Game store illegally reselling Wii on eBay
Ars Technica is reporting that a chain of Illinois/Missouri game stores called Slackers is scalping its shipments of Wiis by listing them on eBay. An anonymous tipster who claims to be a Slackers employee says that none of the Wiis that the stores get actually make it to the store front, instead winding up listed on the Slackers eBay site at a huge markup. “The real crime is that we get Wii shipments regularly. In fact, right now we have about 20,” said the source. The whole rumour has been confirmed by Slackers employee:
I just read your rumor article about how Slackers is selling their Wiis online for a huge markup, and it’s absolutely true. The only discrepancy I saw was your speculation at the end that our customers don’t know about our eBay store. I’m not exactly sure whether or not we’re supposed to, but when asked if we’ll ever get any Wiis in, most of us take the opportunity to complain that any we would get in get sold on eBay at a huge markup. I can’t speak for all our locations, but at least some of us let people know what’s up.
Originally listed at $499 each, the Wiis have since been lowered to the Buy It Now price of $400 and are “New With Game”–Wii Sports. Is this really that bad? I think it’s just a common outcome of supply/demand…
Source: PC World, Wired
Yeah That’s Good
I love wii
No, this is taking advantage of the market from inside and is illegal afaik. How can you say this is NOT bad?
Isn’t it bad enough that fuel stations gouge the market all the time, taking advantage of public holidays etc. to put the price up, regardless of the going rate of oil?
The problem with these situations is that the consumer has NO CHOICE but to buy high due purely to controlled pricing. It is very illegal. If it wasn’t do you think they’d have dropped the eBay price again? It’s also unethical.
The free market is supposed to provide positive outcomes for consumers, not hold them hostage.
But hey, it’s the American way to bend the little guys over and… well I don’t wanna get banned..
Speaking of unethical.. RLSLog dudes, check this out:
http://www.matoumba.com/sitec8abf16dc9feadc09a75a058edcb5a67_Out_of_Balance_2006_DVDRip_XviDDOMiNO.html
Your site in their site??
You’re an idiot. How can you talk about free markets when this post is unequivocally showing free markets in action. In a free market, price is governed by supply and demand. Consumers DO have a choice, and their choice is to NOT buy a Wii this holiday, unlike all the other lemmings.
People still care about nintendo’s new failure product? 7th generation system with the 6th generation graphics, come on guys realize the truth and wake up to the fact that its a system destined to fail… “unless your a 10 year old or a raging alcoholic.
How is it possible to get banned from a site that you have no identity and all you do is read and make searches?
@6
That is pretty weak if you judge a system just by it graphics and not by its games.
Anyways, this is kinda sad that people are that desperate to buy/sell a system for that much. I’ll by one when the price goes down.
#6
i think the demand for the wii is speaking for itself. its not a failure product.
Hang the capitalists with the rope bought off them. China always regards the english as cowardly homos.
It’s not illegal just unethical. I work night crew at Toys r us and once the season is over I will get one every shipment and make $200 profit.
Man i used to go to slackers. They weren’t that great.
sounds to me like some disgruntled employees talking some serious BS… anything to get ur name in the paper…
oh and all the wii haters can gtfo
“scalping” is a word used by communist crybabies that don’t like free markets.
If you have a highly sought after item and you want to jack up the price and sell it on ebay instead of MSRP in your brick and mortar WHO CARES? Thats called capitalism, if the people don’t like the price they can NOT BUY IT, or GO SOMEWHERE ELSE TO BUY IT.
Its called capitalism love it or leave it crybabies, im sure China will take you in.
Kind of sucks for the customers, but then again, they probably should have gotten their Wii’s before the holiday season, unless this has been going on for a long time…
Any of you people remember when the newly designed Volkswagon Bug came out? This same practice came out when dealers were outrageously pricing the vehicle simply because; 1- it was popular after a LOOOOONG hiatus of a new design. 2- people wanted it regardless of price.
This is free market by design. BUT… The corporations have learned how to abuse it AGAINST us (the commoner, blue collar worker, the un-affluent etc). They learned to; 1- After manufacturing said product, with-hold a certain amount to make it “seem” that is limited in stock. 2- Another way is that they control manufacturing and just make a quota.
Corporations do shady things to make their product seem popular by “rationing” to these stores. That INCREASES the popularity AND the demand of the product. And thus ensuring the greater demand for the product in the long run.
Do not blame the stores for this. Blame the Corporations who make the stuff.
