioned earlier in the thread, but a lot of what people are calling "scalping" really isn't scalping at all. It's either:

1) a higher market value than the original price, due to supply and demand
2) someone asking a higher price for a standard item than the regular market value
3) companies charging more than some people want to pay

None of those are actually "scalping".

I disagree completely. Competing sellers maintaining their own prices is a healthy part of a free-market economy. Supply and demand will keep the market self-correcting. Setting a price cap will just discourage people from selling their items on DoA and would likely kill the Marketplace completely. You wouldn't suddenly be able to find that Soom Monthly on DoA for $500 just because that's the price DoA set. No, you'd find a flood of them on eBay instead, at the same higher prices people charge now.

Also, there is a lot of legal red tape. By allowing buyers and sellers to state their own terms and do business without an intermediary, the owners and Moderators of DoA avoid legal entanglement. The moment they start setting price caps, they have become a party to those sales. It's a whole lot more hassle for people who are already working hard for no pay.

Also, with the sheer number of items out there, it is a nigh-impossible feat to set a price limit on all dolls anyway, or even all rare/sought-after/limited dolls.

^ This. Business is about profit, period. If it weren't, the economy would be nonexistent. To claim that businesses are being somehow immoral by trying to make a decent profit is challenging the very basis of a capitalist free-market economy. And if the doll companies weren't making a profit, they wouldn't be in business and there wouldn't be dolls to purchase at all.

Dolls are a luxury item. It's been said before, but I'll say it again. No one ever NEEDS a doll, so there's really no immorality in selling dolls for whatever price a company wants to charge. You (general "you") may not like it, but it's not a life-or-death situation if you can't get that doll you want. It's just "tough cookies".

I think the philosophy of "tough cookies" has been lost nowadays... there is such a sense of entitlement, especially in this hobby. No one is ever owed a doll, and no one is a criminal for setting a price higher than someone else can pay.

 

IAWTCC. And the rest of your comment as well, TheFontBandit.

*case in point: goes back to crying over that Shiro she can't afford because she has to pay off her credit card*

 

I don´t really understand why people think thats so wrong! (don´t want to seem rude!)
That´s the normal way of a market, isn´t it? The higher the number of people who want a product and the less the number of the products, the higher is the price. It´s clear there aren´t (for example) many Soom Sards, because they were limited. Some people buyed it when it was for sale, but now, when it isn´t for sale anymore, more and more people see him and also want him. So the number of people who want him is growing, but the number of the doll not. So the price must grow, mustn´t it?
If some people think that this specific doll will get popular in the future and buy more then one to sell it later, that´s buisiness. They also have a risk. Maybe the doll doesn´t get popular?
But if it does, it´s their luck.They took a risk and won.
What´s wrong about that?
And hey, if you don´t want to buy it, you don´t have to! As long as it sells, the price isn´t really to high, is it?

(If the whole text is gramatically wrong, or makes no sense or smth. like that: Sorry, I´m from germany)

 

I don't think there's really ever going to be a way to stop scalping from this hobby. For me I draw the line when the price is double the original price. I figure that no matter what the doll is, eventually it ends up in the marketplace. If i'm patient and its still worth having I'll find the right doll at hopefully a fair price.

There are some instances though where people loose sight of the concept of a fair price. I see that a lot with the Soom monthly dolls. I know of one instance of a person selling a part of a doll for a price that I feel is way inflated. It's a beautiful piece, but they want the price that the doll was originally released at and its not even for a full doll. Even with certain astetics and a good economy I wouldn't pay that price because it dosen't seem to be fair when it becomes about the rarity and the money and less about the joy of the hobby.

This is not to say that some dolls aren't worth that much, sure they are, but I think that often people in this hobby get blindsided by seeing how much some dolls go for. They then feel that jacking up the price or doing an auction in an effort to get a huge payback is warrented. That really helps to make scalping an attractive alternative to the outsider who's not really even into the hobby. After all if one person gets $400-$500 above what the doll was worth, then shouldn't they? As long as people continue to feed the machine we'll always have those who choose to mannipulate the system for a profit.

 

Agreed, in a sick kind of way, if I have the money to hand, I'm grateful that there are scalpers out there who buy dolls to sell rather than keep and treasure them.
If they have what I want and I have the cash, I'm not going to critisise. I'm going to be just as grateful to them as someone who is selling a long loved doll.

I do not agree with the practice of course but I do agree that noone is entitled to a low priced doll. If someone is going to charge double the bought price that is up to them, their doll, their decision.

 

And it is our choice to buy.
People who are saying: It will always happen - This is a cop-out. If you refuse that high price, and everyone else does as well: THE PRICE WILL DROP Because the person selling wants to SELL. If no-one buys at a high price, they have not made any money.
That's business too. Supply is one thing, demand is a SEPARATE issue. Supply and demand. See that "and"? That's a link between two things, not an attachment. If you demand an item at a lower price, eventually it will actually be lower.
So, you wanna see stuff go down? Refuse the price. Once one person does it, you'd be suprised at how many other people do too. Sure, you might lose that one item, but the next item to go up, will possibly be cheaper :3 In order to sell things, businesses tend to try and please the customer.

Seriously, don't act like high pricing on limited items is inevitable. Also, holding an item after ordering it isn't a big deal. As you guys have said, people ARE willing to buy limited items at high prices, but it doesn't mean people HAVE to sell them high, purely because it's been sitting in a box unopened for a month. That is opportunity (different than greed, but close to it :3)
Personally, I have a DOI body, near new to sell. I received it pretty cheap due to the suppliers need to sell, so it went down from their asking price, to closer to the price I wanted it. I have now sanded it to look extra pretty, and I am selling it for the exact price I bought it for, because I need it gone. Sure, I could sell it higher because it has been modified to "better", but because the demand is probably pretty low, there is no point.

