I don't think he was insinuating. Since it doesn't make sense in any way, its probably going to be difficult to explain.
Well either way, I'm still waiting for an elaboration. "It's difficult to explain" is no more adequate an answer than "there has to be a way", and until a full explanation comes I can't help but assume that he also is without any real insight into the situation.
its something where you need to see a whole picture and evaluate an entire situation. This also isn't practical for all stores as somewhere like StarCity it wouldn't.
Paint a picture for us then, assuming you actually know something we don't.
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Have you thought the reason why people might be selling at a loss is to pay less taxes? If you make a lot of money its perfectly fine to increase your expenses to pay less taxes.
Have you thought the reason why people might be selling at a loss is to pay less taxes? If you make a lot of money its perfectly fine to increase your expenses to pay less taxes.
This isn't like hiring Uwe Boll to direct a movie, though. This is a lot of time, effort, and money, for a comparatively tiny reduction on your net income. Yes you're losing money and it's both stupid and bad for the industry, but it's not really effective enough to be a feasible tax cheat.
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I host monthly drafts and i try to keep it as low as possible, i'm overjoyed when i can get a box for 80. That means a 7 dollar drafts for picks. With m10 selling out so fast, i had to buy it at 90. and i had to up the draft to 8 dollars. You won't believe the stares i got when they heard about it. And people tried to buy off the a couple of remaining packs be low balling it even more.
I'm like," i'm not store, there's no profit for me. You paying extactly for the lowest i can get it to you." Makes me want to just buy the stuff at msrp and tell them to shell out the real cost.
This isn't like hiring Uwe Boll to direct a movie, though. This is a lot of time, effort, and money, for a comparatively tiny reduction on your net income. Yes you're losing money and it's both stupid and bad for the industry, but it's not really effective enough to be a feasible tax cheat.
Im so jealous... MSRP for a booster in denmark is 35dkk or 6,79 USD... so normally shops sell boxes for 850 DKK ~165 USD, or if you buy a case 4.000 DKK (129 USD per box)...
Edit: And no we cant just order from E-bay or SCG, wizards have put down an export ban for sealed product to europe, so if you ship a box to the EU, no more products for you....
Well, here in Argentina, in the B&M shops the booster is 25 ARG Pesos, something like 6.47 USD Dollars, and yes, the B&M shops have to buy from a distributor.
We also cant buy from Ebay or SCG. It stinks a lot.
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Where have you guys found Fat pack preorders for Zendikar cheap online. I checked with my B&M store and they're gonna be at $36. The lowest I've seen online is $25 but shipping is about $10 so it even. So most likely I'll be going with the B&M store unless I can find cheaper.
Ebay records are all public; we know what their sales volume is, and it's not nearly high enough to be a tax cheat. We seem to be working with pretty much perfect information here, until davef139 enlightens us on the "whole picture" that we aren't seeing.
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While the idea of "there has to be be a way they're making money off these boxes, we just don't know it" doesn't sit well with several people here, the reality of it is that ultimately, this is how magic box sales have been and will continue to be, barring some sort of massive change.
The average player is almost never going to be concerned with the "Why" or "How" of box prices, unless it reaches a point where the majority feels like the price is too high. I don't think you'll see buyers complain if the prices ever get much lower then they are now. As has been stated, the entire existence of e-bay erases the idea of online brand loyalty, and instead replaces it with either offering the lowest price for the specific product, or adding on some sort of bonus that would intrigue the buyer.
Yes, I'm sure it sucks from the point of someone who is running a business, yet everywhere I go I still see FNM's packed with people. Anecdotal evidence I know, but I'm sure other locations around the country have similar friday nights of people getting together to play in the tournament and do spontaneous drafts. If that wasn't so, then I doubt Magic would still be in business. Heck, there is even a store here that is packed on both Tuesdays and Fridays with people for tournaments and drafts. I don't think Cleveland is the nexus of Magic players in the USA.
My point is, in these threads, I see a lot of anger from business and store owners that these people on e-bay (which, by the way seem to get referenced in a boogeyman-esque sort of fashion all the time) are what's wrong with America. Dr.Jeebus even made the remark that they're "poisoning the well". I think it's too much of an easy road to blame all of a B&M's problems on the internet hoardes of evil e-bayers.