I see nothing here wrong. This is free market in practice. Its our laws (U.S.) that Congress has put that make it seem illegal and unethical.
I guess since the “S” in MSRP stands for “suggested” retail price, that they can sell it for whatever they want. But is it legal? Why do they have to go through Ebay to sell at these prices? I would assume that they can not legally sell for higher then MSRP in their own store? Any lawyers on rlslog?
Anyways, if they can gouge customers legally, then just don’t buy it. Little Jimmy doesn’t need to get everything that he wants for Christmas. It’s just a holiday, slap him and tell him to get over it if he cries like a baby.
Nintendo has deliberately taken advantage this situation by providing just enough of their product to create this delirium over a game console. (2, if you count the DS lite)
@16
Exactly.
If consumers don’t like it, don’t fall for the craze. Avoid the Ipod’s, Iphones, Wii’s and whatever else comes out that you just “have to have” because everyone else wants it.
Like it or not, it’s the free market in action. People from past/post communist countries are quick to criticize the system, yet why DID communism fall apart? Because there isn’t a buck in it! Ironic, eh?
When countries like Russia sold goods below market cost there were.. you guess it… shortages. People would stand in lines for HOURS to buy a pair of shoes at 20% what the market would bear. Now that the market presides, you can walk into a shoe store, buy a pair and leave.
Certainly nothing “illegal” here from a criminal standpoint, although they are probably breaching their contract with Nintendo.. whooopee. Not my problem.
For the Che “wannabes” out there, there is no such thing as overcharging for products like game systems. Nobody makes money by stockpiling merchandise in a warehouse. When people will no longer pay $500 for a wii, the price goes down to $450, when they won’t pay $450, it goes to $400 etc.
Economics can be boiled down to supply and demand. And where those two intersect, that’s what things sell for. Easy.
As far as the euro snoot about education, etc. feel free to boast your superiority. We’ve done pretty well the past 200 years WITHOUT your help… We’ve also bailed your arses out of a few wars and sent soldiers, funds, and aid. When a little kid in a third world country needs a free operation, do they fly to England to get it? Or to the States… hmmmmm
@17
Hatchet, you can’t sell for too much lower than the MSRP or you’ll get in trouble. I forget the legal term for it, but it’s illegal to sell a popular item for much less than your competitors. It helps keep the monopolies down.
As far as I know, you can go over MSRP but it’s not recommended, since all the other places are going to have it for less anyway.
“When a little kid in a third world country needs a free operation, do they fly to England to get it? Or to the States… hmmmmm”
No, they go to Canadia where health care is free
The thing is that if Slackers is advertising the Wii in its stores, or telling customers that they’ll get some in, they’re guilty of false advertising.
>>“When a little kid in a third world country needs a free operation, do they fly to England to get it? Or to the States… hmmmmm”
No, they go to Canadia where health care is free <<
Yeah, right, and if you didn’t have “free” health care, your tax rates would be 5% lower, right?..
Ain’t nothing free, buddy, unless you’re on the welfare, which in that case, EVERYONE ELSE is paying.
As long as you don’t die waiting for the Canadian doctors to get around to your surgery, their system does have it’s merits.
the Wii sucks anyway, graphics are crap in it!!!
“Its called capitalism love it or leave it crybabies, im sure China will take you in.”
Amen!
I work @ b3$t buy and we got 140 wii consoles as of yesterday. I give it props for innovation and gameplay (great graphics don’t always make a great game) but lack of hardcore titles made me sell my wii (retail price, no markup..) it appeals to casual gamers and parents.
How is this illegal? Retailers sell their goods on eBay all the time.
@21 - First off Canadian Health Care is anything but free. I live in Canada and pay a required monthly fee along with additional taxes for basic health care. However, Canadian health care is “universal”, meaning poor people and rich people get the same care unlike other places where the more you pay the better treatment you get.
Health care is where Capitalism really shows it’s ugly side.
The truth is that Capitalism is ALL about profit. And therein lies the rub. For some reason people have come to the conclusion that if you support Capitalism then you should only support Capitalism and if you are a Republican or Liberal then you only support Republican or Liberal ideals. The reality is, and should be, a lot more gray than that. We, as a society, should take the best parts of everything and do what is best for society.
Let supply and demand dictate the price that the Nintendo Wii, a non-essential item (and yes it is non-essential kids), sells for. That is what free-market means. It is a consumer good, so let the consumer decide what they want to pay. If you can’t afford it then don’t buy it. Simple.
