How to combat scalpers

[Shatts]

The_Yoda said:

Shatts said:

Bruh plz use common sense, research or at least read before giving an opinion. Companies sell their consoles at a loss, Microsoft hasn't been able to profit from the hardware alone, Sony only starts to profit after a while, and Nintendo sold some at a loss as well in the past. The reason they do this is to create a bigger userbase, it's a strategical loss. They can recoup the loss by selling software, subscription service, etc. It was said that Sony needed to sell 10 games per console to recoup the loss back in the PS3 era. The reason for this being the PS3 sold at a huge loss. So with that in mind, obviously companies aren't fond of scalpers either. Not only does it limit the userbase, but it also stays untouched. Scalpers aren't making companies money, in fact the company are only losing money. Plus if people buy from the scalpers, that's extra potential money gone that could have gone to their games. 

Revenue does not equal profit. You can have the highest revenue in the world, but your company could still be failing. 

I'll get more informed and do my research next time. My bad I didn't know Amazon, WalMart, ect sold consoles at a loss.  /s   I get that the attached rate on a scalped game system is delayed.  There may even be a loss associated with it as someone who waits to buy at MSRP isn't subscribed to any services (assuming they aren't already subscribed to said services with a last gen console) and perhaps they buy 1 or 2 less games lifetime because they had to wait to have the system in their hands.  You seem to be making it out to be a complete loss. It is not.  It is mostly just a delay in attachment.

I work closely with logistics.  There is a reason the big three sell to Amazon and other e-commerce as well as all the brick and mortar stores rather than direct to consumer.  It is because it is much cheaper for them in both terms of money and resources. 

One: Physical shipment is cheaper and infinitely easier to track. 

It cost way less to ship 1000 consoles to 1 distribution center than to to ship 1000 consoles to 1000 individual addresses (almost an order of magnitude difference in shipping price)

Two: They do not have to employee nearly as many customer service people to deal with shipment issues. 

That is dealt with by whomever the manufacturer sells to.  Your package didn't arrive, your package was damaged? The manufacturer doesn't have to deal with that and eat more money, Amazon (or the like) has to decide if they want to. Guess who the end customer is pissed off at if things go wrong? Most likely not the manufacturer but whomever sold it to them will bear the brunt of their ill will.  This is a hard metric to track but believe me it is a fairly powerful factor.   

You are correct that revenue does not equate to profit for a manufacturer but the cost of logistics pretty much guarantees that the bulk of product flows through a middle man (at least at the scale the big three sell at). Middlemen don't really care about about attach rates and they see little to nothing in the way of services (one of the reasons Microsoft and so many others started targeting services years ago i.e. cut out the middle man)

Np, and I agree. The only thing I would mention is the significant influence momentum has. The "middlemen" will affect the momentum in one way or another and that can still be negatively impactful to the company.