Scalping and YOU.

skwerliet:

If you read some economic and bussines books, you will see that cost is define as the price of the material, the payment of employes, advertisment cost etc etc etc... all the things you mentioned are included in the cost. Profit on the other way, is the ammount to gain and keep for your self. The ammount you don;t have to divide among employess, artists etc...

Kim :

I have never been to Japan and I don't really know anything about their culture except from the fact that they wear kimonos :P Learning that there is a general attitute and desire for limited items, makes it more clear to me why they produce so many of them. I am the last person to say how a company must or should work. I simply express my personal opinion and feeling in this debate.

I have also seen what happened with tan Lishe. I think she used to be limited and that she could go for 2000$ on ebay. Please correct me if I am wrong. I am also under the impression that the people who got happy when tan lishe became unlimited, were more than the people who wanted her limited I mean look how many tan lishes "walk" around and I am sure that threre are many more that are simply not registered in this forum.

And if limiteds are so expensive because there are generally more people wanting them, that the people already owning them, then according to the example above someone can assume, that yes more people will be happy if all limited dolls stop being limited.

Yes I do expect companies to make profit. That's why they still exist and haven't closed and no I don't expect people to scrape by , in order to have cheaper dolls. I have some elementary gnosis in economics and bussines management.

Where did you read that? who said that companies profit from scallping??

Also and this is the most important think I would like to know your opinion. Lately I have noticed a price increase in limiteds. It seams to me that more and more limited dolls upgrade from the 1000$ - 1500$ range to the 1500$ - 2500$ . I even saw a spring stroll Liz for 1300$ - !500$ buy out on ebay!

 

Then you should be scalping your items on Ebay or another auction house, since this is a community first, the marketplace is a convenience.

 

So... where do you get off accusing companies of being greedy?

 

Eeer I got confused now I don't quite get what you say, but I will clear this situation out just in case. Yes I do believe companies are greedy and also expect them to make as much profit as they possibly can, for that reason. The maximun profit is based on economic equations , supply and demand and also you have to take in concideration the fact that is a luxury item. I am also sure that companies have made their homework or research, before they put a price on each doll.

For example I have heard that companies create their doll with love and work s hard that we can have these dolls etc , etc... What I personally believe is that companies love profit and money. If they did love the dolls and wanted us to have as many as possible etc, I believe that the price of a bjd would be lower and maybe there wouldn;t be so many limiteds.

One more thing, I hope that I still have the right to express my opinion in a debate and / or generally, whether that disdurbs some people or not and that we are going a little bit OT with the entire company -greedy - profit thing.

Also because it is possible that some people might believe that I hate Volks or Luts, because I did mentioned them, here is the list of the limiteds I am dying to have but I cannot have, because of high prices.

Vampire Lishe (extremely high price in the secondary market, extremly hard to find)
SD17 Reisner ( high starting price as it is)
Madoka (extremly high price in the secondary market, extremly hard to find)
Aya (highy price and hard to find)
Jun Tachibana (hard to find and expesive)
Liz
Shcool head c

As you can see I am fond of both companies and I would be very sad to know that they have closed.

The last two dolls, although up until now I found their price very high, I am slowly loosing hope that I might find one those dolls in the price I like. Also as I said before I noticed a certain price change in Liz lately. Her price has gone up the roof reaching 1800$ buy out.

 

It's her right to scalp if she likes. I really do hope that you do not expect her to buy a limited for 2000$ and then sell it in retail price.

 

There were two of Liz in the Marketplace last week, and I believe one is still there (and is around $950). I bought the other one from an excellent seller who was really a pleasure to deal with. That Liz was fullset, in perfect condition, and cost just under $1000.

There are people out there who still sell low, even with a high potential resale value.

 

Yes I have seen that. I have the last Liz on the marketplace.. There are also 4 Liz on ebay. One for 950$ I think or something simiral, but the rest... you should see the rest of them.

 

If someone is willing to pay higher than original price, and will be satisfied, then I don't mind making an extra buck. I'm into lolita fashion, and rare dresses often go for twice the original value. But i'll pay it if I want that dress badly enough, and I'll sell it to the highest bidder.

