Scalping: What Is It, Why Does It Happen & How to Combat It

Scalping sounds ridiculously painful. And when it comes to your desires and your wallet, it really can be.

What Is Scalping?

Ever tried to get a ticket to a gig, only to find they have all sold out within the first five minutes? It can be soul destroying. But what makes it ten thousand times worse, is within half an hour, tickets will be on sale on Facebook, eBay, and ticket sites, for three times the price.

More recently, the same thing has happened with the PS5 and the Xbox S/X, amongst other gaming consoles. The PlayStation 5 was released in November 2020 in the UK. It has also been almost permanently out of stock ever since.

Several companies, including (but not limited to) Game, Argos and Amazon have all had intermittent restocks. However, they fly off the virtual shelves as quickly as they come in.

The few places you are almost guarantee to find the beloved consoles are sale sites; eBay, Facebook, and OnBuy.com.

But with the price averaging around £600 on these sites, they are almost double the price you’d pay from company retailers, rather than individual sellers.

This is due to individuals, as well as bots, purchasing the consoles, purely to sell on for a profit.

Why Does It Happen?

The long and short of it is a supply and demand issue. There is more demand than the company in question can supply.

When it comes to games consoles, there have also been outside factors that have added to the delays. Covid19 (there’s that lovely word again) has caused significant delays, mainly due to the fact that most companies, from the factories to delivery drivers being on a skeletal staff. Because of this, something that may require 1,000 workers a week to produce, hasn’t been able to meet deadlines as they had minimal staff.

Add to that a global shortage of parts for the consoles, as well as a giant ship blocking the Suez Canal, meaning even more delays, and… You can clearly see why there have been supply issues.

Finally, a huge spike in pre orders has effectively been the cherry on top, just to slow down an already sluggish process.

How to Combat It?

Scalping is morally wrong, although technically not illegal yet in the UK. There have been several petitions doing the rounds, trying to put a stop to people getting away with it.

Some companies have stuck to the rule of ‘1 per customer’ rule, which sounds good in practise but in theory is almost impossible to police. Getting a new email address takes all of two minutes, and arranging delivery to family/ friends instead of your already registered address is easy enough.

The other way to beat the bots and save your pennies is to be prepared to travel. Many stores are now releasing less online, due to the bots, and purely selling them in store.

If you are desperate for the new console and absolutely cannot wait, then get on eBay and the likes – just be prepared to pay through the nose for it!