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« on: October 07, 2011, 03:05:23 AM »
I have seen some users on this forum begin to talk about this subject, and there was a fairly good discussion about it over on the UC forums, so I figured I would make a thread and allow you guys to express your views on the matter. As many of you may have noticed, relatively recently there has been a huge number of people jumping on the card resell bandwagon and I am curious on everyones opinions. First off, I do not want this thread to turn into a flame war, with personal attacks being thrown around. Simply state your opinions and explain your reasoning behind them.
Ill start it off.
Quite frankly, I have no issues with anyone trying to profit off the resale of playing cards. I, myself have started to sell of extra decks of playing cards that I order from initial releases, in order to allow me to have my collection to fund itself essentially. I don't purchase bricks upon bricks with plans to resell but in the case of the Red Artifice I purchased 8 decks, opened 1, sold 4 and keep the remaining 3 in my collection. Same goes with the recent V6 release, I purchased a brick and have ended up selling 7 decks for a decent profit. Do I feel morally wrong for doing this? Heck no. Do I feel like I am some how ruining the card collecting community? Heck no. My opinion is that having any sort of collection is a luxury, no one truly needs hundreds upon hundreds of decks of cards, and if you feel like you do, you have issues. There are plenty of decks that I would love to get my hands on, like Cage Gardens, Smoke and Mirror V1's and Jerry's, but I really do not see that happening anytime soon because I will not allow myself to pay that much just to add to my collection. However, everyone is different, and that is why many people, including myself, are able to sell a $7 deck of cards for $40+ ( in the case of the Red Artifice ). If people are willing to pay a premium for a sold out deck of cards, there will always be somebody willing to sell. This is true for every retail business out there. Just because the store buy an Item for $100 does not mean they will sell it to you for that, thats just not smart business. Playing cards is a pretty niche market, but what I have found is the people in it tend to have a fair amount of excess money to spend on what they want, even if the markup is high.
On to my Next point
If you are a person who strongly objects to anyone scalping cards, let me explain the only way it will ever stop. First we need to understand that scalping cards, when done properly, is virtually impossible to lose money on. Unlike, say scalping a concert ticket, a deck of playing cards will 99% of the time at least maintain its original purchase value, if not increase. This differs from a concert ticket because if you end up being able to sell the ticket until the day of the concert, generally you would accept a reduced price, instead of taking a greater loss by not selling it. So, How to stop card scalpers? simple, do not buy from resellers. Although, your going to have to convince a majority of everyone else that purchases from resellers to do the same as well. It is simple supply and demand, if people continue to buy, there will be somebody to sell it to them.
My advice to anyone who absolutely hates resellers….make sure if, for some reason, you absolutely need to purchase an upcoming deck, be there for launch or don't complain afterwords when you can't buy it for the original launch price. And if you don't get the deck you want, remember that it is only a deck of cards and there are much more important things in your life than cards, I can guarantee that.
Please post your opinions about this issue and please keep it civilized, there is no need to hurt peoples feeling here.
Also, I enjoy though provoking discussions, ones where both sides have solid statements to back up their opinions. So if other card related stuff, and maybe even some non card related stuff comes to my mind I will probably try and start a decent discussion about it.
- Curt