I'm sorry to anyone whose livelihood and paycheck are completely derived from the sales of Magic and other card games but, I don't think it's fair to scold me or anyone else for not giving you our money. At my job, if things aren't performing well, I'm not allowed to blame other people, teams or locations for it. I can certainly cite problems and delays that I encounter in order to lengthen dead lines if Management sees I've made an honest attempt at getting things done. But If ever just kicked back in my chair on my hands and said I can't get any work done because Alpha Team isn't doing things the right way or a customer isn't behaving like I'd want them to, then I'd have been fired a long time ago.
Stores exist to serve the people. Not the other way around. And I don't even mean in a draconian slavery type way. Just that, you open a store with the goal of making a profit in something that you (hopefully) enjoy. And in the process of running the business, you convince people that their money would be well spent on your merchandise. It's not the responsibility of the general public to flock to your store and hand you their money for your product, it's the stores to make themselves seem more appealing. On that note, it's also not the public's responsibility to provide suggestions/answers/business plans to store owners who aren't doing as well as they'd hope. Demanding answers to how the business world works on here or anywhere in general just seems to be an inappropriate way to vent frustrations over a problem with no easy answers for a store owner. Again it sucks, but I'm sure if I was on here complaining about my job, I wouldn't receive much sympathy or advice beyond the "Suck it up and do what you can to improve your career" or "If you don't like it, quit and find something else".
Mind Cage, I applaud your well written and thought out response, but you seem to have things completely backwards. I had a big long reply quoting various parts of your thing, but I accidentally hit back in the browser window so it's all gone. I'll attempt to rewrite it all in a bit.
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Looll...Fat packs...I get mine for 29.95 at an unmoving price. They don't deal primarily in cards, so the prices don't change by the anticipation or cards in it, thankfully. You could probably find some online for like 28.95 with maybe $5 shipping, if you're lucky. Check Cardkingdom.com
Glad I'm not the only one who considered best case scenario they were loosing $3 a box. I think there is more brand loyalty on the internet than people think, but I don't have enough evidence to argue that if I was shopping at one store and they jacked up the price of the boxes $10 I wouldn't notice.
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To the store owners, Blockbuster and Netflix get postal discounts when they mail DVDs because they presort them in-house. They pay less because the Post Office has to do less work. I don't know if that's applicable to you guys or not, but I thought I'd mention it. With the amount of pre-orders some of you guys do, it seems like you could work out better rates somehow. Or maybe you already do. I hope this is useful.
Also, my local dealer has a regular special on boxes. He charges a lower price the first weekend that a set is released. After that, the price goes up. I haven't bought boxes in a long time, so I don't know his current rates, but the first weekend rate used to be comparable to online prices. The regular rate was over $100.
I think the idea is that the players who spend the most on Magic are also the most likely to go online looking for better deals. They are also the most likely to buy product early. By charging a lower rate at first, he encourages these kind of buyers to come to him rather than going online. He'd rather make $5 a box than $0 overall. Second, he raises the prices after the first weekend. This allows him to make more profit from all the casual players who buy a pack or two at a time every week. I think that's a pretty good system that works for everyone.
I think there is more brand loyalty on the internet than people think...
I think so, too. When shopping for something, I often first go to websites I've dealt with before. Those eBay dealers sometimes have their own websites and when you order from them, they will send you an ad and/or email directing you to their website. If I have a good experience, then the next time I order, I am more likely to go directly to their online store before going to eBay.
To the store owners, Blockbuster and Netflix get postal discounts when they mail DVDs because they presort them in-house. They pay less because the Post Office has to do less work. I don't know if that's applicable to you guys or not, but I thought I'd mention it. With the amount of pre-orders some of you guys do, it seems like you could work out better rates somehow. Or maybe you already do. I hope this is useful.
We also presort everything and print our own postage too. The minimum legal post office charge I came up with was based off of that. (And the post master for the town I'm in is the brother of one of our store owners, so we're fully aware of the best rates available).
