Priced To Sit vs. Priced to Sell

General and Gaming > Classic Video Games

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teknophyl:
There's a shop about a half hour from me with similar pricing... they have some nice pieces, but I think they take advantage of the fact that they are the "only game in town". And in this case, everything they sell is overpriced. They're selling GBA SPs for $60 used... but they established their cred to me right away with their Vectrex and some excellent JP imports that are way out of my price range.

They rely a lot on their arcade though, which gets a lot of traffic. So I don't see the pricing changing anytime soon.

mayberry:
My leading theory is that some games are literally meant to never sell. I think some stores like having all those big name brand games on display. Flea market guys are the worst. I would almost swear that some of the priced to sit games at flea markets are priced that way so these guys don't have to part with the pieces. It's a weird phenomenon. Reminds me of the "yard sales" on Hoarders where picture frames are $10 each, etc.

blipcs76:
There's a couple of different game stores in my city that have a good selection of retro games and they're not priced too bad. One is definitely worse though. For example, they have a handful of common Saturn games on display, the cheapest of which are around $10. They're never going to move at that price. There's just no market for Saturn games around here.

darko:
I think a lot of it has to do with ignorance when it comes to Flea Markets. The same could be said about certain stores as well. They just see the name Mario and think it's worth something. I don't really think retail stores are concerned with pricing things too high to actually sell. That makes zero economic sense. The chain stores (Vintage Stock for example) most likely have set prices for certain sought after titles based on the fact that the can sell them at that price. Just because a couple of the stores around you have copies that sit doesn't mean that another store isn't selling one copy per day at the same price.

If a company really priced things to sit, they would do just that...until the store went out of business. GameXchange in OK is a prime example of this. They don't follow the rules of supply v demand and are now suffering for it here. Most of the stores around me have been cut down in size, relocated to smaller (cheaper) storefronts, or have closed all together.

teknophyl:

--- Quote from: blipcs76 on May 02, 2012, 09:34:36 am --- There's just no market for Saturn games around here.

--- End quote ---

And I think that's where from a business standpoint the prices will fluctuate so weirdly. If you already have shelf space, there's no reason to price it to move just to get rid of it at a loss. The product cost is already assumed in getting it from wherever it was gotten, so in the end it costs the business zero to leave it there.

That being said, I bet if asked, they'd move on the price, especially if its a small shop.

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