On the other hand when you have things such as water, food or even fuel, things that we are or have become dependent on, we really need to have another set of governing rules in order to insure that our society functions well and is strong.
If you look at the World stage you really see how this plays a part, an important part, and sets societies apart.
I would have to agree with #28. Capitalism IS all about profit. Which explains a little bit about why America is in the Middle East. To put up a McD’s, Arby’s, etc AND a huge a$$ Embassy which will be used as a staging ground for covert ops.
All these corps want is unbound riches regardless of how many lives are lost… On both sides. And I hate them.
I feel that this wii and other things unnecessary in life is what is making the world go round. Innovations and new desings make people go crazy and end up throwing their hard earned cash in these toys. I remeber when i was a kid, I would see a little g-joe and i would die for it, crying and screaming, but in the grown up way, we don’t cry and scream, we THROW our money to New invetions. This is not about capitalism or anything like that, it’s about some people wanting to take ADVANTAGE of the people that in the grown up way, kick and scream for it. Of course there are people trying tot ake advantage of it in an illegal way, because of the minds way of stealing! The mind thinks of new ways to get more out of others. So we think of stealing, nowadays, that is called steealing in a fashionable way.
I suspect that “Slackers” is violating some of the requirements that Nintendo puts on companies who sell their product for them. It may not be “illegal” but I bet if Nintendo found out that they were doing this, they would find that suddenly they can’t get any more Wii’s directly from Nintendo or Nintendo’s distributors. This is the kind of thing that can give Nintendo a PR black-eye and something they would want to avoid.
Something else to think about. Missouri has anti-scalping laws. Slackers might want to be very careful about this since there was a huge lawsuit brought by the Missouri Attorney General recently over the scalping of concert tickets for the “Hanna Montana concert”. Those scalper companies were sued for big fines and ended up losing all their tickets for the show. I would think the same kind of laws and process could be applied to Slackers with reguards to the price of Wii’s for christmas.
If there was absolutely no problem with what Slacker’s was doing then they would be upfront with their customers about this instead of trying to do it on the sly.
Well it seems that if you go to Slackers homepage (www.slackers.com) They posted a letter there about the whole thing where they basically admit that they are scalping 5 Wii’s on EBay right now to the tune of $400. Guess they had to admit at least that since you can easily see that it is exactly what they are doing at the moment.
http://cgi.ebay.com/Nintendo-Wii-Game-console-NEW-WITH-GAME-FREE-SHIPPING_W0QQitemZ350007604226QQihZ022QQcategoryZ62054QQtcZphotoQQcmdZViewItem
Well, SLACKERS is certainly getting press because of this, although it’s all bad.
I am very familiar with the SLACKERS chain of buy/sell/trade stores, but employees of the store have come into my place of business and bought a number of items like, lets say, 30 copies of the new EAGLES CD, with a tax exempt card. I knew that they were purchasing the CD for resale purposes as a dealer. After the sale was made, I talked to my supervisor and the head of electronics and they said it was perfectly OK for SLACKERS to buy all those CD’s. I personally think that the sale should not have been made.
Now we have news of SLACKERS hoarding WII’s, keeping them from the public, raising the retail price by 100 percent, (much more if you consider that they pay at least 60 to 75 of retail as their cost), and putting them up for sale on EBAY. I believe the price issue is called “price gouging” if I am not mistaken, and is a very bad business practice.
Now GAME STOP’s rain check program is decent, and at work, if we know when WII’s are coming in, we will tell the customer when they are coming in. But what is worse in this situation: getting angry because a shipment of WII’s is suddenly nonexistant because of that shipment being put up for sale on EBAY, paying more than retail price for a WII on EBAY, or waiting in line to get a WII at retail price, when you know that they are coming in?
Well, SLACKERS has tarnished a bit of their reputation on this one. They just did their customers wrong on this one.
LOL #34 you sound like a little b1tch, you ran and told your supervisor because someone purchased 30 CDs and you knew that they were going to resell them? ROFL “Hater in the house”, or as the Heavy in TF2 says: “keep crying babyyyyyyyyyy”
Person that posted about anti-scalping laws, they apply to tickets only. However anti scalping laws are clearly un-American. It is IMPOSSIBLE to make someone purchase a show ticket at an unfair price, the statement in itself is an oxymoron. If you want to see the show then pay for the ticket, if you dont like the price then DONT BUY IT; this is not an advanced concept and has been in practice by people that use common sense for thousands of years.
Also people that keep tossing around the word “gouging” need to understand what gouging is. Gouging is artificially raising the price for a NECESSARY item (food, water, shelter) during a time of an emergency.