 

Ah, sorry- I thought you were referring to the cost of only materials, I know a lot of people don't understand all of the costs involved in prodction and sales and maintaining a business. But still, if you are a fan of a company's dolls and, logically, of their artistic skill, I don't understand why you would be against them getting benefits for that. Limited edition dolls are good for companies, and I don't think most BJD companies really overdo it with limited editions. It's a different issue from scalping.

 

I really didn't want to come back to this thread but I'm starting to get curious by this tangent it has taken.

When a company sells Limited Editions, they sell it for, what? Either the same price as their non-LE dolls or about USD100 to 400 more. Don't forget the LEs usually come with their outfits and what nots.

But when a scalper scalps and sells for USD400 more, it's still the companies' fault that the scalpers are scalping? How does this work? The companies don't even profit from the scalpers.

We're not blinded by our loves for the companies. It's not about people believing that 'companies can do no wrong' and 'scalpers are evil!' It's about this. Companies make profit. But they also have to hire people, sculpt, mold, cast, face-up, do business with other companies, maintain their workshop, maintain their website, etc. They produce the dolls we like and sell them to us. A scalper does far, far less to scalp and half the time, people have dolls scalped from under them. That would be the reason why most people view the companies in a better light than scalpers.

Scalping is propagated by scalpers and the people who buy from scalpers. A company selling LE is different from a scalper scalping LEs. A company might release LEs to ensure a demand in the market, but the scalpers are the ones taking advantage of the demand in the market. Why should a company stop producing LEs, cut down on their profit, because of scalpers? Seems a tad unreasonable to me.

 

Actually, depending on what the companies want in the long-run versus the short-run, they don't need to profit to survive. A lot of companies will over spend their budget and take a pretty heavy hit in losses to buff other departments like R&D or advertising.

The ones scalping, though -as stated above -are not the companies themselves.

However, FMV for anything is usually -if not always -what the market is willing to bear. If there is someone willing to pay that price, then the scalpers get away with it. If there are ten people who're looking for a LE Lishe, I'm willing to bet there are at least two out of those ten willing to pay the scalper's rate for it -whatever that price might be. It's a vicious cycle, but the companies don't really have anything to do with scalpers' existence nor their outlandish rates.

 

Sorry but, what? I fail to understand this statement...

 

Think of all the non-profit organizations.

And companies break down budgeting into different time-lines: it's called their long-run versus short-run periods. Depending on the industry, the amount of time it takes to recover losses differs. Well-managed restaurants usually take about two years before they will start to see a profit -and that's considered quick. Sometimes companies will even PURPOSELY take a loss to their short-run terms for the sake of the company's survival in the long-run.

If the statement is true that companies NEED to profit to survive, then there would be virtually no companies in existance because for many companies all they will see the first couple of fiscal periods are going to be red ink. It takes a lot of wise decisions, good management and -again, depending on the industry -YEARS before their books are in the black.

Sorry if that seemed off topic, but I think dollfie companies, like a lot of other enterprises out there, somes see long periods of losses and they still manage to survive. There are companies out there where they're surviving and NOT profiting at all. These usually involve an owner (or owners) who have different ventures. They will take assets and profits from ANOTHER venture and put it into the one venture that's continually taking losses.

 

Yeah, but that's just stupid business-wise isn't it? Sorry to be so blunt but you seem to be forgetting that these companies are NOT non-profit organisations, for the very basic fact that they aren't releasing dolls for the general good of the public or to fulfill our dreams. Most of them are trying to make money.

Also, most non-profit organisations stay afloat mainly because of donations and well organised benefits.

It's true that most of the time, you have to consider an initial starting period as being likely to lose money as opposed to profit... but you will need to profit eventually to survive. So by that reasoning, companies should take a loss by not releasing limiteds, and aim solely to survive till they become large, well-established companies? And then once they have, they shouldn't release limiteds anyway, because that will aid the scalpers?

