Retail Store Scalping Wii Consoles on eBay

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.

Comments

Capitalism

[Anonymous Coward]

In a capatilist society it should be possible to buy any item, no matter how rare, with rarer items being more expensive. Should we blame retailers for doing what economic theory expects them to do? When supply is low and demand is high price should rise until supply = demand.

Re:So what

[Maxo-Texas]

It's not dumping. It's well known that Nintendo makes a profit on every Wii sold at the MSRP.

Raw capitalism yes-- but not friendly capitalism. Raw capitalism will maximize profits but might cost nintendo a lot of good will.

For example- Sony pissed me off in 2001 and I have not bought another product from them since. So their short term gain resulted in probably $20,000 to $30,000 in lost sales.

Nintendo has been managing their market for a looooong time.

Re:Why the shortage?

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

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? It wasn't a surprise that they couldn't meet demand last Christmas. But, this time around they've had a full year to get the production line up to speed.

What's up? Is their a particular component that is hard to come by or has a real low yield? To date, Nintendo's sold 12 million Wii's. That's a pretty strong demand for consoles. I'm not saying it's neverhappened, but I've never heard of a console selling over 10 million in its first year. Heck, the XBOX 360 has been out for two years and the Wii surpassed it in half hte time. If I'm right about the history of console sales, then the question I'd ask is: "What reason would Nintendo have to think they needed say.. double the amount of Wii consoles available?"

Re:Bundles

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

"I have to buy a console and games? Boo hoo!"

Wow. Way to miss the point. Okay, here's a metaphor to help you comprehend the idea: Let's say you want to purchase an HD-DVD player. They sell for $200, but demand is high, so you cannot find them. Suddenly, you find one but it's $400 and comes with Gigli, Eps. 1-3, TMNT 3, King Kong, White Noise, and Deuce Bigalow.

Boo hoo.