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When this topic came up in 2005, the numbers ended up being around 45% to 50% off retail for premier stores. So no huge discounts for big sellers.
As another poster mentioned, maybe the eBay seller is hoping future sales by its buyers will be directly through their website rather than eBay. So using eBay as an ad for future business. For myself, this has held true since 2001. My initial order was on eBay, then for the next 8 years I went to each seller's website instead and enjoyed the same low price and they enjoyed no eBay and PayPal fees (now only their small credit card fee).
I would disagree that eBay sellers are faceless and anonymous. If they treat me right, they get all my repeat business. The same holds true for local businesses. Hopefully I'm not one of those poisoning the well buyers, but for Magic I don't play anymore and just collect for the nice art and interesting concepts (and ok, the addictive ink smell when cracking a booster ;)). If I did play socially, I'd probably end up splitting 50/50 between B&M and online buying (I used to pay full retail at my comic store since they were good to me).
advertising dollars and cash flow would be the key.
Since we need to see the whole picture to understand according to you, care to actually give us the whole picture instead of vague comments that can mean anything, and contribute nothing? (The words "cash flow" don't contradict the fact that this scheme is operating at a loss)
Hopefully I'm not one of those poisoning the well buyers
The sellers are the ones poisoning the well, not the buyers. You seem to be at least the second person to misread/misunderstand me on that matter, so perhaps I was vague before. If you can buy a box for $80 and have it on your doorstep on the release date, I can't really begrudge you for buying it. (If you're buying it for $85 and have to wait a week to get it, then I easily can because for a couple bucks more you could've had it from us on the release date). The issue is all the sellers who are selling boxes at the absurdly low prices that I have now proven is at a loss (And Ben, who has apparently done his own number crunching independently of me, agrees). They are the ones poisoning the well because, thanks to them, people expect everyone to sell at that price and are furious about the concept of paying any more (As made evident by the existence of this thread). It's basically akin to this: a local, competing comic shop has been running a 50% off sale on everything in the store for the past 2 months because he needs to get cash to stay afloat thanks to the bad economy. After being able to buy everything at that price for so long, do you realistically think anyone is going to go back there once (if) the sale ends? If you honestly think the answer is yes, I have to call you naive.
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Nice fantasy world you live in where FNM players keep dropping money the entire time they're at the store. Chances are you're getting little if anything beyond the entry fee for the tournament.
technik, you are correct that hobbyists don't always make good businessmen. That explains why so many places that were started in the 80's and 90's quickly went out of business after the speculation bubble burst. However, people seem to forget that we ARE businessmen and that this isn't a hobby for us. People (including those selling boxes at absurdly low prices) really believe that their time is absolutely worthless, and that is no way to do business. While it may make players happy because they're excited about saving $5.00, those people are actually much worse businessmen than your average LGS and are poisoning the well.
As a B&M owner (I assume you are one based on your opinions), I think it is *you* that has this sense of entitlement. It sounds to me as if you feel that your customers owe you a living. They don't. Do you think that typewriter manufacturers lamenting the widespread adoption of the PC in the 80s changed anything about consumer spending habits? Do you think that any obsoleted industry has had something to say that would affect retroactive changes as new competitors arrived on the scene? They haven't.
You either change with the times or you die by the wayside. Fact of the matter is: internet stores are rapidly displacing B&M stores. You, as a businessman, need to simply accept this natural progression instead of whining about it. Then, if you can accept this, maybe you will realize that if you carve out a niche for yourself doing something unique that cannot be replicated by internet stores (I don't know - tournaments, promotions, whatever), perhaps you can develop some new business model that will keep you afloat. Regardless, whining and complaining about the basic principles of capitalism and decrying those who would take advantage of the machinations of the marketplace as "douches" and "****heads" is simply unproductive and ridiculous.
Also, I don't know why you are so concerned with the accounting books of those ebay sellers undercutting you on Magic products. If they are losing money on their transactions, then yes, perhaps they are bad businessmen. Bad businessmen who lose money eventually become broke businessmen standing in line at the unemployment office. Typically speaking, if they are as dumb as you say they are, you *want* to see them lose money and in turn you will see less competition for yourself. Either they are losing money, or there is something else to the equation that you are not aware of.