As a defender of free market capitalism, i STRONGLY feel that there is no such thing as “gouging”. If a hurricane hits and i am the only one that has water and i only have 1 gallon left and two people come in and one has $10 and the other has $100 it is my right to raise the price of MY PROPERTY to $100. Now is this morally sound? No it is not, as a matter of fact if you believe in hell you would probably burn in it for doing that. However the problem with people in the United States is they want to make everything that they do not morally agree with illegal. The problem with this is that one day you wake up and realize that you live in a “free” country but dont have very many freedoms left.
You dont fight high prices with laws you fight it with your pocketbook. It is very simple, if no one one will pay the price someone is offering for an item they will have to either lower the price or go out of business. Anyone that cannot grasp and accept this concept is someone that is willing to live a life without freedom. What next, Federal laws enforcing MSRP ?
Supply and demand, if you’ve ever studied economics, only works if everything else in the market functions properly. Seeing as there is a complete failure on the supply side here (employees taking advantage of the demand for the product) so the intended goods do not end up on the intended shelves, a black market is created. This is NOT good for the consumer, which in theory a free market SHOULD BE.
The employees at the store have asymmetric information relative to normal consumers as they know when deliveries will be arriving and “purchase” the consoles before the store even opens for business or as they arrive. There may well be a contract broken here between retailer and supplier, in which case, IS ILLEGAL!!!! It’s basic contract law.
This is not an efficient market. This causes a deadweight loss to society, although maximizes profit for the firm/individual. Seeing as we only have limited resources on this planet, on a larger scale, it can be seen as a reason why such practices are frowned upon no matter WHAT the product.
This is also why capitalism, in reality, is a terrible way of allocating scarce resources as it is BASED ON EXPLOITATION. Where do you think profit COMES from? Not paying workers sufficiently for their value-contributions to the process of production and exploiting consumers in imperfect markets.
I have to admit, this whole situation would never have come about if not for the shortsightedness of Nintendo and they should bare some responsibility for the insanity that has ensued this christmas.
Having a look at eBay in the UK and the less than sufficient “deliveries” which are apparently occurring every few days I have the feeling that exactly the same thing is happening with the Nintendo DS also.
These pro-capitalism advocates need to stop seeing the dollar signs and read some books. It will be the end of the US economy as we know it, given the way the Federal Reserve is designed. The clock is ticking.
@35
No, I just happen to understand more than you. I know that certain stores have “No Dealers” policys. I was inquisitive about the rule where I work. This was done after the sale. I went to the proper personnel about my query. I found out the answer. And you took what I said out of context. I should have stated this in my post so that you would understand….
…After the sale was made, I talked to my supervisor and the head of electronics about the policy of dealers purchasing in quantity in relation to the “no dealers” rule pertaining to electronic goods, and they said it was perfectly OK for SLACKERS to buy all those CD’s…..
Like I said, I asked a question, I got it answered.
I would like to apologise to you, #35, because you decided to act like a bada$$ because you, yes, you, didn’t comprehend my post, fully or completely.
What do you mean “destined to fail”? That is one of the most foolish statements I’ve heard here…and that’s really saying something. ALL systems eventually fail by your definition, eventually people stop buying them. But with the Wii, if they never sell another unit from this day forward they have already been more successful than any modern console and is certainly already un-failure-ish. A failure? Have you seen the numbers? I personally am not keen on the Wii, bad graphics and gimmicky controls, but the kids and people who don’t care about games really enjoy the darn things. And you can play with your family, and…Oh forget it what a failure. I’m actually hoping it was just a troll comment because it’s the only thing that makes sense.
If Slackers is so sure that they are doing nothing wrong why is there no link on their web site to their E-Bay store? Also why aren’t they telling people when they call their brick-and-mortar stores, “Hey we have some on E-Bay for $400 that you can buy.”?
I would guess that Slackers knows what they are doing is wrong and just were hoping that no one would notice and would think that they were just some random person selling them on E-Bay.
This was on the message posts of arstechnica’s story about SLACKERS WII hoarding activities, written by who I believe is a real SLACKERS employee. Read number 4, this is all true, and yes, I do work at WAL-MART.
SLACKERS sins are many.
1. Overcharging for in demand products to deny children of the ability to purchase another game. This has happened not only with the wii but anything in demand rock band and the original guitar hero come to mind.
