Is this unethical?

There is a popular camera that is hard to find and on backorder at many retailers. Someone buys a few and offers for sale at a large markup.
This seems unethical to me, as it deprives some people from buying the camera at the normal price. It reminds me of a ticket scalper.

Or am I wrong? Maybe it's just the business cycle of buy & sell.
What's your opinion?

It's selfish, like hoarding toilet paper, though on a lesser scale because a particular camera isn't a necessity. I don't approve. I recognize that opinions will differ. Sometimes I've been called judgmental in real life.

What if someone bought up all copies of the camera instead of a few? Would that decide the question for you? Or if other buyers were made to wait very long, say two years? If the markup were 10% or 1000%?

Certainly not ethical (in my eyes). I'd buy used rather than give the person satisfaction. If everyone thought that way, he'd be stuck with a lot of cameras on his kitchen countertop.

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I don't see anything unethical at all about doing that.

Years ago I made a substantial part of my living buying things low and selling higher. . It's how I funded my life during times of underemployment and unemployment and very low paying employment. . I would search for anything at all that I thought I could sell for more than I would pay for it. . This often involved finding things that I knew there was a high demand for, and swooping items up before anyone else had a chance to buy them. . Gotta be quick!

This buying and selling kept me afloat and allowed me to have a moderately enjoyable life during times of employment hardship. . It entailed a fair amount of hard work, and also involved some risk and short-term sacrifice, as the precious few dollars I had were always tied up in the things that I invested in, and if I couldn't turn these things around for a profit rather quickly, I was gonna be hurtin'.

My brothers go to Good Will stores and other thrift stores, find old/antique items that are severely underpriced, buy them, research them, photograph them, create ads for them, and sell them for an exponential return on their investment. . They work very hard at this, and the money they make provides for their families and pays their mortgages and their health insurance and everything else.

Purchasing something, taking out an ad for it, communicating with sellers, packing the item, and shipping the item is WORK, and I respect anyone who is willing to do some work in order to advance their financial position.


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I'm with Tom, this is not unethical but normal in all business transactions. Even today you do not buy your camera from the Canon factory but from some retailer. They did exactly the same thing, purchased the camera from some distributor who purchased it from Canon. It's the product food chain.

gjl711 wrote in post #19174711
I'm with Tom, this is not unethical but normal in all business transactions. Even today you do not buy your camera from the Canon factory but from some retailer. They did exactly the same thing, purchased the camera from some distributor who purchased it from Canon. It's the product food chain.

What I described is not normal in all business transactions. Read my first post again.

So what do you call it when someone buys the product from the manufacturer at a very low price in bulk and then sells it to you at a significantly higher price point?

That's literally what sales is.

I'm not saying its a nice thing to do. Scalping is not nice. But it's no different than Amazon or B&H or Adorama buying cameras, lenses, lighting for a low price directly from manufacturer/distribut​or and then selling it to you for more than 4x or more what they paid for it, for profit.

Cars... Cameras... FOOD even. It's all the same if you're buying it. You bought a marked up item someone bought for much lower and they're getting profit off of you.

Very best,

I guess they are gaining of addicts who can't hold it for couple of months.

MalVeauX wrote in post #19174735
So what do you call it when someone buys the product from the manufacturer at a very low price in bulk and then sells it to you at a significantly higher price point?

That's literally what sales is.

I'm not saying its a nice thing to do. Scalping is not nice. But it's no different than Amazon or B&H or Adorama buying cameras, lenses, lighting for a low price directly from manufacturer/distribut​or and then selling it to you for more than 4x or more what they paid for it, for profit.

Cars... Cameras... FOOD even. It's all the same if you're buying it. You bought a marked up item someone bought for much lower and they're getting profit off of you.

Very best,

I see it very different from what B&H or amazon do. In my first post the item is in demand and in short supply at retailers. This happens sometimes with camera gear - especially lenses. They become available a few at a time. If one buys several of the items when they are hard to get, this takes away the opportunity for others to buy from the retail store at a normal price. People must wait much longer for the item until the retail store restocks the item.

You call this scalping and say it is not nice. Do you consider this unethical?

