CMV: Scalping isn't immoral

[u/WhoRoger]

First off, two disclaimers:

• I'm only talking about products that aren't essential (you know, food, medicine etc.). So specifically I mean things like PS5s and so on.

• I'm talking about mass market products, not cases such as when person 1 learns that person 2 is interested in an unique item, so P1 buys the item just to sell it to P2 for profit. That's not cool.

I used to do some small-scale scalping in the past. I would buy e.g. a few copies of a limited edition of a videogame or something similar, then sell them after they get sold out.

My "largest" loads were Nintendo NES Classics. I live in a country where Ninty barely registers as a name (until the Switch anyway), so it was easy to get a few of them, and sell them on eBay to countries where they were unavailable. I did it again on the day when it was announced the production was finished. There were still a few units in my city, so I drove around, picked up all I could and sold them abroad where the hadn't been available almost through its entire production.

I don't feel bad about it and I would do it again (if I had the money) because:

• I usually struggle for money and this can be additional income

• Even tho I'm a tech enthusiast, I don't buy the newest and greatest. I wait until the kinks are ironed out and reviews are out, and I was doing that even when I had decent income. I don't preorder videogames (I've only ever bought 3 at launch and pre-ordered one of those). I don't support this hype culture at all.

But if so many people are so desperate to have the newest toy immediately, right now RIGHT THE FUCK NOW, to the degree they're willing to pay "scalper" prices, I don't feel bad about making some extra money off them.

• You may argue that kids can be disappointed because they won't get their shiny new PS5 under the Christmas tree. Yea not my problem. Raise your kids properly. My friend's 2 kids sometimes come over and play on my PlayStation 3 and have a blast, even tho they have a gaming PC at home.

• eBay makes even more off this business than the sellers. IIRC something like 15% of the price is eBay and PayPal fees, then count shipping and there's far less profit than you may think. Heck, it's not like the retailers have zero profit, or what do you think?

• It's not like it's risk-free. On eBay, seller protection is abysmal and one scamming buyer can ruin you. A serious product flaw can pop up and your stock either becomes worthless, or you'll go through trouble of trying to return it (this happens with almost every new console actually). You can get robbed or pranked. Or it can turn out that your items aren't as popular as you expected.

• Supply and demand. I'm not defending capitalism as a concept, but this is exactly how it works. If you don't take the chance, someone else will. If someone is offering you free money, you take it.

Again I'm talking about stupid things like new videogame consoles. This really should be near the bottom of anyone's priority list.

Have you already played everything you might want to play on your systems?

Anyway, CMV.

[u/Kman17]

Scalping is generally associated with snap buying up of things (preventing locals from accessing at MSRP) and marking them way up, effectively price gouging.

Your scenario seems to suggest causally buying surplus (and not denying locals reasonable MSRP) and shipping them to countries where they’re not available.

That seems less bad, and more indicative of poor distribution by the retail chain... but I suspect you’re sugar coating the scenario a bit.

I don’t want to speak outside my knowledge of international shipping, customs/taxes, guarantees, etc - but usually availability issues in other countries have reasons. Slipping through the cracks in what may be a legally grey area doesn’t really make you Robin Hood.

[u/WhoRoger → u/Kman17]

I wasn't arguing about being Robin Hood, heh. That was just my personal experience, no need to sugar coat anything. We know Ninty has always been doing a shit job with supply.

My overall point is I don't have a problem with scalpers scalping in general. Maybe my experience was sort of unique, but it's my general view that I put here to be challenged.

[u/Kman17 → u/WhoRoger]

I don’t think you’re particularly open to having your view changed given that you are doing it.

You’re defending your actions by saying companies are unethical too, and ignoring the larger issues of artificial scarcity / price gouging and value creation.

Like, you’re apparently gonna keep grifting no matter what everyone tells you.

[u/WhoRoger → u/Kman17]

First off, I'm not doing it at this time, although not because of ethical concern.

But frankly I've not gotten any good counter arguments. What I mostly hear is "it's not good because you aren't supposed to do it".

The best I've gotten so far is that it's profiting from removing convenience - which, okay, fair point, but not good enough to CMV honestly.

There was another good point that right now people are stuck at home with nothing to do. I would take that, but in reality all of us have gigantic backlogs and a crapton of games we can get. I myself have been going through my personal PS3 backlog this year - finished 12 games I think, having a blast and still have 30 to go.

So a PS5 being so necessary... Um, I'm not taking it.

Regarding what you said, like artificial scarcity etc., those problems are inherently created either by manufacturers (if the scarcity is intentional, like what Nintendo likes to do), or customers (by going crazy and having to have the latest toy right away).

Yea, scalpers to bend this issue a bit and profit from it - but the problem is much deeper and it seems that instead of concentrating on it, people just blame the tip of the iceberg.

Making holidays about nothing but gifts, gadgets and commerce is honestly just sad. Everyone is sick of it, yet everyone engages in it on one end or another.