If they are losing money on their transactions, then yes, perhaps they are bad businessmen. Bad businessmen who lose money eventually become broke businessmen standing in line at the unemployment office. Typically speaking, if they are as dumb as you say they are, you *want* to see them lose money and in turn you will see less competition for yourself. Either they are losing money, or there is something else to the equation that you are not aware of.
The internet sellers are free riders though. What they do hurts B&M even as it hurts themselves, and there are a seemingly endless supply of them...
As a B&M owner (I assume you are one based on your opinions), I think it is *you* that has this sense of entitlement. It sounds to me as if you feel that your customers owe you a living. They don't. Do you think that typewriter manufacturers lamenting the widespread adoption of the PC in the 80s changed anything about consumer spending habits? Do you think that any obsoleted industry has had something to say that would affect retroactive changes as new competitors arrived on the scene? They haven't.
You either change with the times or you die by the wayside. Fact of the matter is: internet stores are rapidly displacing B&M stores. You, as a businessman, need to simply accept this natural progression instead of whining about it. Then, if you can accept this, maybe you will realize that if you carve out a niche for yourself doing something unique that cannot be replicated by internet stores (I don't know - tournaments, promotions, whatever), perhaps you can develop some new business model that will keep you afloat. Regardless, whining and complaining about the basic principles of capitalism and decrying those who would take advantage of the machinations of the marketplace as "douches" and "****heads" is simply unproductive and ridiculous.
Also, I don't know why you are so concerned with the accounting books of those ebay sellers undercutting you on Magic products. If they are losing money on their transactions, then yes, perhaps they are bad businessmen. Bad businessmen who lose money eventually become broke businessmen standing in line at the unemployment office. Typically speaking, if they are as dumb as you say they are, you *want* to see them lose money and in turn you will see less competition for yourself. Either they are losing money, or there is something else to the equation that you are not aware of.
First of all, I think you misunderstand my position. I'm not some dinosaur who thinks the internet is evil or something. Hell, most of my day is spent doing internet selling related activities. My issue is simply with the people preselling boxes at a loss (Losing money is the basic tenet of capitalism?) and the attitude and expectations buyers have as a result. As for being bad businessmen who become broke businessmen, one of the issues is that everyone sees this happening with each new set, and a bunch of people say "Me too!". Unless you expect "the internet" to go out of business, there will never be a shortage of these people, and I will continue to think they're dumb.
Analogy: Every time a comic book hits the mainstream media, the price skyrockets and there's huge demand. Amazing Spider-man#583 had Obama on the cover (and had a backup story with him inside). For the first 48 hours, you could EASILY get $100-150 for the Obama cover and $60 for the regular cover. Now it's $40 for the Obama cover and $10 for the regular cover. The price never goes up beyond the first day or two, and it always plummits immediately following (Usually worse than that has, actually). This is very, very common knowledge among the industry. We all know it's going to happen and that the people paying those high prices are morons for doing so. The problem? There is a limitless supply of people who haven't tried it before and don't know what they're doing that think they can make easy money. Such is undoubtedly the case with many of these sellers. (And while we can speculate about brand loyalty and loss leaders and such, no one has been able to provide any evidence (evidence, not hearsay or speculation) that they are indeed not losing money on each box sold).
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The preorders right now obviously have to have been high enough to warrant them raise the price on it. so I don't see a problem with it, if the set goes very well (like M2010 for instance) we'll see multiple print runs and with all the cases/boxes being open it'll keep prices low.
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I just want people who redraft to admit this:
"I can't draft objectively unless I am able to guarantee that I receive at least 3 rares. I am also better than most average/new players so I want to make sure that I get the best rares and they end up with worse ones. I care more about the monetary value of cards than actually playing the game for decent prizes."
First of all, I think you misunderstand my position. I'm not some dinosaur who thinks the internet is evil or something. Hell, most of my day is spent doing internet selling related activities. My issue is simply with the people preselling boxes at a loss (Losing money is the basic tenet of capitalism?) and the attitude and expectations buyers have as a result. As for being bad businessmen who become broke businessmen, one of the issues is that everyone sees this happening with each new set, and a bunch of people say "Me too!". Unless you expect "the internet" to go out of business, there will never be a shortage of these people, and I will continue to think they're dumb.