2. Positioning itself close to Walmart to encourage stolen items to be traded in.
3. Minimizing trade in amounts in order to take advantage of it’s customers as much as possible.
4. Using Walmarts sub-cost DVD releases as their own product. They purchase the DVDs from Walmart tax free and turn around and sell them for a 20% mark up. If they do not sell in a few months time the DVDs will be returned so that slackers suffers no loss.
5. They go against the laws of the credit card companies requiring a minimum purchase of $5 and often requiring an ID.
6. The customer is always wrong. It is often assumed that the customer has done something to a product that is returned because of malfunction. It is only after it can be proved that the malfunction is not the fault of the customer that the return shall be taken.
Just thought you would like to know….
What a twat. Typical communist who thinks he can “control” the marketplace. Broken contract law is a civil matter, so call the lawyers, not the cops.
There has always been inside information, emotion, price descrimiation, etc. etc. Always will be. If everyone who worked in a video store took the wiis and sold them online, ebay would be glutted with them and the price would go down.
are Wiis still that hard to find in America?
here in Australia they’re in every bloody store. i personally think they’re overrated but whatever…
I thought breaking any law was defined as an illegal activity? Correct me if I’m wrong.
Why so upset when the torrents do the same or is it easier to blame others.Have a nice day.
I don’t know about the legality of this one way or the other. I couldn’t possibly see it being illegal, but anyway.
My comment is just that Nintendo may be discounting their Wii consoles to a shop-front store because they expect a certain amount of shop-front exposure and walk-in sales etc. For online stores, on the other hand, Nintendo may choose to not discount their products as much, because they don’t get anywhere near as much exposure and “free” advertising to passers by. So I would possibly see Nintendo not wanting this to be happening, but apart from that, who cares?
Just trying to establish some rules in dialogue is all.
The article isn’t about torrents is it?
And Im an ECONOmist, not a communist. Read up on deadweight loss to society.
Capitalism is founded upon exploitation, by not rewarding people fully for their assistance in the process of production and exploiting consumers in imperfect markets (like this prime example HERE with Wii’s and Nintendo DS’s). Where do you think profit comes from!? It’s not magic!
I just believe in these days of peak oil we should be attempting to use our limited resources as efficiently as possible, and black markets such as these are terrible for our economy.
I work for Slackers as well and I would like to say what they are doing is far from fabulous, especially right before xmas with so many parents looking for Wiis. It’s even harder to defend what the company is doing considering they have a long history of this. When the Xbox 360 was launced all of our shipments went to EBay, same with the PS3, etc. We are also only selling the Rock Band bundle on EBay only because it is hard to find. The same thing was done with the Halo 3 limited, which is hard to justify since we do make a profit on games. We even sell some used games on EBay only instead of in the store. I think this is unfair to the customers - If any of you own a copy of Final Fantasy 7, my advice would be sell it on EBay yourself instead of trading it into Slackers…
It amazes me how many communists we have living in our so-called “free” country.
Capitalism is free-market enterprise. It’s the right to supply a product to a demanding market, at whatever price the market deems fair.
Contrary to some posts here, the *exact opposite* is illegal — if vendors were forced to stick to a, say, $299 price tag, Nintendo would be in major hot-water for price fixing.
If people want to pay $500 for a product that will sub-$150 within a few months and available in abundance, that’s their right, just as it is for the company who supplies it.
“Fair” is defined by the market. Is it “fair” that beach-front homes cost $10 million? Did it cost that much money to throw together a few bricks and cement? Of course not. If no-one wanted to live near the beach, they wouldn’t be 1/10th of the price. The fact that they do and that there are people willing to shell out bigger bucks establishes the market value.
Oh, the horror…
But what if you wanted to buy one of those beach front homes and they told you there were none available when in reality they had 20 available on thier website for an increased price? If Slackers would have sold the Wiis in the store for the same price or as part of a bundle package where you had to buy additional itmes and not lied to customers telling them they didn’t have any, that would prehaps be different. You call me a communist, but you want to live in some elitist world where those with the money and goods get to make all the rules and control the markets no quesions asked? Sorry for sticking up for the little guy here. Let me guess, you’re also the kind of person that would trample whoever you had to under your feet to get one small step ahead or make an extra penny? That’s sweet.
So we don’t make any money on Wii systems. We don’t make any money on Xbox 360s, PS3s, or any other system either, but we also don’t charge more for them. However, we can for the Wii because they are so in demand right now and it’s close to xmas. Whether it’s right or wrong and all ethics aside, it’s pissing off customers, and since we depend on customers for money in the first place…