Random Thoughts – Randocity!

I’m tired of it and I really don’t much tolerate it anymore. I’m a memorabilia collector, specifically film franchises and video games. Yet, what I find continually frustrating is the hoarders and scalpers. You know, you go to the store looking for something to be there, but there’s nothing there. But, then you find that collectible on eBay or Amazon in droves marked up to at least twice the price. I’m sick of this. Let’s explore.

Collectibles

Star Wars The Force Awakens is right around the corner (December 18th) and the toys and other collectibles are now hitting the store shelves. Yet, you’ll be lucky to find much of it due to hoarders / scalpers. In the 70s, scalping was limited to concert tickets. Since Kenner introduce Star Wars toys, these same folks have now jumped from ticket scalping to collectible scalping. A practice of which I do not approve. I realize what it is. People want to make a few bucks on something. I get it. But, it’s not exactly fair to those of us who actually want to find the item in the store and buy it at retail price. We don’t want to have to resort to shopping on eBay from some would-be scalper at hugely inflated prices.

I really dislike heading over to eBay and finding page after page after page of that item marked up by 50% or more. It would be great if stores could do something about this. I’m glad to see that at least one store is doing something about this. Enter Toys R Us. While it may not be the perfect answer, it’s at least a step in the right direction.

Skylanders Superchargers

Many stores are now releasing exclusives for the Skylanders franchise. For example, Toys R Us tends to get Legendary exclusives. The Legendary Skylanders are typically painted navy blue and gold. Target gets the Nitro series. This series also looks like the Legendary series, dark blue and gold. Sometimes the stores get individual characters, sometimes they get combo packs and sometimes they get play sets. For example some Supercharger exclusives this year include:

• Target => Nitro Stealth Stinger Vehicle
• Best Buy => Steel Plated Smash Hit 
• Toys R Us
  • Legendary Hurricane Jet-Vac
  • Legendary Sky Racing Pack (includes Legendary Astroblast, Legendary Sun Runner and Sky Trophy)

I don’t think Walmart has ordered any Superchargers exclusives yet, but I could be wrong. Though, it is guaranteed there will be more store exclusives in the coming months.

Star Wars The Force Awakens

Since Disney has now taken this franchise and plans on reviving it with at least three new films over the next several years, we will see all sorts of Star Wars merchandise and toys hitting the store shelves, including exclusives at the Disney store. Yes, the Disney store has its own line of exclusives. Specifically, a line of die cast 6.5 inch figures labeled Elite Series (see Phasma above).

Again, you’ll be lucky to find these Elite Series at the Disney store or online. In general, heading into any of these retailers, you’re not likely to easily find these exclusives. Why?

Scalpers and Collectibles

The primary problem is that stores order far too little stock for the number of people who want to buy them. Secondarily, scalpers make off with at least half, if not 3/4 of the limited stock fully intending to place the items onto eBay or Amazon at well inflated prices. Likely only 25-50% of the stock (perhaps even less) actually makes it into actual collector’s hands at retail price. The rest of that stock makes its way onto eBay, Amazon, Craigslist or into comic book shops on consignment at sometimes double the retail price.

Scalping isn’t the intent of these collectibles. The intent is to get the collectibles into the hands of collectors who will actually appreciate the toys and who want to display them, open them and enjoy them. Not into the hands of scalpers who don’t care about the item and whose only motive is to make some quick cash from selling the item.

Let’s understand, though, speculating that a toy will make you any money is about as risky as taking your money to Vegas and playing the slots. You might get something, you might not. You might end up keeping those toys as worthless. What may seem scarce today may end up being the peg warmer tomorrow after the mass shipments arrive. Of course, if you return the item to the retailer before the return period expires, you can get your money back from the store. But, that holds stock back from those who were looking for it. As a scalper, you should be careful about returns. Excessive returns could flag your credit card.