Analogy: Every time a comic book hits the mainstream media, the price skyrockets and there's huge demand. Amazing Spider-man#583 had Obama on the cover (and had a backup story with him inside). For the first 48 hours, you could EASILY get $100-150 for the Obama cover and $60 for the regular cover. Now it's $40 for the Obama cover and $10 for the regular cover. The price never goes up beyond the first day or two, and it always plummits immediately following (Usually worse than that has, actually). This is very, very common knowledge among the industry. We all know it's going to happen and that the people paying those high prices are morons for doing so. The problem? There is a limitless supply of people who haven't tried it before and don't know what they're doing that think they can make easy money. Such is undoubtedly the case with many of these sellers. (And while we can speculate about brand loyalty and loss leaders and such, no one has been able to provide any evidence (evidence, not hearsay or speculation) that they are indeed not losing money on each box sold).
IMO there isn't any room for debate here, Dr. Jeebus is correct with everything he's saying.
This is the "Wallmart Effect" in principle. Wallmart moves into an area, sells significant amounts of things at under cost in order to attract people from the stores in the area they've been frequenting, using it's bankroll to sustain it while doing so. Eventually, the other stores end up bellying up, and then Wallmart returns prices to profit since there's no one to compete anymore.
Not much difference here. Stores are selling boxes below cost to get people to traffic their website, likely using alternate cash flow to sustain themselves, with the intention to drive the others out of buisness by gaining the lion's share of traffic. It's really not new, I used to buy boxes of Urza's Saga/Legacy/Destiny at $55/box. All of those websites are gone now. The shame is, most of the sites who didn't do this are gone as well.
Dr. Jeebus is right, this is not healthy for anyone. These sites will end up in a price war with each other selling further and further below cost, people will refuse to buy from shops setting legitimate cost because of it, the sites selling below will eventually go under, but they'll take most of the others with them.
My only issue with shops is that I'm finding it impossible to find places selling the Promo-preorders, and special items like FTV, it's really driving me nuts. I have no idea how Wizards is distributing, but I'd really like to hand someone money and I can't find anyone to buy from. I'm getting the idea that WOTC is only giving this to specific stores, which is great and all, except there seems to be only 2 stores in my city that qualify.
Wouldn't be bad, except the store I'd long-patronized isn't one of them, so I'm at the bottom of the list at the others, and the Internet does not seem to be my friend with the Promo-preorders, 'cause I'm not paying $150. That is not a $50-60 dollar card.
Anyways, Dr. Jeebus is right. Selling below cost *always* ends up hurting someone, and most of the time hurts everyone.
It's healthy for me the buyer. I haven't been ABLE to play in a regular (non release) event in my town for over two years. The only place to play is up at the college, so I have no incentive for brand loyalty. I never go to their redirected website. Just go on ebay and find the lowest price whenever I need a box. I don't see how this hurts buyers at all. Say that eventually all these sellers go belly up, and prices go to what you think they should be. Demand will fall. I buy boxes because it means I get a free draft set and a couple bucks when I sell them. I can live without that. A higher box price would imply higher draft costs. I can live without draft. Ultimately, if prices "correct", and I assume there are a number of buyers like me who do it casually and can live without it, the demand will plummet, and sellers will step in to fill the void of cheap boxes. And we will be back to where we are now with you saying it's somehow bad for the consumer. How is the abundance of low-priced boxes bad for the consumer?
We live in a country were ~50% of the populace believe public schooling is a socialist conspiracy and that being called Einstein is an insult. We could try and fix it, but unfortunately the other 50% don't believe in euthanasia.
I don't use Ebay, but I'm glad it exists. Without the competition, online and real stores could sell Zendikar boxes for whatever they chose to, and I'm pretty sure it'd be more than 90 bucks. Ebay is usually an excellent barometer for card prices.
Not all of us live within striking distance of a well-priced card shop, either. In the long term, it may be cheaper for someone to buy packs online or at a closer Wal-Mart than make the hike to a shop and put wear and tear and gas in their car.
