To expand a little bit on your comment: The reason that scalpers =/= retail is that initial retail sellers are at the end of the wholesale supply chain, which is the huge logistical market we rely on. Retail scalpers create an uneeded secondary supply chain that’s even more exclusive than wholesale. This wasn’t nearly the issue it is today until scalpers learned how to code.
Now businesses have no incentive to mitigate the supply issues scalpers introduce because they get a whole host of benefits (guaranteed rapid ROI, simplified logistics or dispatch, reliable product cycles). It’s a big part of why you see so many brands going to small ‘limited edition’ drops/releases lately. Being able to reliably produce known quantities of product that you can be sure of selling 100% reduces depreciation, improves your attractiveness to your vendors and shortens your manufacturing chain.
You can get a single shipment that contains all the materials needed for a given run, without having to source reliable long-term suppliers. Plus if you cant find a certain material at that moment, you can re-tool for what you can find easily (smaller production = smaller production lines = fewer machines) with much less initial outlay. Keeping several designs being prepared at once also means you’re much more flexible to supply issues / machine downtime / etc.
There’s a ton more perks, as well, but you get the idea.
The tradeoff is that your setup costs are higher and more frequently incurred, but thats pretty easy to mitigate down to near triviality with good management. Also that it’s very tricky to get into this position, and if you’re relying on FOMO an unpopular product release can take years to finally move all the units.
So what I’m saying is scalpers suck massively and we’d better get used to them because nobody wants to get rid of them except consumers, and fuck consumers amirite c-suite lads?
To expand a little bit on your comment: The reason that scalpers =/= retail is that initial retail sellers are at the end of the wholesale supply chain, which is the huge logistical market we rely on. Retail scalpers create an uneeded secondary supply chain that’s even more exclusive than wholesale. This wasn’t nearly the issue it is today until scalpers learned how to code.
Now businesses have no incentive to mitigate the supply issues scalpers introduce because they get a whole host of benefits (guaranteed rapid ROI, simplified logistics or dispatch, reliable product cycles). It’s a big part of why you see so many brands going to small ‘limited edition’ drops/releases lately. Being able to reliably produce known quantities of product that you can be sure of selling 100% reduces depreciation, improves your attractiveness to your vendors and shortens your manufacturing chain.
You can get a single shipment that contains all the materials needed for a given run, without having to source reliable long-term suppliers. Plus if you cant find a certain material at that moment, you can re-tool for what you can find easily (smaller production = smaller production lines = fewer machines) with much less initial outlay. Keeping several designs being prepared at once also means you’re much more flexible to supply issues / machine downtime / etc.
There’s a ton more perks, as well, but you get the idea.
The tradeoff is that your setup costs are higher and more frequently incurred, but thats pretty easy to mitigate down to near triviality with good management. Also that it’s very tricky to get into this position, and if you’re relying on FOMO an unpopular product release can take years to finally move all the units.
So what I’m saying is scalpers suck massively and we’d better get used to them because nobody wants to get rid of them except consumers, and fuck consumers amirite c-suite lads?
Thank you for the detailed explanation. I found it both informative and unsettling!