Countering the Scalpers

Because stores can’t know purchasing intent of any individual, they must sell the item to the person with the cash. So, there’s really no way to know if a person is a scalper or if they are a legitimate collector. However, there are other ways to counter this problem and Toys R Us has found the perfect way to do it… by opening an eBay store.

For example, Toys R Us’s Legendary Sky Racing Pack (mentioned above) is available exclusively on eBay from Toys R Us at retail price ($35.99). In among the listings for this pack, you’ll see a lot of eBayers with their scalped packs marked at $50, $60 and even $70 plus shipping. You may or may not find this pack in the Toys R Us stores and it is definitely not on their web store. It seems to be exclusively available in the eBay store. For collectors, this is the perfect counter to would-be scalpers. As long as Toys R Us continues to operate an eBay store putting ‘hot toys’ up at retail prices, this will undermine the excessive pricing of those attempting to scalp on eBay. This means those other sellers may have to pull their listing down and will hopefully discourage future scalping attempts.

I wholeheartedly applaud Toys R Us taking this action. It’s not only ingenious selling, it’s the perfect way to stop this problem. I wish even more stores would do this to thwart retail scalping at its source. By not placing that stock onto their web site and instead placing these ‘hot items’ into their eBay store at retail prices, this means is that would-be scalpers have to either drop their prices to match Toys R Us, thus not making any money, or they must eat the toy purchase (or otherwise return it to the store to get their money back).

Excessive Returns

If I were Toys R Us, and when these returns start rolling in, I’d place the people who are returning these ‘hot’ items on a watch list. If they exhibit this same behavior of returning ‘hot collectible toys’, especially in larger quantities, I’d place those people onto a do not sell list across the entire chain. Deny their credit card purchase for future sales of hot collectibles. It’s very easy to tag what’s a hot collectible, so it’s also easy to identify those trying to scalp through returns and then deny sales of future items to these individuals. For those of us collectors who never return our items, this whole issue would never affect us. It would only affect scalpers intent on scalping and returning when ‘things don’t work out’.

Countering unnecessary high prices

Of course, Toys R Us could run out of stock at some point and force people to contemplate a higher priced alternative.  As long as Toys R Us keeps the item in stock, those scalper listings won’t ever sell.

I would love to see the Disney Store, Target, Walmart, Gamestop and other retailers exacting this same selling strategy for their exclusive or hot selling items. Pull the items out of the store and put the stock on eBay and Amazon at retail pricing. Make sure you have well enough stock on hand to keep this store stocked continually. Would-be scalpers would need to think twice about using these outlets to perform their scalping efforts going forward. To Toys R Us, I say, “Bravo”… in attempting to counter this problem at its source. You should expand this concept and do this in more places where scalpers sell. I’d personally like to see the toy and collector scalper market shut down entirely for first run retail collectibles.

When do ‘collectibles’ become actual Collectibles?

Of course, once the stores have discontinued selling the item, the item is no longer available and the items can no longer be returned to the retailer (past the return period), this fully opens up the collectible sales market. However, until first run retail stock is discontinued and depleted and the item is no longer carried by the retailer, I don’t considered it a collectible in the sense that it should command a higher than retail price tag. Though, mistakes and variants have their place as unique, these can command whatever price someone is willing to pay. But, for non-special retail items, it is not a collectible as long as it is carried in the store.

As a collector, I don’t believe any item deserves to be opened up to the collector’s market until the item reaches 10 years in age past first run. But, I do understand that people want to rush their collectible to market to “sell it now”. I just don’t believe that any item should command the true collector price tag until after it reaches the 10 year mark. Though, some collectors rush to complete their collections at all costs. It doesn’t help that some buyers are willing to shell out nearly any amount of cash for something that could be had at a retail store for retail prices. These buyers are just feeding into the scalping frenzy which only serves to keep this cycle going. I’m quite happy to see Toys R Us is taking steps to help shut this market down, at least for the toys and collectibles that they sell. Well done Toys R Us.

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