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Well either way, I'm still waiting for an elaboration. "It's difficult to explain" is no more adequate an answer than "there has to be a way", and until a full explanation comes I can't help but assume that he also is without any real insight into the situation.
#edit:
Paint a picture for us then, assuming you actually know something we don't.
Wizards could put $100 bills in packs and people would complain about how they were folded.
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This isn't like hiring Uwe Boll to direct a movie, though. This is a lot of time, effort, and money, for a comparatively tiny reduction on your net income. Yes you're losing money and it's both stupid and bad for the industry, but it's not really effective enough to be a feasible tax cheat.
Wizards could put $100 bills in packs and people would complain about how they were folded.
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I'm like," i'm not store, there's no profit for me. You paying extactly for the lowest i can get it to you." Makes me want to just buy the stuff at msrp and tell them to shell out the real cost.
Unless you've got a really high volume of sales.
Well, here in Argentina, in the B&M shops the booster is 25 ARG Pesos, something like 6.47 USD Dollars, and yes, the B&M shops have to buy from a distributor.
We also cant buy from Ebay or SCG. It stinks a lot.
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Ebay records are all public; we know what their sales volume is, and it's not nearly high enough to be a tax cheat. We seem to be working with pretty much perfect information here, until davef139 enlightens us on the "whole picture" that we aren't seeing.
Wizards could put $100 bills in packs and people would complain about how they were folded.
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The average player is almost never going to be concerned with the "Why" or "How" of box prices, unless it reaches a point where the majority feels like the price is too high. I don't think you'll see buyers complain if the prices ever get much lower then they are now. As has been stated, the entire existence of e-bay erases the idea of online brand loyalty, and instead replaces it with either offering the lowest price for the specific product, or adding on some sort of bonus that would intrigue the buyer.
Yes, I'm sure it sucks from the point of someone who is running a business, yet everywhere I go I still see FNM's packed with people. Anecdotal evidence I know, but I'm sure other locations around the country have similar friday nights of people getting together to play in the tournament and do spontaneous drafts. If that wasn't so, then I doubt Magic would still be in business. Heck, there is even a store here that is packed on both Tuesdays and Fridays with people for tournaments and drafts. I don't think Cleveland is the nexus of Magic players in the USA.
My point is, in these threads, I see a lot of anger from business and store owners that these people on e-bay (which, by the way seem to get referenced in a boogeyman-esque sort of fashion all the time) are what's wrong with America. Dr.Jeebus even made the remark that they're "poisoning the well". I think it's too much of an easy road to blame all of a B&M's problems on the internet hoardes of evil e-bayers.
I'm sorry to anyone whose livelihood and paycheck are completely derived from the sales of Magic and other card games but, I don't think it's fair to scold me or anyone else for not giving you our money. At my job, if things aren't performing well, I'm not allowed to blame other people, teams or locations for it. I can certainly cite problems and delays that I encounter in order to lengthen dead lines if Management sees I've made an honest attempt at getting things done. But If ever just kicked back in my chair on my hands and said I can't get any work done because Alpha Team isn't doing things the right way or a customer isn't behaving like I'd want them to, then I'd have been fired a long time ago.
Stores exist to serve the people. Not the other way around. And I don't even mean in a draconian slavery type way. Just that, you open a store with the goal of making a profit in something that you (hopefully) enjoy. And in the process of running the business, you convince people that their money would be well spent on your merchandise. It's not the responsibility of the general public to flock to your store and hand you their money for your product, it's the stores to make themselves seem more appealing. On that note, it's also not the public's responsibility to provide suggestions/answers/business plans to store owners who aren't doing as well as they'd hope. Demanding answers to how the business world works on here or anywhere in general just seems to be an inappropriate way to vent frustrations over a problem with no easy answers for a store owner. Again it sucks, but I'm sure if I was on here complaining about my job, I wouldn't receive much sympathy or advice beyond the "Suck it up and do what you can to improve your career" or "If you don't like it, quit and find something else".
Wizards could put $100 bills in packs and people would complain about how they were folded.
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Quotes in blog.
