darkSpyro

For a while now, I have been wondering what a "scalper" was. At first, I thought it was a new enemy in Skylands that I wasn't aware of. Second, I thought it was someone who buys a skylander and sells it for an insane price, hoping people will buy it. But now, I think that a scalper is someone who buys a whole bunch of one skylander for 2 reasons:

a. The same reason as my second thought.
b. To prevent anyone else from getting that skylander, just so the scalper can make people mad, and so he can brag about having it because it's "rare".

So are any of my guesses correct? If not, then what is a "scalper"
Thanks in advance!

On a side note, this forum needs a section for general skylander topics, because somethings like this don't really fit into the "toys and merchandise, swap force, etc." topics.

What you think now is correct.

But it can be with any object, not just Skylanders.

Scalpers are basically like this

Scalper: WOW a varient/unliked character I must buy a bunch!
Scalper: Ha I knew they were going to be worth alot good thing I kept a bunch boxed
Scalper goes to ebay and sells Boomer for 70$

They also go to stores to purposely rid a store of ALL rare skylanders (R.I.P. DLC and Boomer)

Ok, thanks guys!

Better explaination: Someone who buys a "HOT ITEM" in large quantities, and trys to make a profit by selling it for inflated prices.

Could be toys, tickets, etc.

My dad hates it when I call them "Scalpers." Every time I mention scalpers, he always says "No, they're called "Speculators.""

When you directly influence the stock to drive prices artificially high it is NOT speculation.
It's direct manipulation of the markets.

Which, in almost all civilised cases, is illegal.

When its with toys its legal, but highly immoral.

A scalper is someone who buys something rare in the shops for normal price, then sells it online for way more than it's worth.

I'm not talking about selling it because you don't want/need it anymore. They buy it, just to sell it for a profit.

Thanks all of you!

"Scalper" is an OOOOOOOOOOLD term. You're just seeing it here because the technique is being applied to Skylanders.

The most common place to find/hear about scalpers is with tickets, to sporting events or concerts. What they do is camp out overnight to make sure they're first in line. Then they buy like the 50 best tickets or whatever. Then on the night of the event/concert, they hang out outside to get the last minute people, the people who didn't get a ticket in time for one reason or another, and charge them a LOT more. Since they bought the tickets before anybody had a chance to, this is clearly not fair, so it has been made illegal. I BELIEVE the actual law is that you can't sell tickets for more than the list price, I would think that getting the original value may be fine.

It applies similarly here, scalpers buy Skylanders in bulk, clearing off shelves, whatever, depriving normal people (who'll actually USE the figures) of getting them. I heard a story of someone going to a Toys R Us to get a figure on release day, and the person in front of them in line at the cashier having 10 of them. THAT is clearly a scalper, buying 10 of the same figure on the same day? On the day it came out? Yeah, scalper.

From how it's used in the English language, I would guess the term came from the idea that they charge SO much, it's like they're charging you the scalp of your head (in about the same vein as "paying an arm and a leg").

("scalp" is a term meaning the top of the head. As a verb - to scalp someone - it means to cut the skin off the top of someone's head - the scalp - including the hair. In the time of cowboys and indians, indians were said to do this to their enemies, to collect them, and in the movie Inglourious Basterds this was depicted on camera several times, they adopted the same collecting habit)

You should be able to find this term in a dictionary/on a dictionary site, actually. I tried Merriam-Webster and Dictionary.com and they just redirected to "scalp" for some reason. Weird, I would have thought it was an official word by now. Unofficial means we should turn to UrbanDictionary:
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=scalper

They buy lots of one thing so it technically becomes "rare".

lets say i bought all the series 2 cynders in the world, even from other players. then incinerated all of them except for 5. suddenly, only 5 exist, and a few "lucky buyers" get to have one. since they decreased in amount, they ultimately become more valuable.
in a sense, we are fools, we label too many unnecessaries as "valuable"

Supply vs demand

I don't think ANY Scalper goes into this to try to decrease supply in order to increase demand. None of them are influential enough (on their own) to manage it.

Instead, they identify stuff that WILL be in high demand and/or rare, and get that. Like a popular band coming to perform at a small venue, anybody can predict that those tickets will be popular, so they buy them. When these rare variants come out, like the metallic purples, we ALL know in advance that they'll be rare and valuable. Scalpers either visit every store on shelf stocking day, or they have inside channels to get the figures before they hit the shelves (or both). Because they know they're rare and worth a lot.