It's supply and demand. If the market will support another layer of middlemen, that layer will emerge. If it's a problem, the market has remedies. Manufacturers could make warranty claims difficult for buyers or punish authorized dealers for feeding the secondary markets.

At this point, though, it sounds like more of a solution than a problem. It's just the market's way of allocating scare resources. People offering more money jump in front. No news there. You can pay more to jump or wait until supply catches up with demand. That usually doesn't take long.

I'd like to make a distinction that's been glossed over. What the OP described goes beyond the ordinary middleman role. Retailers add value to a product. For example, they may make the product available in a customer's locale. They carry several brands and models, which helps with decisions about what to buy. They give information that you wouldn't get from a manufacturer. Of course, they charge more than the wholesale price they paid–that's how they're compensated for their work–but you get something in return.

Creating a shortage or exploiting an existing shortage for the sake of profit is different. It withholds goods from customers in order to make them needy enough to pay more. I throw you into the ocean so I can sell you a life preserver.

Moral development, one popular theory

Supply and demand. Still a douchebag move though.

I personally don’t find scalping ethical. I always like it when someone does this then can’t sell the item and is stuck with it or has to sell it for a loss.

People here have been doing it for the PS5 but thankfully sites like Gumtree and eBay often take the ads down.

Perfectly Frank wrote in post #19174806
I see it very different from what B&H or amazon do. In my first post the item is in demand and in short supply at retailers. This happens sometimes with camera gear - especially lenses. They become available a few at a time. If one buys several of the items when they are hard to get, this takes away the opportunity for others to buy from the retail store at a normal price. People must wait much longer for the item until the retail store restocks the item.

You call this scalping and say it is not nice. Do you consider this unethical?

I don't consider it unethical.

I don't like it, I don't think it's nice (scalping), and I wouldn't do it myself. But that doesn't make it unethical business practice.

The behavior and act is no different from any business sales you experience. The difference is simply you have an emotional investment in the camera stuff that spawned you to want to talk about this. So I cannot call this unethical because it would be illogical and hypocritical of me to think the practice is any different, simply on a different scale (in this case, micro-scale) than common transaction practice in sales at all levels.

Diamonds?
Gold?
Cars?
Bread?

Every single time you buy something, you're supporting this practice, simply on a much larger scale. It's not different. The scale is different. Major chains and corps crushing local business is a good example of this. They were able to buy bulk, low, and destroy the other small business's ability to get stock at all, choking their sales (Amazon, Walmart, etc). This is the same practice, just on a different scale.

I understand what you're getting at, the idea that someone who is there at the time takes the opportunity to buy up everything and then either horde it or re-sell it to others that missed the opportunity at a mark up that gives them a financial gain. But again, this is an emotional response for having an emotional investment in the product or people involved. But the practice is not different than any business sales practice, you're just seeing it at a micro-scale here and not linking it to the macro-scale of the same thing when you look at distribution and MSRP tactics, or sales in general. That's all it is.

To make it unethical would require that someone is breaking established principle or law that can be referenced, not some unwritten morale code that anyone can abide by or not at will when it suites them with no consequence (like religion). If the seller(s) have a limited number of purchases of the item per person, and that person makes 1000 accounts and buys all of them against that policy and against the policy of how many accounts they are permitted to have and all the bits that go along with that process, then sells them for markup, then I could agree that a practice like that is unethical because it went against an established policy and represents unethical behavior that can be referenced and treads the terms of legality. That's just an example, not the only way on this subject, but the point is made.

I'm not trying to be tongue in cheek or poke fun or be demeaning at all either. Just having conversation and pointing out the logic.

Very best,

Whether or not it is ethical could be a very long and existential conversation. I think the words you used in your original post define the responses. People tend toward situational ethics as can be seen from any number of examples in politics and the press.

I see a huge difference in buying something from an OEM and marking it up for sales vs. buying something at retail and gouging individuals who are too stupid to wait. It is exactly like hoarding toilet paper, a 100% douche move and unethical.

No-one is forcing you to buy it though, so in that respect, you're your own worst enemy. This only happens when stupid people behave badly, which we've also seen plenty of lately as well.

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you is generally a decent space to occupy.