 

Actually, what's probably going to happen in this hobby is probably some doll companies will simply close their doors, or simply move to other fields. I've seen it happen with some toy companies.

These dolls are not like other commodities like oil, where if people drive less, then the price of gas will fall slightly. These dolls are made to order. If no one is ordering, then the company won't make the dolls. And if they're not making the dolls, then what's the point of them being in the doll business? They could just use their talents and skills to make action figures then.

^Sooo this. I guess I fell asleep and missed the point in time when profit suddenly became a bad word, and working to make money to enrich yourself suddenly became a crime.

 

However, this hobby is pretty fangirl based, so what might happen when it starts going downhill is that they will be worth less because people will be getting into the new fad, so only for Serious collectors will things be worth anything. The joy of having most of your fanbase as teenagers is that they just won't be willing to pay what people -think- things are worse.

You aren't a "criminal" (what's with teh serious overreation to things XD) but it is pretty pointless just trying to sell something for a seriously high amount just because you can, when you're in the hobby yourself. People setting stupidly high prices are usually the first to complain about high prices themselves, in my experience.

 

I think a lot of people here don't understand the concept of scalping. I'm seeing a lot of weird interpretations of it. Selling a doll you found out you just didn't like isn't scalping, even if you sell it for $5000.

Scalping is when there is a limited number of things and you buy them up ONLY so you can sell them at an inflated cost. So when you see about 50 Volks LEs go up on YJA the day of Dolpa, that is scalping. The marked up LEs at Mandarake are not.

As an example, I saw someone complaining about the price someone was asking for a particular Soom doll. Don't like it, don't pay it, right? Someone is totally entitled to ask what they want for their doll. Then I began to notice that all of their marketplace activity involved Soom MDs. In that one incident it sounded like, "Oh, I need to sell this doll to pay the bills," but it became kind of apparent to me that this person was buying Soom MDs to make a profit off of them later. This is scalping.

Someone said something silly like that the doll companies would go out of business. Well, no they wouldn't. If Volks figured out a way to weed out ALL the scalpers, then it's not as if they would suddenly lose all their customers. Just, those 50 dolls on YJA would go to the homes of the 50 people further down the line who missed their opportunity because the 20 scalpers and their 30 friends (one doll, one person doesn't even ensure anything) were in line ahead of them.

Scalping isn't just "good business sense," it's toying with supply and demand.

I don't know about other items or other countries, but I do know ticket scalping is illegal here in Japan, and that in some places in the US there are limits to how much you're allowed to mark something up (no more than 25% or something). Some companies try to make rules about buying to prevent scalping regardless of legality or morality. It's too bad that it's so difficult to enforce. I know Volks has a kind of one doll rule, but that doesn't prevent you from bringing all your best friends or family or the rest of your crime syndicate along.

 

Great point.

 

Wait... what? Maybe I'm hanging out with different doll collectors, I guess. It seems to me like the BJD hobby is exactly that... people who like BJDs. A large portion of BJD owners actually came into the hobby from collecting fashion dolls, or from an art/customizing standpoint, not a fangirl one. I think saying that the BJD hobby is "pretty fangirl based" may be an overexaggeration.

Also, there are some very active age-based threads in the GD area that are for BJD collectors age 30 and older. There was also this thread with an age-related poll. Owners age 13-20 make up about 40% of the BJD collectors who answered the poll. Personally, I think it may seem like there are more teenagers, because teens and young adults are often more active online. (Once you get a house and a family and a full-time job, one's free time seems to diminish drastically).


On the issue of "if no one pays the price then it will come down"... I'll try to explain my previous statement more thoroughly. It's hypothetical scenario time!

Say someone has an LE doll listed in the marketplace. It's a rare doll that's been on my wishlist for some time. The doll originally sold for $600. The seller wants $1000. I have $1000 to spend, and the doll is worth $1000 to me. Why should I refuse to pay the price? If the price goes lower because I refuse to pay it, that just gives someone else a chance to buy my dream doll. Or should I buy it while I can, since I have the money available and I'm willing to spend it?

The whole idea of everyone banding together to lower doll prices really isn't feasible. Theoretically, sure. In theory, the concept works. But in reality? It really isn't going to happen. There will always be someone out there who has the money and wants the doll enough to buy it, period. In a real-world situation, getting every single BJD collector in the world to agree to some set price-limit on every doll ever made is logistically impossible. And in order for the "no one pays the price to lower it" plan to work, that is what would have to happen. Who would set the "limit price"? And what would that limit be? Every person's opinion of what constitutes "overpriced" will differ. Some think the doll should never sell for more than its original asking price, even if it was limited. Some think that a price increase of 10% or 20% would be acceptable. Who would be the one to draw the line?

It seems like everyone's limit of "overpriced" is "more than I want to pay". But you (all mentions of "you" are a general "you", not speaking specifically to anyone here) aren't the only doll collector out there, and your "overpriced" may be someone else's "perfectly reasonable". And that's where the "tough cookies" comes in. That's when you have to decide: Do I want to pay that secondhand price, or do I need to resign myself to not owning that doll? It's not a life or death situation, and it's not worth getting so worked up over. Though I adore her, I will never own a Soom Vesuvia because 1) she is fairly rare, and 2) her secondhand price is more than I want to pay. I chalked it up to "too bad" and moved on. Sometimes in the real world, there is no option that fits your ideal scenario, and you just have to get over it.

When all is said and done, they're just dolls. It's not like people are overpricing food or medical supplies.