 

I'm sorry I confused you.

To put it more simply: the fact that companies don't need to profit to survive doesn't mean that they don't have the desire to.

Everyone's in business to profit in the long-run.

Whether or not dollfie companies releasing LE's is a major cause for scalpers being to do what they do is a different issue. I don't think companies should stop producing LE's just because there are unscrupulous folk out there. They are entitled to charge their markups and expect certain returns on their investment.

I believe some scalpers feel justified in asking for markups because of their "investments" (time and effort), as well.

Keep in mind, however, they only get away with this for as long as people are willing to let them.

If the store on the corner charges $5 for a can of soda and there are two or three people willing to pay that price and that's all that particular store needs to get by, they're going to keep charging the $5 for it. But if the people shopping in that area are willing to say, "Hey, I'd rather drive another mile to another store where I can get soda for $1.50 a can," then the corner store will be forced to bring down their price.

Essentially, if the company estimates that they can sell 10 LE's at $1,000 each and they expect to do it that month to profit and all ten LE's are sold in that month, then the next time the company releases a LE, they will charge just as high because people are willing to pay that to pad their bottom line for that period. However, if they estimated to add to their bottom line in a month but the LE's don't sell for that price til 2 or 3 months later, the next time that company releases a LE, they will consider marking it down.

Same deal with scalpers. As I mentioned earlier, if someone's willing to pay an extra $500 on top of the listing price for a dollfie that they couldn't get from the website, then the scalper gets away with it. But if each time a scalper tries to sell something at a ridiculous markup and nobody buys, the scalper will reconsider and decided to either mark their prices down or not even waste their time flipping and scalping.

 

The only thing that I can think to say is be a smart consumer.

Sure, I could obsess over a "Garuda" version of the Chiwoo, but with so many tallented people on our forum anything is possible.

Challenge LE scalping by making dolls that are special.

Either way reading and reasearching will save a person so much trouble.

 

Yup, I get you. I guess it just seemed at first as though you expected the companies to simply 'survive' in order to keep their customers scalper-free. Which made me go all O_o;;

Thanks for clearing that up ^^

 

Selurnis- yes, it's true that some businesses run in the red or sell something at a loss to get started out, but they can't survive making a loss forever! Sony may sell a PS3 console for less than it actually costs to produce, but they then sell games at a high price and make their profits there. If they were losing money on the consoles AND losing money on the games, they would go out of the video game business. Same thing for a restaurant- it may take a few years for a restaurant to make a profit, but it CANNOT survive if it doesn't turn a profit at some point. How else are they going to pay off all of those expenses from the first few years? It's one thing to say "oh, but the restaurant is just a side project, it loses money but it's OK because the owner puts money in from their main business" but that only works when there is another source of money... and you can't assume that every business is just a side project for someone who has another source of income to prop it up. : / Some BJD companies are a side project, I'm sure, for example, that Unoa isn't the main source of income for Gentaro Araki- he's well known for other things and he only has a couple of order periods a year. Super Dollfie was originally a side project from the main Volks brand, already well established for their resin kits and toys. But, even though they all could be, I don't think I would say for certain that doll making is only a side business for every doll maker and every brand around.

Not for profit companies are a bit different. Though they don't make a profit, they (ideally)still meet all of their expenses (wages, etc), it's just that any money that would, for another business, be profit is put toward their cause. That's different from running a company in the red and needing to make a hefty profit later down the line to make up for early debts.

There may be some businesses out there that are kept going by private money even though there is no profit at all, because the business owner loves the business that much. But you'd have to be pretty well off to run a business forever at a loss.

 

OT a little but - it's actually illegal to run a business at a loss for more than a few years. The Revenue collectors look at it as a "tax drain".

 

This may sound a little harsh, but I think that if someone buys a doll for, say, $500, and sells it for $800, good for her. Congrats on making a profit, and too bad for the person who didn't shop around before she bought it. Of course, I could just be prejudiced in the matter. My uncle buys antiques cheap at auction, and then resells them for a profit on eBay. He lives off it. *shrug*