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Retail Store Scalping Wii Consoles on eBay

Posted by Zonk on from the with-a-name-like-slackers-... dept.

C0rinthian writes "ArsTechnica reports that the games retailer Slackers has been keeping their stock of the Nintendo Wii off their store shelves, and is instead selling the system on eBay for $400-500. (A $150-$250 markup)" This follows their look at the other side of the coin: why some retailers insist on Wii Bundles.

3 of 236 comments (clear)

  1. Re:So what by TooMuchToDo · · Score: 5, Informative
    Oh, snap.

    July 03, 2007
    Supreme Court lets manufacturers set minimum prices
    Decision reverses 1911 ruling -- what does it mean for consumers?

    http://blogs.consumerreports.org/shopping/2007/07/supreme-court-l.html

  2. Re:Why the shortage? by thpr · · Score: 5, Informative
    Does anyone have the inside scoop on why -- over a year after introducing this product -- Nintendo has not been able to ramp production up to meet demand?

    The way I read your statement, you're making an assumption that I'm not entirely sure is true. It appears that you are assuming Nintendo wants to meet demand.

    To be fair, I don't think they are intentionally holding back on production solely to produce scarcity. I think the statements they have made (of wishing they had more product) are honest. However, I also believe that this is not a marketing and sales issue, but a financial one.

    Nintendo might be able to ramp up to meet demand, but the problem is one of understanding demand. What no one is sure of is what the real demand is. If they are producing 1.5M units/month, is real demand 1.501M units/month? 3.0M units/month?

    The risk that Nintendo faces is the same risk that many telecom and networking companies experienced in 2000-2001. In that case, a capacity shortage of certain components led to over-ordering of the product, and thus when production was ramped to meet the (artificially) inflated demand, the equipment companies sat on billions in inventory that they were forced to write down (because no one wanted to buy it).

    This is a slightly different situation (no artificial demand, just hard to forecast the real demand), yet the same lesson applies. I believe Nintendo is taking a cautious approach to its product ramp. Since the supply chain is something on the order of 4-6 months from initial orders to final assembly, they face huge inventory risk if they significantly overshoot demand. Their conservative forecasts and production have lost them some sales, but it may be less risk to lose sales than to risk sitting on a ton of inventory.

  3. Read Slackers' response by s4ltyd0g · · Score: 5, Informative

    They are calling foul. http://slackers.com/