The Selling-Buying Dynamic - Insanely High Prices

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pinkpeony

pinkpeony

tOkIdOkI bLoOmEr
May 22, 2007
893
0
#1
** This posting is expressly my personal opinion **

After looking at closed auctions for some of the retired print on eBay, most notably the Tan Camo Playground and Foresta, I came to the conclusion this buying-selling dynamic has gotten out of hands.

First of all, there's the bidding war amongst eager buyers. Either they are caught up in the moment or they have insanely huge amount of money of spend, bidding wars drove prices insanely high.

Secondly, sellers who jack up prices claiming that a certain print/bag style is RARE, HTF, etc. How can the Spiaggia print, widely available in departmental stores nationwide be categorized as RARE and HTF?

I know that as long as there is demand and supply is low, prices ought to rise. The odd thing to me is why the demand for a certain print (Foresta/Tan Playground) for instance, exceptionally high? Do you think everyone wants a Foresta/Tan Playground or do you think they are lead to believe that they must have it?

This leads to my third point. Artificially created must-haves scenarios. Everyone starts talking about something and all of a sudden, everyone started wanting it. The Trenino best prove my case.

So, what's the point of this post? To remind myself that there are something which I do not need and should not buy. :supacool:
 
#2
i agree about foresta. foresta bags just left stores quite recently. the sad fact of the matter is that foresta bags were on discount in bloomies, etc just a couple of months ago... and now they're in discount chains like ross, loehmann's etc. foresta is a gorgeous print, my fave, but the only bag that should be selling well over retail is the zucca since it is apparently so rare. if you walked into macy's in october or november (if i'm remembering correctly) you'd see TONS of foresta stuff.

tan playground is a much older print and i have no idea why it goes for so much. i think you're right about hype driving the price of it through the roof. just as bubblesung posted, a bag had just a few minutes left and ended up being sniped up to almost $100 over the high bid she'd placed. IMHO $173 is a little too much to pay for a bambino.

i agree that sellers are part of the problem, but we all contribute too! i definately do NOT mean that in a bad way. as much as we have our own individual styles and tastes, we all fuel each other's lemmings. i post pretty frequently on the makeupalley.com makeup board (because makeup is my always obsession) and as soon as a few people are raving about something that's fabulous we all have to go run out and buy it. there are always "of the moment" items that everyone has to have, and i guess right now it's foresta and tan playground.


i saw a tan playground ciao that is simply gorgeous and the bids were about $40 or so. i'm watching it, coz i know it'll probably end up over $150.


btw, i don't think ALL sellers are listing toki bags that way to be decietful/to line their pockets. you can easily tell which sellers just want to sell the goods and which ones are out just to get above retail for them. look at which items have reserves, that's a good first clue.
 
#3
*sigh* I agree... I was watching a tan playground item and I didn't bid (I missed it because I got home late from work or something) and it had a reserve so it didn't sell... now it's up again but I'm afraid w/ the hype currently it'll go way over. Right now I think it might be over or at least at what it ended at last time

I admit I do resell but I always put a BIN at or under retail
 
#4
i've thought a few times about getting rid of my stellina in favor of replacing it with another bag. when i posted on another site i was offering it at just about what i paid for it and very reasonable shipping. then i changed my mind, but i'm still on the fence about it. as soon as i see famigilia i might change my mind!

as i've mentioned before, my husband and i collect star wars stuff (action figures, collectable statues, etc.) and it's very very frustrating to see people in our area buy up all the htf toys (each box will have like 10 greedos and only one or two sandtroopers, for example.) they buy the four or five good toys that are out and leave the pegs full of toys that aren't rare at all, then resell them on ebay for about 2x what they cost. it's very disenchanting because we go to target to buy ONE holographic clone commander cody figure but it's not there, but there are fifty to sixty listed on ebay. not fair. *end rant* lol.
 