Also, my local dealer has a regular special on boxes. He charges a lower price the first weekend that a set is released. After that, the price goes up. I haven't bought boxes in a long time, so I don't know his current rates, but the first weekend rate used to be comparable to online prices. The regular rate was over $100.
I think the idea is that the players who spend the most on Magic are also the most likely to go online looking for better deals. They are also the most likely to buy product early. By charging a lower rate at first, he encourages these kind of buyers to come to him rather than going online. He'd rather make $5 a box than $0 overall. Second, he raises the prices after the first weekend. This allows him to make more profit from all the casual players who buy a pack or two at a time every week. I think that's a pretty good system that works for everyone.
I think so, too. When shopping for something, I often first go to websites I've dealt with before. Those eBay dealers sometimes have their own websites and when you order from them, they will send you an ad and/or email directing you to their website. If I have a good experience, then the next time I order, I am more likely to go directly to their online store before going to eBay.
We also presort everything and print our own postage too. The minimum legal post office charge I came up with was based off of that. (And the post master for the town I'm in is the brother of one of our store owners, so we're fully aware of the best rates available).
Wizards could put $100 bills in packs and people would complain about how they were folded.
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As another poster mentioned, maybe the eBay seller is hoping future sales by its buyers will be directly through their website rather than eBay. So using eBay as an ad for future business. For myself, this has held true since 2001. My initial order was on eBay, then for the next 8 years I went to each seller's website instead and enjoyed the same low price and they enjoyed no eBay and PayPal fees (now only their small credit card fee).
I would disagree that eBay sellers are faceless and anonymous. If they treat me right, they get all my repeat business. The same holds true for local businesses. Hopefully I'm not one of those poisoning the well buyers, but for Magic I don't play anymore and just collect for the nice art and interesting concepts (and ok, the addictive ink smell when cracking a booster ;)). If I did play socially, I'd probably end up splitting 50/50 between B&M and online buying (I used to pay full retail at my comic store since they were good to me).
Since we need to see the whole picture to understand according to you, care to actually give us the whole picture instead of vague comments that can mean anything, and contribute nothing? (The words "cash flow" don't contradict the fact that this scheme is operating at a loss)
The sellers are the ones poisoning the well, not the buyers. You seem to be at least the second person to misread/misunderstand me on that matter, so perhaps I was vague before. If you can buy a box for $80 and have it on your doorstep on the release date, I can't really begrudge you for buying it. (If you're buying it for $85 and have to wait a week to get it, then I easily can because for a couple bucks more you could've had it from us on the release date). The issue is all the sellers who are selling boxes at the absurdly low prices that I have now proven is at a loss (And Ben, who has apparently done his own number crunching independently of me, agrees). They are the ones poisoning the well because, thanks to them, people expect everyone to sell at that price and are furious about the concept of paying any more (As made evident by the existence of this thread). It's basically akin to this: a local, competing comic shop has been running a 50% off sale on everything in the store for the past 2 months because he needs to get cash to stay afloat thanks to the bad economy. After being able to buy everything at that price for so long, do you realistically think anyone is going to go back there once (if) the sale ends? If you honestly think the answer is yes, I have to call you naive.
Wizards could put $100 bills in packs and people would complain about how they were folded.
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As a B&M owner (I assume you are one based on your opinions), I think it is *you* that has this sense of entitlement. It sounds to me as if you feel that your customers owe you a living. They don't. Do you think that typewriter manufacturers lamenting the widespread adoption of the PC in the 80s changed anything about consumer spending habits? Do you think that any obsoleted industry has had something to say that would affect retroactive changes as new competitors arrived on the scene? They haven't.
You either change with the times or you die by the wayside. Fact of the matter is: internet stores are rapidly displacing B&M stores. You, as a businessman, need to simply accept this natural progression instead of whining about it. Then, if you can accept this, maybe you will realize that if you carve out a niche for yourself doing something unique that cannot be replicated by internet stores (I don't know - tournaments, promotions, whatever), perhaps you can develop some new business model that will keep you afloat. Regardless, whining and complaining about the basic principles of capitalism and decrying those who would take advantage of the machinations of the marketplace as "douches" and "****heads" is simply unproductive and ridiculous.
