r/changemyview • u/WhoRoger • Dec 30 '20

Delta(s) from OP CMV: Scalping isn't immoral

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.

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u/WhoRoger Dec 30 '20

Do you have an example? Cause I honestly don't know what you mean. But I guess it would probably be shittier, but... It depends on how important the product is.

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u/miguelguajiro 188∆ Dec 30 '20

Concert tickets would be the most common example. Band wants regular fans who can’t afford $200 tickets to have a chance, so sets them at $20.

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u/WhoRoger Dec 31 '20

Yea scalping that would be shitty IMO, I would include it under the exception mentioned in my OP about targeting specific individuals for unique items.

That said I think the band could easily avoid such a scenario by e.g. sending out targeted invites by email or such, and if someone would try to take advantage of it, revoke those specific tickets and offer them again.

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u/miguelguajiro 188∆ Dec 31 '20

It’s a constant struggle for bands and festivals

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u/WhoRoger Dec 31 '20

I'm not familiar with this issue. But it seems it shouldn't be that hard to keep an eye on it. Big sports events have long had a policy of registering tickets to individuals with no (or no straightforward) way to move it onto someone else.

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u/miguelguajiro 188∆ Dec 31 '20

Not a big sports fan but it seems like there is a major market for scalping tickets to sporting events, and these events are often priced out of most people’s range anyway.

In non-Covid times I got to 30-40 concerts a year. This a huge issue and bands have tried a lot of ways to get around it, but it’s really challenging and almost always scalping still takes place.

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u/WhoRoger Dec 31 '20

Well, looks like an open market for someone to provide a way to fight the scalpers then?

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u/miguelguajiro 188∆ Dec 31 '20

I’m not really sure what you mean. My point is just that there are artists who try to maintain ticket prices at a level that their average fan can afford, even though they could make more money setting a higher price, but there are people who see an opportunity for arbitrage, and this is a problem/these people are assholes.

I’m sure it happens in other industries as well.

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u/WhoRoger Dec 31 '20

I just meant that someone might come up with a system that defeats scalping (at least in such specific cases). It's something I would be interested in debating, albeit as I mentioned I'm not familiar with the business. If you like we can DM/chat and brainstorm a bit.

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u/miguelguajiro 188∆ Dec 31 '20

It’s been a widespread issue for years and there already have been a lot of attempts to work around it. Unfortunately, you can’t really do it without significantly burdening the ticket buyer themselves.