Money stronger than common sense and morality? Scalpers have made their business out of it with the shortage of Xbox Series X and PS5. The pandemic has helped them a lot and they are not about to stop. Worse still, these are no longer hidden and appear in the major US media.
A very lucrative business
With the release of the Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 in November 2020, the phenomenon of scalping has greatly intensified over the past year. A practice which continues to see its interest increased with scalpers who will certainly want to continue to fill their pockets throughout this year again.
But in fact scalping, what is it? what is it? To sum up simply, this technique consists of buying one or even several products and then reselling them at prices much higher than those you might see displayed in the trade. It is simply speculation on a future gain linked to a shortage on the market.
An extremely burdensome situation for the British population who have already asked the government on numerous occasions to stem this practical while some have not been able to offer Xbox Series X or PS5 to their children for Christmas.
In the field, these claims have not been followed by concrete results until now, but hope is not lost. Of course, the current pandemic is one of the important factors that led to this situation since the shortage of components also persists.
Anyway, this situation does not seem to bother Jack Bayliss at all, young 24 year old scalper, owner of the Aftermarket Arbitrage site which uses software to track stocks retailers and thus warn its “customers” about the availability of the consoles. A service that Jack Bayliss charges up to 24 pounds per month, or approximately 35 euros.
Far from hiding, he explained his motivations and his state of spirit at the microphone of Sky news.
Yes, some families will have to pay 100 £ more, but what we don’t think about is our members who own 30 consoles and earning 24 £ on each of them. They earn a good month’s salary in just a few days.
This one explains that he started this business with sneakers . He explains that he simply adapted when he noticed a shortage and a problem between supply and demand in order to take advantage of it.
If you look at the stock market, the moment you see an arbitrage opportunity, where someone thinks a asset is undervalued, traders will jump on it and take advantage. This is exactly what we are doing.
The young scalper adds that this is all about capitalism and that ‘just take a look at the supply chain to see that everyone is adding value somewhere. Jack Bayliss says he is “very in tune with his moral compass as a person” , but disturbed when he is told that his company prevents families from affording a game console.
He says he realizes the flip side of the coin and the how the public and the media view scalpers. However, this does not seem to cause him many moral problems, especially for products of this kind.
For me, owning the PS5 or an Xbox isn’t a necessity, it’s a luxury, okay? If you can afford to spend 445 £, spend the 445 extra £ should be pretty marginal if you have enough money to throw around for it.
According to him, some users of his service were able to pay off their debts by reselling their more expensive consoles afterwards.
More and more voices are raised
Wanting imperatively to put an end to this harmful habit for the various signs as for the consumers, the deputy Douglas Chapman asked that this practice be prohibited in the same way as the sale of tickets, receiving by the the same occasion the support of his fellow MPs.
In addition to his speech, Douglas Chapman also wrote to Nadine Dorries, Secretary of State for Digital Affairs, to ask the government to reconsider the ban on use of automated robots designed to purchase goods in large quantities for resale te.
Her Majesty’s Government has for its part opened discussions with professional associations to ensure that consumers are protected against wholesale purchases, on the same principle as the prohibition of automated purchases of tickets for the various events in the country. A few weeks ago, the US government took similar steps.
The young scalper is not worried, however, since he does not use a bot to recover his consoles en masse.
If there was legislation on this, it would benefit me since those few people who still use bots and secure consoles in mass could no longer do it. But I don’t think that will happen. I don’t think it’s feasible.