[TheRaizin]

Quote:

Originally Posted by KaiserBlue

Hey Everybody! Ive always wondered this about rider toys but what factors determine how high the price is for a toy on the aftermarket. Ive just been looking at gaim and some stuff from other series and the prices for like the final form items at times has been bonkers, i know gaim is popular and thats a factor, but i used to see it with stuff from less popular series as well. Its just something thats always confounded me when hunting for stuff and was wondering if somebody knew why some stuff goes so far up in price, especially retail stuff, like the suprise future shift car set. Is it just scalpers?

Popularity is one of the higher factors, I feel. Especially P-Bandai. Scalping I think is really only a problem for retail items and Ultraman stuff. A common reason I see around, especially during, say, a SHF Ultraman's release window, were 'Chinese bots' or something. Premium Bandai has already been combatting this by outright banning foreigners from checking out the P-Bandai page. Dunno how effective that has been tho.

Going back to popularity, a character's popularity will make sure they skyrocket in the aftermarket. It starts with someone probably selling the figure for a high price in Yahoo Auctions, so they become a rarity since not many will purchase it because of the price. Aftermarkets like Mandarake start to notice and thus put up advertisements around looking for said figure for this price. At least that's what I think those huge posters of lists of figures with price beneath them in Akibahara were for. They certainly didn't have have them in stock in that store, so I deduced they were looking for them.

Just my two cents.