I might resell some Wii's :P

I extended the ban to a one monther. That was way out of line.

I'm going with the it's parasitic and slightly immoral.


In some cases anyway. There are few cases where i'd see it as not bad, though those are rare.

For example. The Toys R US in times square always has an a lot of Wii's, or atleast did in the summer while people I knew couldn't find it elsewhere. Buying Wii's from that store and selling them at a profit is basically more of a "trading" act. These Wii's arn't getting sold right now anyway... and even if they did they'll be kept in high demand because it's a flagship store.

However if the Wii's in the store are going to sell out within the week... buying one then reselling it is basically taking it away from one person who intended to purchase it for personal use, then selling it to a different person for personal use at an inflated price.

The parasitic and immoral problem can be explained as if you treat the consumer as the same person. You are basically buying something, which you have no intention of using, right before someone else, just so you can sell it to that person at an inflated price.

How is that not parasitic or immoral?

Reselling is allowed by captialism, but it's not considered "right" by captialism, it's a flaw that you pay for in captialism because capitalism while not perfect is still the best economics system we have.

There is a reason afterall why Nintendo can't sell Wii's at a higher price or why places like Toys R Us don't charge you money to preorder Wiis.

Resellers "get away" with it because they are small enough entititys that they can hide into the cracks.

Because they bought it fair and square, it’s their property, they’re free to do whatever the hell they’d like with it? This “robbing a child’s Christmas” stuff is annoying as well. By the same (lack of) logic can we not assume that someone buys a Wii for their own personal use might be some spoiled ass brat who plays it once and then spends the rest of his time bitching about it collecting dust on GameFAQS while the guy behind him was an eBay seller who could of sold it to a family that would appreciate it far more even at an inflated price.

 You can spin hypothetical scenarios of what would end up where if it weren’t for who all you want but it’s hardly the grounds for an argument on why or why not buying luxury products for the sole sake of reselling them is immoral and parasitic.

 Why not accuse the stores of the same immorality? They only buy them to resale for the sake of profit, some of them sit on their stock just to wait for more foot traffic in hopes of you buying more things while hoping to get a Wii, and some go one further and only sell Wii’s in expensive bundles. How bout the ones who do lotteries to see who even gets to buy one and ignores who strived hardest to get there first?

 Wii’s aren’t hard to find because of eBayers, they’re hard to find because they’re in obscenely high demand. This guy mentions he resold iPhones and PS3’s at their respective launches, and made money, (Commenting how easy it was to get iPhones even while they were selling for inflated prices) but he’s not doing that anytime after because they’re demand plummeted in comparison to their stocks.

It's a hot product in short supply. My family bought an extra Wii as a future gift for another family we knew only for them to find one of their own so we ended up selling the extra one on eBay. Person who bought it seemed very happy to get ahold of it even if it did sell over retail price. That make me immoral and parasitic?

Mine wasn't a hypothetical. The mention of it being treated as the same person is an example to make it easier to understand how it's parasitic.  You treat consumers of the same type the same to show this.  Without the ebay seller the transactions would be the same... minus his "finders fee".

The wii would of been bought anyway, and the person who would of bought it would not have had to pay the "ebay" fee.

Your example is wholey different because you did not plan to sell it, it was meant as a gift and then you had no one to give it to. Had you bought it with the intent to sell it, that would of been an immoral parsitic action. In your case it was just basically parasitic.

As for stores... it's called legitamite supply chain management. They got it from wholesalers who are not meant to sell it to the public. Ebay sellers got it from stores. Who are meant to sell only to the public. You can't see the difference?

How would people react if Wal-mart bought Wiis from target, then started charging 300 for them? They'd be pissed.

"Some people consider it a reasonable service for someone to go fetch them a Wii, then they will pay that person $100-$200 over retail.

The service they're paying for is something they couldn't do (or don't want to do) on their own: go wait in line for a Wii early enough or enough times to get it."

That's only one half of the equation. They are swiping it out from under somebody who DID take the time to get up that morning on their own, and line up at the store, or who checks the store daily after work.

Plus if you are 2nd in line at some major event and we've been their for hours, what do we think when a crowd of 'friends' of the person in front of you all cut in just before the event opens? 

Do you think, "oh, well that was pretty smart of them, getting someone else to standing in line for hours so that they wouldn't have to."

Or do you think "bastards. I've been standing here for the last 5 hours, and these jackasses just waltzed in and cut in front of me. I deserve to get in first. They shouldn't be able to all just ride in on the coat-tails of their friend."?

Most normal people think the latter. And there is usually always muttering and grumbling when this happens. And I've even seen crowds get really ugly over this if it means people who were in the line a long time are now going to lose out.

Now what if you found out their 'friend' was just some guy they paid to 'hold the spot'? Would you consider that a 'reasonable service'? What if because of this you go from being 2nd in line and all but assured a Wii,  to 9th, one more than the number of available Wii's? Still think its a reasonable service?

During the Wii launch a lot of stores had one unit per household policies, and some were even coming out and giving people vouchers, precisely to help prevent this sort of bulshit, so that people couldn't buy up all the units, hold spots in line for friends [well they could, but when their friend arrived their friend didn't have a voucher], and so people could go to the bathroom without losing their spot in line... in other words many retail stores were recognizing that abuses of the first-come, first-serve policy were pissing off their customers, and they took steps to help mitigate it.

Resellers may be legal, but that doesn't mean society should like them. They are parasites in the same way as cell phone companies that charge you $3.99 for a 20 second ring tone clip of a song you already purchased or could buy on itunes for .99 cents. And who go to lengths to prevent you from loading your own ring tones, to the point of disabling it on phones that actually have it as a built in feature.

I've already sell 2 Wii's if you want one I can find you one (I live in a small town and know the owner of the shop) for $450

Reselling is OK buying over retail price is not!!!!!!!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Besides, it's way different if you have a "friend" that asks you to pick one up before hand, offering to give you "a little extra" for it to compensate you for your troubles, from snagging a bunch of Wiis (making it harder, or even impossible for others to get them) and then resell them at a premium (in a shody eBay deals - you know what I mean) to the guys that weren't able to buy them, because you (and others like you) inflated demand.

Both are perfectly legal. But don't try to pretend they're the same - they aren't.

If the buyers want to spend more than retail, that's their choice. Everyone sold the Wii, Playstation 3, Xbox 360, iPhone, and other things, for more than retail, at launch. It's a common thing to do. If the buyers want to be stupid, and pay more than retail, it's not the fault of the sellers.