Also, I don't know why you are so concerned with the accounting books of those ebay sellers undercutting you on Magic products. If they are losing money on their transactions, then yes, perhaps they are bad businessmen. Bad businessmen who lose money eventually become broke businessmen standing in line at the unemployment office. Typically speaking, if they are as dumb as you say they are, you *want* to see them lose money and in turn you will see less competition for yourself. Either they are losing money, or there is something else to the equation that you are not aware of.
The internet sellers are free riders though. What they do hurts B&M even as it hurts themselves, and there are a seemingly endless supply of them...
First of all, I think you misunderstand my position. I'm not some dinosaur who thinks the internet is evil or something. Hell, most of my day is spent doing internet selling related activities. My issue is simply with the people preselling boxes at a loss (Losing money is the basic tenet of capitalism?) and the attitude and expectations buyers have as a result. As for being bad businessmen who become broke businessmen, one of the issues is that everyone sees this happening with each new set, and a bunch of people say "Me too!". Unless you expect "the internet" to go out of business, there will never be a shortage of these people, and I will continue to think they're dumb.
Analogy: Every time a comic book hits the mainstream media, the price skyrockets and there's huge demand. Amazing Spider-man#583 had Obama on the cover (and had a backup story with him inside). For the first 48 hours, you could EASILY get $100-150 for the Obama cover and $60 for the regular cover. Now it's $40 for the Obama cover and $10 for the regular cover. The price never goes up beyond the first day or two, and it always plummits immediately following (Usually worse than that has, actually). This is very, very common knowledge among the industry. We all know it's going to happen and that the people paying those high prices are morons for doing so. The problem? There is a limitless supply of people who haven't tried it before and don't know what they're doing that think they can make easy money. Such is undoubtedly the case with many of these sellers. (And while we can speculate about brand loyalty and loss leaders and such, no one has been able to provide any evidence (evidence, not hearsay or speculation) that they are indeed not losing money on each box sold).
Wizards could put $100 bills in packs and people would complain about how they were folded.
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IMO there isn't any room for debate here, Dr. Jeebus is correct with everything he's saying.
This is the "Wallmart Effect" in principle. Wallmart moves into an area, sells significant amounts of things at under cost in order to attract people from the stores in the area they've been frequenting, using it's bankroll to sustain it while doing so. Eventually, the other stores end up bellying up, and then Wallmart returns prices to profit since there's no one to compete anymore.
Not much difference here. Stores are selling boxes below cost to get people to traffic their website, likely using alternate cash flow to sustain themselves, with the intention to drive the others out of buisness by gaining the lion's share of traffic. It's really not new, I used to buy boxes of Urza's Saga/Legacy/Destiny at $55/box. All of those websites are gone now. The shame is, most of the sites who didn't do this are gone as well.
Dr. Jeebus is right, this is not healthy for anyone. These sites will end up in a price war with each other selling further and further below cost, people will refuse to buy from shops setting legitimate cost because of it, the sites selling below will eventually go under, but they'll take most of the others with them.
My only issue with shops is that I'm finding it impossible to find places selling the Promo-preorders, and special items like FTV, it's really driving me nuts. I have no idea how Wizards is distributing, but I'd really like to hand someone money and I can't find anyone to buy from. I'm getting the idea that WOTC is only giving this to specific stores, which is great and all, except there seems to be only 2 stores in my city that qualify.
Wouldn't be bad, except the store I'd long-patronized isn't one of them, so I'm at the bottom of the list at the others, and the Internet does not seem to be my friend with the Promo-preorders, 'cause I'm not paying $150. That is not a $50-60 dollar card.
Anyways, Dr. Jeebus is right. Selling below cost *always* ends up hurting someone, and most of the time hurts everyone.
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Do you not understand that they get their merchandise cheaper because they buy so much more than anyone else?
How do you not get that they can sell cheaper than a mom and pop shop simply because they PAY LESS for their goods?
Not all of us live within striking distance of a well-priced card shop, either. In the long term, it may be cheaper for someone to buy packs online or at a closer Wal-Mart than make the hike to a shop and put wear and tear and gas in their car.