Is there anything that can be done about the rampant scalping on eBay?

[enyawd72]

capitalism.
This is a supply and demand issue. It does suck, but thats just how it works.

The thing is...it's NOT. Scalpers CREATE an artificial demand by choking off the supply to people who actually WANT the figures. How many times have you seen "Rare! Hard to Find! Impossible to find!" coupled with "More than 10 available".

Of course they're hard to find when people who don't even want them buy every last one on the pegs to resell.

[TrekStar]

To bad Dr. Mego couldn't just sell them from his online website.

[Riderfan]

The thing is...it's NOT. Scalpers CREATE an artificial demand by choking off the supply to people who actually WANT the figures. How many times have you seen "Rare! Hard to Find! Impossible to find!" coupled with "More than 10 available".

Of course they're hard to find when people who don't even want them buy every last one on the pegs to resell

But isn't supply & demand the basis of capitalism? For example, how many kids actually wanted a Cabbage Patch doll versus how many wanted one because they couldn't get one?

I realize that's not the best analogy, but just trying to put things into perspective.

Now if you're Target and you're sitting on nearly dead inventory of Alice, Charmed, Fullhouse or whatever you're going to be glad other stuff is selling out quickly, and not caring who buys it.

What really bothers me is that I think (no proof though) that the 'scalpers' are mostly either Target employees or know someone that works at Target.

However that's how capitalism works. And thinking Ebay should step in, well they're a business too and probably couldn't care less about who buys a Mego figure anymore than a Dyson vacuum cleaner.

Just my random thoughts, for what its worth.

[mego]

The thing is...it's NOT. Scalpers CREATE an artificial demand by choking off the supply to people who actually WANT the figures. How many times have you seen "Rare! Hard to Find! Impossible to find!" coupled with "More than 10 available".

Of course they're hard to find when people who don't even want them buy every last one on the pegs to resell.

Well, I haven't seen a single figure from wave 2 or 3 in any Target near me. Therefore, the supply line is nonexistent. The only way for me to get these would be Ebay. If the only way for me to get them is on Ebay, I'd expect to pay a larger amount. I haven't bothered to do that, but that sounds exactly like supply and demand. People are paying higher prices because they can't find the figures in stores for the retail price.

[tllgn]

scalpers ,they come with the territory .in time these new megos will be available .its just the waiting thats tough .and scalpers love that to make a buck .as hard as it is i am waiting to get
more figures .and i will ,but not from a lousy sloppy scalper .

[zaphod]

Ebay scalping doesn't negatively impact Target - in fact, the opposite. If Target can sell 99 figures in one shot, then why would they want to limit the sales per figure? It really doesn't matter to them to whom they sell the figures, just the fact they can sell it. It would be fair, but I'm sure someone in corporate would remind you, "Life's not fair". Target sales are good enough that if they tick off a few Mego collectors it's not going to impact their bottom line.

[SWDAVE]

Since I have not even seen any of wave two, I may have to resort to eBay to find what I am looking for. I don’t want to but how else am I going to get them? Stupid Target!

[MIB41]

I'm a big believer that patience wins the day here. If Target is making the volumes as stated, that's 212,000 figures per wave. You can look at every sold auction and there is nothing that approaches 10,000 for the most popular figure. I'm a big believer that allot of of Wave 2 and 3 (8 inch figures) are still not shipped or sitting in stock rooms. Hell, I just saw my first Paul Stanley figure a week ago at one Target store along with Richie Cunningham and a Kris figure. And I have six Targets all around me. I went back last night to that same store and the Richie and Kris figures were still there (I had picked up the Paul figure). So if we use Wave one as the standard for distribution, one would have to assume tons of stores have either not received or displayed any additional waves in the eight inch format, because some residual would exist.

Paul Clarke had also mentioned Target told him most stores will not put out new product until they sell down the initial wave. I can tell you that reasoning will vary in my area, because some stores have virtually nothing while others range from a few to a bunch of Wave one. BTW, the store that finally put out a box of Wave 2 was a store that had allot of Wave one left over. So while scalpers are probably a big problem in some towns, I think nationwide, its more of a distribution issue.

I believe if you play the long game, all of these will eventually show up, somewhere, and only then will we find out what Target was doing. But I definitely believe Target still possesses the majority of Wave 2 and 3 figures. Waiting this out will also starve off the scalpers and they'll have to unload around the holidays. Patience is definitely a virtue here.

[mego]

seems perfectly reasonable to me. As Tom Petty said... the waiting is the hardest part.

[Brown Bear]

Being Canadian and Targetless, my options are.....try friends/fellow collectors to buy and ship to you at cost. If they can't find them then try social media and the MM. If no one steps in to help, you try Target's website which doesn't have the cheapest options for shipping to Cda. If Target doesn't have the stock, what's left? That leaves you with patience or eBay. I am patient to a point, but seeing awesome pics day after day on my FB feed only withers away at my patience.

Luckily to date, I've been able to acquire the handful from each wave that were must-haves for me thru contacts and friends. There really are folks here willing to help if they can track them down themselves. That said, of the 4 from wave 3 I want I've had luck getting help on 2 of 'em. I'll wait and exercise patience, but don't know how long I can wait to add a Chachi and Mirror Sulu before I crack and start peeking elsewhere.

The other issue we run into is even when friends step in help you out, if you end up with 4 guys helping with 4 different figures, then you pay for shipping on 4 separate figures which quickly takes the price sky high.

The ideal situation would be for Target to have the stock when they they have and not have us Ambassadors seeing for the first time as they pp up from scalpers.

[Psykodelik Vampyre]

Don’t give in and feed them...remember these are 10,000/8,000 each. I hope they choke on them.

If every Mego fan bought 3 of each, there’s still plenty to go around...these scumbags are just playing on the impatience of fandom.