Gunslinger
Member
Make more unit rather than under producing to generate fake hype. And limit 1 per address and customers.
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How can companies like Nintendo really combat scalpers and their bots?
- Thread starter PunjabiPlaya
- Start date
Hispanic! At the Disco
Member
If they kept making as they sold, things like SNES and NES classic wouldnt be an issue because I'd eventually get one.
There would still be scalpers but it wouldnt be so bad. I was seeing NES classics for $80 before we found out they were stopping production, then it skyrocketed.
There would still be scalpers but it wouldnt be so bad. I was seeing NES classics for $80 before we found out they were stopping production, then it skyrocketed.
First post answered perfectly, what are in the 7 next pages?
Especially for an item like the classic series, which is literally made of the cheapest smartphone parts Nintendo could find so supply shouldn't be an issue. So what if you overproduce a few thousand units, much better than underproducing.
Especially for an item like the classic series, which is literally made of the cheapest smartphone parts Nintendo could find so supply shouldn't be an issue. So what if you overproduce a few thousand units, much better than underproducing.
Honest question you guys - how are Nintendo supposed to make "enough to meet demand"? They can't take preorders and just make that many - that's not how retail works, and it's not how production lines work. So moving on to the next one.
Making a ton of them: this will never work either. Scalpers will just buy more of them because it's limited.
Think about it - let's say Nintendo allowed 1 million preorders last week, and 750,000 of them were scalpers.
If they made 2 million, those scalpers running bots would have just sucked up anything extra.
What about 10 million? Well, now the entire second hand market would be a saturated mess, but they still would _never_ sit on store shelves. And Nintendo clearly can't make that many anyway, so the whole comparison is pointless.
My overall point, is that even if they could saturate shelves everywhere, retailers would not like that, and resellers would still claim _most_ of them.
The issue is having anything limited edition, and after the NES Classic, there is literally no _produceable_ number of units that would have avoided scalping. You'd just have people hoarding them for months, slowly trickling them through eBay as to not have to cut the competition.
So many armchair economists ITT, my god.
Making a ton of them: this will never work either. Scalpers will just buy more of them because it's limited.
Think about it - let's say Nintendo allowed 1 million preorders last week, and 750,000 of them were scalpers.
If they made 2 million, those scalpers running bots would have just sucked up anything extra.
What about 10 million? Well, now the entire second hand market would be a saturated mess, but they still would _never_ sit on store shelves. And Nintendo clearly can't make that many anyway, so the whole comparison is pointless.
My overall point, is that even if they could saturate shelves everywhere, retailers would not like that, and resellers would still claim _most_ of them.
The issue is having anything limited edition, and after the NES Classic, there is literally no _produceable_ number of units that would have avoided scalping. You'd just have people hoarding them for months, slowly trickling them through eBay as to not have to cut the competition.
So many armchair economists ITT, my god.
So it's Nintendo's fault that bots order all available units on a third party site? They should overproduce units to counter bots? What fucking nonsense. The only thing Nintendo could do is not open preorders to vendors susceptible to bots. They are at fault for a lot, including under producing NES minis (and almost certainly SNES minis too, though it's too early to tell), but vendors getting hit by bots is not on them.
iamsirjoshua
Member
This has probably already been stated, but it's been clearly identified here that demand exceeds supply. In the past, Nintendo has been poor at predicting demand, so they've overproduced, losing them money and irking retailers. Now, they've become highly conservative in their estimates to prevent this.
The solution, which is easier said than done, but seems necessary, is to hire better analysts. Especially when they're on a second iteration of a product like the "mini" line, they should be able to get a much better such of what the equilibrium point is going to be between what they can produce and what the market reasonably wants. The fact that this doesn't seem to be an issue for other manufacturers in the same industry is what's a bit baffling.
The solution, which is easier said than done, but seems necessary, is to hire better analysts. Especially when they're on a second iteration of a product like the "mini" line, they should be able to get a much better such of what the equilibrium point is going to be between what they can produce and what the market reasonably wants. The fact that this doesn't seem to be an issue for other manufacturers in the same industry is what's a bit baffling.
dragonyeuw
Member
Nintendo has created this issue by making it a limited item. Preorders, production lines, and the inner workings of retail all seem to be 'issues' that they seem unable or unwilling to work around. This is a company that has been mass-producing video game hardware for over 30 years; this isn't their first rodeo. If this was a product which Nintendo was producing for an unspecified time period, then scalpers would eat up the early stock, then supply would eventually catch up. As more stock hits the market and it becomes a 'little' easier to find one at retail, the resellers will start undercutting each other which will slowly drive those prices downwards. That's not going to happen here, because Nintendo is only producing this things over a 3 month period of retail availability for the fall/holiday season; that's not enough time for the market to course-correct where supply comes even close to demand. It's a perfect breeding ground for scalpers, as well as desperate costumers in a perpetual ' I GOTTA HAVE IT NOW' mentality. That's my armchair analyst take on the subject.
