Yesterday I had a chance to record as a guest on the Live and Let Diecast Podcast. Besides being a lot of fun to finally chat with some other LaLD’ers we talked about a very familiar topic around the diecast community: scalping. We didn’t even get very far into the topic before we had to back up and define what scalping even is.
I’d say that one of the simplest definitions is using your position to cut in line, to remove product from the market for the sole reason of reselling it later at a higher price. For example:
This is Supers that are stolen from the factory and put on eBay.
A collector wandering into the backroom and going through stock before it’s been placed out for sale.
And, what I encountered tonight at a Portland Target:
Nice Hawl, right? Here’s how I found it:
Under the pegs, down between the end of the aisle and the endcap
Wedged way down there. Yes! It’s a scalper’s honey hole! Whoever stocked the pegs with the H case dropped these two desirable HWs where customers were unlikely to look, so they could retrieve them later. They cut in line. Or, at least, attempted to.
The two alternatives:
1) It was kids who knocked them down - but just happened to be the 2 most desirable? There were plenty of Flash Drive and Rig Motors to play with.
2) It was another scalper - this would be a terribly inept scalper who couldn’t come up with the $2 to just buy them. Once they came across them a scalper wouldn’t have reason to hide them.
So it had to be:
An employee
I reported it to the manager. She acted like she would probably do something about it. Have you ever encountered a Super Honey Hole? What did you come across? Too bad there weren’t any Supers hidden down there...