Subject:
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FOTY, at least for me.
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.market.shopping
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Date:
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Fri, 18 Jan 2002 20:55:32 GMT
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Viewed:
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326 times
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If you saw my posts in the thread "Target Lies and Great Buys"
http://news.lugnet.com/market/shopping/?n=8840
I said I would tell the story of my local Target and the Life on Mars 7317.
Well it all started back around July. I love to sell on ebay, and having
just come out of my dark ages last christmas I have found that Legos do well
on ebay, especially if you can get them on clearance. I can usually buy
enough of a set at Target's clearance prices to sell a couple on ebay and
keep a set for myself and my daughters. This also helps me with my SO
because there is little if any money spent on my hobby. In July I was at
our local Target looking to see if there was anything on clearance that I
could sell on ebay and I always visit the Lego Aisle, as Lego is something I
know and feel comfortable selling. I happened to be looking at the LOM sets
when I noticed a shelf tag below the space where a 7317 should have been.
It read $22.44!! I was excited to say the least. I took the shelf tag to
the scanner and sure enough it scanned at $22.44, only problem was there
wasn't any sets left. I was bummed thinking I had missed a great clearance.
I visited other Targets and they all still had the set for $89.99 no
clearance. So I went back and visited our Target weekly. One day they were
there and I bought all four of them. I kept one and sold the rest on ebay
for a very nice profit. I or my SO would visit every week and get all that
they had, and I made some good Christmas money selling these. One week the
set was featured in their ad at $79.99 and I figured, surely they will catch
their pricing mistake, but to my surprise they had a sign on the shelfs
declaring that their price was lower than the ad!! Surely this should have
set off a flag somewhere, and I believe it did. A few weeks later the set
was repriced to $79.99, and I figured that was the end of a fun ebay selling
spree. I had been able to purchase around 20~30 at the $22 dollar price.
Skip ahead to a few days after Christmas.
After returning from Christmas at the inlaws I decide to go by my Target and
see what is in the clearance aisle, looking for any good Lego sets,
especially the 4561. My SO and I, kids in tow are walking down the main
aisle when we get to the clearance aisle and are stunned into laughter when
we see that one entire side of a toy clearance aisle is stocked with... you
guessed it 7317s. I counted over 130 of them just sitting there. I can
only figure that their inventory computer saw that they were flying off the
shelf, nevermind that the price was completely wrong, and kept ordering
more, and more, until they were stuck with a bunch of these when the price
went back up.
Well, I have been patiently waiting for the day that they marked these to
75%, and that was yesterday. My wife had gone by around 3 in the afternoon
and saw that they had moved to 75%, and was able to score as many as she
could move through the store, as well as 3 4561s which were not there on
Wed. I checked. I went back two more times that evening and filled up our
SUV with these sets. I am hoping to use my profits for our 10th wedding
anniversary trip.
Well, that's my story. Sorry it is so long, don't know if there is a moral
to it, if any of you can think of it chime in. Please don't be too hard on
me for selling my sets on ebay, like I said, I keep one for my daughters and
me ( OK mostly for me) and make money on the rest.
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Message has 4 Replies:
 | | scalpers
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| (...) So you're a scalper. One of those opportunistic vermin. Scalper= scum of the earth. (22 years ago, 19-Jan-02, to lugnet.market.shopping)
| | | Re: FOTY, at least for me.
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| Before the execution proceeds, a different pov. Isn't this simply a form or arbitrage - where a buyer takes advantage of a localized oversupply or pricing anomaly and resells the product at a price closer to what is the "global market price"? (...) (22 years ago, 19-Jan-02, to lugnet.market.shopping)
| | | Re: FOTY, at least for me.
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| (...) moral (...) on (...) and (...) Congratulation on your luck in this deal Renard. I have just a few observations for you and especially for those that seem to have taken issue with you doing this. 1. Just where do you think all the cheap Lego on (...) (22 years ago, 19-Jan-02, to lugnet.market.shopping)
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