#5
lol... I know what you mean! I'm just starting into getting vinyls and there's so many flippers out there :Push: I realized all the one's I wanted in the past (since I did really like some of them when I was younger) are usually the high priced items now! :sad:
 
#6
that's what ebay has done to the free market though. my poor husband gets soo frustrated, but in the long run all we can do is not buy from these people. it makes him sad to miss out on cool figures he wants, but aside from breaking into the back room at target or walmart we have no other alternative.

and when you say vinyls, do you mean records or toys?
 
#7
oh toys... sorry I forgot about records :lol: yeah I've always admired designer vinyl toys but I never got into them because I thought they were too expensive... they are too expensive but now I really want them because they're still less expensive than tokidoki :lol: so it's a reasonable hobby IMO now :sweatdrop:
 
#8
vinyl toys are very interesting! i know there's a whole world of qee, dunny, uglydoll, etc. they're gorgeous, but they're a little $$ for me. the only exception is medicom toys, specifically BEARBRICKS, which i adore (i have like 12, the pirate one is currently hanging out on my pirata bag!) and kubricks. medicom makes some really great high end star wars collectables to, but we haven't gotten any of those yet.
 
#9
i totally agree with yah on it...but hey what the people want is what they get and how much value they put on a bag will ultimately determine the cost.

but personally i do believe some people kind of get into the hype of a "must-have" bag style or print. and yes the prime example you pointed out was the trenino =) i got mine back in september and i remembered for the longest time being one of the very few people who actually owned one. and now all of a sudden everyone has it. i don't know if everyone bought it simply because its a good price and something they've been wanting or because "hey, its a hot must have bag" and then end up not using it.

i do see a lot of people feeding into the hype like "oh i never really liked this print, but its so popular so i should get something in it", etc. but then again many see tokidoki bags as something they collect and simply need something from each print.

what i've been wondering though is why is the playground print so popular? what appeals to you guys about it? because i see SOOO many people disliking the girls, yet the one print that's covered in girls is so coveted. i personally LOVE the girls but for this print, didn't like it too much since its khaki/brown colored

ok sorry if i made no sense...i've been studying nonstop for the past 3 days so my brain is slowly dieing lol
 
#10
I personally don't mind the girls as much anymore... it's starting to grow on me :lol: I'm actually only going for the smaller items tho. The bella from the outlet was because I really wanted at least 1 bag in every print so later on down the road I wouldn't be like. I REALLY WANT ONE!! and I dish out the $$ or can't even find it... but yeah oddly enough I like the tan playground when it has the ring of girls visible like they're in that V formation! lol and I like the other little things on the tan background... but yupp I'm one of those "one in every print at least" type of girls

I've wanted a trenino but it's still to much for me cost wise but since other people wanted it I got one but yeah I've been noticing the influx so it goes back to the store
 
#11
seems like trenino fever is dying down a bit, but there is a NEW print coming out very soon that we'll all be going ga ga over.

what do you guys think will be the to die for bags in famiglia, tutti and transporto? i'm kinda feeling a famiglia zucca myself. :heart:
 
#12
hmmm i've no clue really...cuz there was big anticipation for spiaggia..n now that its out, doesn't seem to be all too popular.

famiglia was shunned by many but now people are liking it more..i think it'll be like adios star, not too much interest initially but then it'll get pretty popular i bet! same with tutti...

trasporto seems to have opposite effect..popular at first but now since everyone has seen it, seems like many don't like it too much.

but we'll see once the prints are ON the bags
 
#14
I agree with you gals on the ebay reselling madness. I'm amazed at how some "power-sellers" have such a numerous supply of *rare* prints. I've never bought anything off of ebay but I can see why others do. I live in SoCal so there is easy access to tokidoki but in some other areas, it's harder to find. I think it's all about personal choice and discipline- just like what u like and pay what u want to pay. Personally, I only really like certain prints/styles and have never bought a bag for full cost cuz that's just my own way to limit my spending ;D different ppl have various ways of collecting the bags and that's cool too. I just hope that the mass-buyers would kinda calm down and jackin' up the price dishonestly!
 
#15
toki_steph i just noticed ur from vacaville! haha my bf goes to the outlet mall there when he's bored at davis lol

moofia: seriously WHERE do they get them from?! o.o
 
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