[vfr750]

Maybe I'm old fashioned but I'm saddened to see members of this forum trying to sell Carrera cars etc. from the Argos offer at greatly inflated prices.

I accept that what they are doing is not illegal but I believe it is immoral.

The only people who are likely to go for these "offers" will be new to the forum if not the hobby and I thought that one of the main purposes of the forum is to promote slot racing. Personally, I don't think the moderators should allow such adverts.

Am I wrong?

Rant over.

John

 

[McLaren]

Hey, stop knocking on my business, I'm just a wee student trying to make his way in the world.

Like the advert says, "I'm not a conman, I'm a business man."

I'm selling these cars at £10 under the RRP. If that's not doing people a favour, what is? Oh, selling them at cost... right.

Lotus

 

[mmore]

vfr750,

In my opinion you are wrong. Some of us have taken a lot of time and travelling expense to obtain these bargain sets from Argos. I have made an investment, albeit a small one, in the 40 or so sets I have. There is a saving to any buyer of about £10 on the retail price of a car and a quick calculation tells me that I am offering about £93 of track alone for £14.50 including all the other bits and pieces.

Any one who makes an investment expects to make a return on it. Now, the question is "how much of a return should I make"? The fact of the matter is that I will always liquidate an investment to maximise my profit and the cost price has nothing to do with what a product is worth in the market. The fact that you and some others who read this forum, know how much these sets were is totally irrelevant to what a product is worth.

Perhaps you could tell me where I can purchase new Scalextric Lolas for £15 which I guess is about £10 below the retail price and where can I purchase £93 of new Ninco track for £15? You cannot! Any one who buys these Argos kit items are getting a real bargain.

mmore

 

[astro]

tend to agree with vfr. It definitely looks odd and uncomfortable here, i think u guys shud sell on ebay and post a link on here or summat. Its fine to make a profit, but this isn't the place

 

[mmore]

astro,

So what's the section doing on the forum if it is not for selling and swapping?

mmore

 

[mmore]

Hey check this out here I think I'll increase the prices of the cars by at least £15 to £30.

The track can stay the same!

mmore

 

[McLaren]

LOL, demand meets supply = price increase!

Look if people don't want to buy cheap cars they don't have to. They could create a time machine and travel back in time to when they could get the sets cheap from Argos direct. Oh no, wait, they can't. We are doing them a favour, if they don't want to buy then they won't we'll sell them to other people.

Lotus

 

[Difflock]

Well, yet another diff of opinion! I think it's fine to sell parts of the cheap Argos sets on - the prices asked aren't grossly inflated

hear me out please.

Anyone who comes to SlotForum, even if they are a newbie will have seen the various threads stating the prices that the LeMans sets were bought for i.e. £17.99 or even £29.99. If a newbie decides they want a Bentley or an Audi, then they should have already done a bit of research, either by looking at prices in their local shops for the cars or even accessing prices over the net which is a piece of piss these days. They will have noticed that the usual price for a Carrera car, new (ok it comes in a big plastic box with a pair of spare braids woohoo) is £25.00.
So no worries there then. I haven't bought any Carrera track myself so haven't bothered checking prices, but judging by comments made on here and actually talking to ppl then the track prices aren't inflated either.

Yes I admit, that seeing someone buying 40 sets at once, shocked me initially (in fact I agreed with a comment about vultures at the time), but as can be seen mmore is hardly ripping ppl off with the prices quoted.

So take this to it's extreme then: What about the Porsche 908/2 which Aaron so graciously sent me as a free gift? It cost me nothing to obtain it. Assuming that I'd never taken it out of it's box then what price should I ask?

NOTE: I HAVE taken it out of it's box, tweaked it (it's a FLY model!) and hooned it around a track thus snapping it's rear view mirror in the process of pushing the envelope. I will not be selling the car at any price, unless it becomes part of a job lot if I ever decide that slot racing is not for me.

Yours, putting the A-10 Thunderbolt among a brigade of tanks,
Mark.

 

[Scott B]

QUOTE Any one who buys these Argos kit items are getting a real bargain

But not as much of a bargin as they might have got buying then from Argos.

You are free to drive around buying up sets as you did, but maybe in doing so you prevented another 40 odd people getting the set at that low price.

Then there is the fact you were alerted to the deal by SlotForum members sharing the good news so it seems extra mean spirited to then try to make a quick buck out of those self same people.

It's a timing issue: Had you wanted to sell a few ten year-old cars I doubt anybody would have raised an eyebrow, they might even have welcomed the opportunity to get an otherwise unavailable "classic" at way above the original price. As Hamlet might have said,

Thrift, thrift, vfr750! The discounted Carreras
Did coldly furnish forth the aution tables.

Scott

p.s. Swiss shut down the other thread on this so may well do the same here. perhaps I should. My feeling is you should punt them on eBay, not least as there is a much bigger, less knowledgable audience.

 

[GetSlotted]

QUOTE I accept that what they are doing is not illegal
I doubt if a tax officer or customs inspector will view it in this way. Anyone buying such an amount of sets can't justify that 'they're for my own personal use' especially when splitting them and selling separately to make a profit. It smacks of cross channel booze trips selling cheap **** and booze, which we all know is illegal because you are evading tax and duties. Whats the difference?

nic

 

[Tropi]

A posted declaration of investing time and money in sourcing large numbers of goods, with the specific intention of selling them at a profit is, of course, absolutely legitimate in itself.
But also, beyond any reasonable doubt, it does then define that person as a dealer.
It's a slightly awkward subject and will be discussed in Admin.

 

[GastheerG]

Hi,

This form (still great!) has a swap shop so why not? I'm not involved in any "for sale" but if a forum has a topic like this, I think we must not make a big deal (oeps) out of this. If in a year I dropping a part off my collection I will go for a quick release and low prices and will for sure us also this forum (if the swap shop is still there)
At that moment I not a competitor of the business! If I go to Spain on a holiday and I buy 20 extra cars I'm not a trader. From the 10 cars I buy for myself then I have 2 for free and some race friends can buy a few cheap cars.

And dealers complaining about the swap shop? I think they have give them self already enough (for me to much!) free plugs in other topics!

Gerard

 

[taxi]

And because they are totally honest and above board, we presume those selling will be paying the necessary taxes on the profit of their investment.

I agree that these guys are doing nothing illegal, but it does seem to go against the spirit of the 'swapshop'. When the swapshop was set up, my understanding was that it was for people to offer excess or unwanted items to a small but appreciative market, not for blatant profiteering.

Perhaps, because it is so blatant, you should offer payment for the advertising space?

Just my opinion.

Rob

 

[Swissracer]

We allow individuals to advertise their small offers here in swap shop, there are no real restrictions except that we take no responsibility for the transactions forthcoming and there are to be NO dealers or Retailers. Furthermore, apart from pricing the transactions should be concluded off the Forum.

This IS however a grey area when it comes to many items or many of the same. Possibly we will set a future level on quantity to maintain the spirit of the Forum.

This time we will let it go but to me personally it is simply profiteering and I would rather (as someone has suggested) see them on Ebay with links from here.

I am going to lock this thread down as I did the last one because it offers no further intrinsic value to the Forum.

It might also behoove some people to remember we provide this Forum for everyones enjoyment so if we get on your case because you are taking the proverbial then use the Forum as it was intended and do not take liberties. That way we (the Admin and Moderators) won't have to be perceived as BS merchants spoiling everyones fun.