UserNotFound
Member
The most obvious solution here is to put these games on a Switch cart for 80 bucks and double the retail price if a physical SNES Classic.
If it's actually a limited release novelty items, price it as one and give out limited release cards. Pulling this Disney vault nonsense, get out of here.
robotzombie
Member
You shouldn't complain about people being armchair economists when you don't have a basic understanding of supply and demand
Sufficient distribution:
- sell them yourself (Nintendo is taking steps towards this, Nintendo UK and Nintendo Japan now have their own online stores, still super early days though)
- limit sales to one unit per customer
- let customers either login with their MyNintendo account or pass a short test before ordering
All of this would lead to Nintendo servers melting, mind you.
Sufficient production:
- made-to-order, you order one, we manufacture one
This sounds great on paper but such a plan is difficult to pull off. It's easier to just determine a fixed amount of units and go from there for your supply chain. This would also need long planning time, I'm not sure many people would want to pay a significant amount of money several months upfront. It sounds like the perfect solution for the problem on hand but it's tricky. And again, servers would melt under all the demand concentrated on just one website to pre-order.
Decrease demand:
- make it more expensive
- release the same games for the same or lower price on Switch VC
Whether or not Nintendo is interested in any of this is a different question.
- sell them yourself (Nintendo is taking steps towards this, Nintendo UK and Nintendo Japan now have their own online stores, still super early days though)
- limit sales to one unit per customer
- let customers either login with their MyNintendo account or pass a short test before ordering
All of this would lead to Nintendo servers melting, mind you.
Sufficient production:
- made-to-order, you order one, we manufacture one
This sounds great on paper but such a plan is difficult to pull off. It's easier to just determine a fixed amount of units and go from there for your supply chain. This would also need long planning time, I'm not sure many people would want to pay a significant amount of money several months upfront. It sounds like the perfect solution for the problem on hand but it's tricky. And again, servers would melt under all the demand concentrated on just one website to pre-order.
Decrease demand:
- make it more expensive
- release the same games for the same or lower price on Switch VC
Whether or not Nintendo is interested in any of this is a different question.
This is simple. If you have enough in the supply chain, no one is going to buy from a scalper, they'll buy from a store.
The thing op doesnt seem to realize is that scalpers are simply capitalizing on the demand that Nintendo is failing to meet. the more units in the supply chain, the more of the demand Nintendo will be able to meet. Even if scalpers do buy up large amounts of initial stock, The knowledge that stock will quick replenish will depress the amount of money customers are willing to give to scalpers - which in turn depresses the value of scalping.
The thing op doesnt seem to realize is that scalpers are simply capitalizing on the demand that Nintendo is failing to meet. the more units in the supply chain, the more of the demand Nintendo will be able to meet. Even if scalpers do buy up large amounts of initial stock, The knowledge that stock will quick replenish will depress the amount of money customers are willing to give to scalpers - which in turn depresses the value of scalping.
The only snes/NES mini related things that I see not being limited is a 40 dollar switch cart with every game on NES mini and a 60 Dollar switch cart with every game on SNES mini
Sonic Rift
Member
This seems like an excellent way to go. I assume they'd want some units in stores as well to attract impulse purchases, but if Nintendo really wanted to move these things, allowing ordering in advance of production would be the easiest way for them to meet demand.
Shao Kahn Brewing a Stew
Banned
Here's how you combat scalpers:
1. Provide a big chunk of preorders through your own store (including console marketplace/stores), requiring gamertag to go with the product, and limiting one order per account.
2. Ship only to credit card holder's address, still limiting to one order per household.
3. Provide unique presale codes to gamertags, one per customer.
4. Increase production to higher degree, ensuring everyone that really wants it gets it.
5. Partner up with eBay and Kijiji, and delete ads for unreleased products, and avoid anything to be sold for more than 1.5x the MSRP.
6. Communicate with consumers providing time and date for pre-ordering rare items, and making the ordering a ticketed system, where staying in queue guarantees the order, and leaving queue will move you to the back of line,
7. Flag accounts with multiple orders for future purchases, limiting them even further.
1. Provide a big chunk of preorders through your own store (including console marketplace/stores), requiring gamertag to go with the product, and limiting one order per account.
2. Ship only to credit card holder's address, still limiting to one order per household.
3. Provide unique presale codes to gamertags, one per customer.
4. Increase production to higher degree, ensuring everyone that really wants it gets it.
5. Partner up with eBay and Kijiji, and delete ads for unreleased products, and avoid anything to be sold for more than 1.5x the MSRP.
6. Communicate with consumers providing time and date for pre-ordering rare items, and making the ordering a ticketed system, where staying in queue guarantees the order, and leaving queue will move you to the back of line,
7. Flag accounts with multiple orders for future purchases, limiting them even further.