Holiday pet peeve: People scalping Children's toys at Christmas.

[Werewolf]

For instance, I think this strategy worked rather smashingly for the Nintendo Wii.

I have problems with Nintendo this generation for it's overuse of waggle and flood of shovelware on the Wii. But to be fair to them, they finished dead last in the previous generation of hardware. So not surprisingly they were initially a slightly conservative, again with good reason, in the production numbers of the system. People love conspiracy theories but if you look at the numbers they were selling, even at launch when supplies were limited, they were still making crap loads of the system.

The Wii sold because they tapped into the growing casual gamer market. Not because they supposedly purposely limited production. Also to be fair to them, they quicky ramped up production. Which isn't easy in hardware production. Getting the chips and factories to make them isn't a cheap or easy thing to do.

I can't believe I'm defending the Wii, ugh.

[Werewolf]

The way I see it--it's just one big confluence of public demand + plus scalpers + media + toy companies--everyone has a hand in it!

You take scalpers out of the equation and the problem disappears.

To use the Zhu Zhu pets example again, kids already wanted them and parents were already looking for them. The media reported that kids wanted them after the fact because they are popular. The company also made enough of them to meet consumer demand. But kids can't get them because of the scalping. It's really that simple.

So scalping is to blame. Scalping children's toys at Christmas is a cultural blight and does not reflect well on us. We all have our pet peeves about the holidays and this one is mine.

[Toy Talk]

My wife and I just had this conversation last week as we were buzzing around trying to find the infamous Tzu Tzu pets. Collectors expect the need to pay inflated prices due to short supply and scalpers. However, children's toys would be plentiful on store shelves if scalpers would leave the market alone.
As a parent of six children this is not only frustrating, but expensive! Getting my daughter Tzu Tzu pets this year cost my family nearly twice the retail value because. Do not worry, the irony of buying the toys from Ebay is not lost on me. My purchasing from Ebay enables the scalpers, but what choice do I have.
Quite often I pay an inflated price for the collectible toy that I want--that is simply part of the game. My message to childrens toy scalpers--leave Christmas presents alone, the season is expensive enough as it is. Please find another way to make your living!

[jds1911a1]

I am lucky enough that I while my kids still believe in the magic of christmas I can also use dvd, vhs and digital cable like Nick Jr (Which has NO commercials or Spout which has no toy comercials) to limit what they know of the "hot toys" to allow me to keep the myth of Santa. now that my son is in 1st grade I think someone will kill the story this year and once the magic is over so will any need to have what they ask santa for.

that said this scalping has been going on at christmas for as long as I can recall (back to the late 70's) and many of the toys are fad toys not ones with staying power.
Star wars anything in 77-78
Atari
Coleco vision
Cabage patch kids
Transformers in 84
Power rangers (and that insanity went on for like 18 months)
Furby
Tickle elmo

[johnnystorm]

I worked in the toy dept at JC Penney when the Cabbage Patch Doll thing hit. Oddly, the store had an ENTIRE aisle of them when they first came out and they sat there for at least two full weeks - and then it HAPPENED. Talk about gone in sixty seconds! People were fighting on the sidewalk over these things, breaking in to people's cars and stealing them. When we would happen to get a few boxes in they had to be locked up in the room with the guns from sporting goods!
And now how many of them do you see in thrift shop plush animal bins or at yard sales for fifty cents or a dollar?

Believe it or not, I remember that the other hot toy that year was the Knight Rider car playset.

[saildog]

Many Christmases ago, I went to buy a doll for my son. I reached for the last one they had, but so did another man. As I rained blows upon him, I realized there had to be another way.

It's Festivus… for the rest of us!

[Werewolf]

that said this scalping has been going on at christmas for as long as I can recall (back to the late 70's) and many of the toys are fad toys not ones with staying power.
Star wars anything in 77-78
Atari
Coleco vision
Cabage patch kids
Transformers in 84
Power rangers (and that insanity went on for like 18 months)
Furby
Tickle elmo

Scalping of children's toys didn't really exist as the yearly holiday blight as we now know it as until the rise of the internet and auction sites in the early to mid 90s. Power Rangers, Furby and Elmo are good examples.

As a little bit of video game trivia, the Atari 2600 launched in 1977 and cost $200, which was a heck of a lot of money back then. It was not scalped and only moderately popular in its first year.

Now, there have always been hot toys and hard to get toys. But cases like the Cabbage Patch Kids were more or less isolated incidents of insanity in comparison to the widespread children's toy scalping that goes on every Christmas now.

When my Mom had trouble finding the Masters of the Universe Trap Jaw figure for me for Christmas, it was because of other parents buying it for their kids and not because of over 16,000 listings of him on ebay.

[Riffster]

Zhu Zu hamsters are this years hard to find isn't it?

[Bill]

Working in the gaming industry for years I always thought about buying the new systems when they came out an selling them for twice as much.
Being a kid I remember seeing nothing but Princess Leia and Cloud Car Pilots on the shelves during the Christmas season.

[Sideshow Spock]

Many Christmases ago, I went to buy a doll for my son. I reached for the last one they had, but so did another man. As I rained blows upon him, I realized there had to be another way.

That must have been some doll...

[GreenLantern9999]

i bought 4 Zhu Zhu toys from Target the other day, know what happened to them? Two went to my friends children and two went to a set of Grandparents whom my soon to be wife bumped into at a boarders (we didn't know them) where they were looking for them for their grandson who is a special needs child. Sure it would be nice to have that money in fact I just looked and the set of them, that I gave away, and they are going for almost 200 bucks right now, but that money is meaningless when compared to kids happiness, especially at Christmas!

[Werewolf]

i bought 4 Zhu Zhu toys from Target the other day, know what happened to them? Two went to my friends children and two went to a set of Grandparents whom my soon to be wife bumped into at a boarders (we didn't know them) where they were looking for them for their grandson who is a special needs child. Sure it would be nice to have that money in fact I just looked and the set of them, that I gave away, and they are going for almost 200 bucks right now, but that money is meaningless when compared to kids happiness, especially at Christmas!

That was awesome, man. Thanks for posting that.

[Meule]

i bought 4 Zhu Zhu toys from Target the other day, know what happened to them? Two went to my friends children and two went to a set of Grandparents whom my soon to be wife bumped into at a boarders (we didn't know them) where they were looking for them for their grandson who is a special needs child. Sure it would be nice to have that money in fact I just looked and the set of them, that I gave away, and they are going for almost 200 bucks right now, but that money is meaningless when compared to kids happiness, especially at Christmas!

That's the Christmas spirit, way to go

[toys2cool]

you see people doing that **** every year,

[toys2cool]

i bought 4 Zhu Zhu toys from Target the other day, know what happened to them? Two went to my friends children and two went to a set of Grandparents whom my soon to be wife bumped into at a boarders (we didn't know them) where they were looking for them for their grandson who is a special needs child. Sure it would be nice to have that money in fact I just looked and the set of them, that I gave away, and they are going for almost 200 bucks right now, but that money is meaningless when compared to kids happiness, especially at Christmas!

what the hell is a zhu zhu toy ?