In the end it's a form of gambling, because what they buy might become worthless. Like if a week before said concert the lead singer is arrested for some vile crime which makes everybody hate him, suddenly the scalper will be stuck with all those tickets he bought. Or if Activision decides to actually ship out these Purple Variants by the box like Scarlet or Gnarly, suddenly they're easy to get and there won't be many buyers (and the ones who do buy won't pay much more than retail).

I gave an exaggerated example for better understanding. what you said was pretty much the same thing, just on a lesser extent.

I don't think that most of what goes on with Skylanders could be considered scalping. I only got into these toys over the past few weeks and if you calculate what I paid for my collection it's exactly in line with what I would have paid at MSRP, and just about the only things I don't have now are the variants that are paint-job only. Those figures are valuable due to lack of supply to meet the demand which is a purposeful move by Activision. It looks good for the collectibility of the toy for some figures to fetch high prices. It creates a buzz. You can blame the people who sell these things at high prices for this but think about what would happen if you only sold stuff at MSRP. Most of the people buying from you would turn around and sell it for a higher value anyway. If the figure has a certain market value, being a good person can't stop that. Even if you had a million dollars and bought every single flocked Skylander in existence and sold them for $9.99, within weeks you'd see them back up again for insane prices. I mean can people here honestly say they wouldn't snatch up a NIB flocked Skylander that they didn't need if it showed up for $9.99 from some nice-guy seller who has high morals? I sure would, even if I planned to sell it at a later date.

Also, I feel scalping is when someone takes advantage of a time-sensitive thing like a concert ticket where the potential buyer literally can't pass up the deal without missing out on the thing forever. Usually the term is used in that way. Trying to sell your Skylanders for a high profit is different because the potential buyer could choose to simply wait for a better deal for as long as she wants to.

On that note, I have never sold a Skylander for profit, so don't get me wrong here. I'm not a speculator or scalper or whatever. I just like the figures and video games. But I am not mad at people for selling stuff at a value that reflects the rarity of the item.

A "scalper" isn't just somebody who sells for a higher price... Everybody does that with collectibles. It's someone who abuses the system to sell LOTS of things for higher prices. And that does indeed happen. When a guy goes into a store the first day of Polar Whirlwind, sees 10 of her on the shelf and buys all 10, THAT'S a scalper. The higher prices is only part of the problem, the major part of the problem is wiping out the inventory. That leaves actual players disappointed because he's being greedy and taking advantage. With Skylanders, or any collectibles, many of them also have back channels, like a store employee who lets the scalper look through the shipping boxes ahead of time, to get the good stuff before it even appears on shelves.

The Free Online Dictionary definition says:
Quote:

1. To engage in the reselling of something, such as tickets, at a price higher than the established value.
2. To buy and sell securities or commodities for small quick profits.
[...]
scalper - someone who buys something and resells it at a price far above the initial cost;

Since "scalper" and "scalping" is usually applied to tickets and such, it's hard to get something specifically talking about the collectibles side of the activity. But hopefully you can still see how the word would apply here. Also there's never any mention of the wiping out of inventory, which also happens with tickets. I've even seen a joke or two where someone stays in line over night, second in line, and after the first guy - a scalper - all the good tickets are gone, only balcony is still available. Same problem here.

Niceguy, I understand that some people do engage in activity that could be considered scalping with Skylanders, I just think the term gets thrown around too loosely and have seen plenty of people who seem to hate eBay because of the perception that it's just a bunch of scalpers. Honestly a chase variant is going to be valuable in the aftermarket whether anyone scalps it or not, and it's also going to be hard to find in a store whether anyone scalps it or not. If Activision wanted to put a stop to high aftermarket prices they would simply produce more figures; by making these figures very rare they are assuring that the figures will have a high value as long as the game is popular.

Also, reading the replies again, I very much disagree that anyone could have scalped Boomer. Nobody could have known that he would become valuable. He only costs more because he's not being produced anymore. If someone bought up tons of Spyro's Adventure Skylanders looking to turn a quick buck, there are only a few cases where they'd be making any money, overall it would have been a massive failure of an investment. I don't think anyone did that.

Oh, there's no way anyone scalped Boomer. As I've been saying, scalpers buy figures which they predict will be valuable. Boomer was a shelf warmer, like Flashwing now. Easy to find, nobody bought. Nobody could have figured at the time that he would become the rarest Lostlander, and therefore extremely valuable. Nobody buying him is part of why he's so rare, which is part of why he's so valuable.

And I agree, some people are too quick with the cries of "scalper!" Scalpers seem to achieve the same prices as legitimate collectors selling off figures, which makes it hard to tell. The difference between these people is their activity beforehand, which is hard to tell from the auction without the seller being stupid enough to declare his scalper-like activities to obtain the figure(s).