Some years ago, about a month before the Christmas buying season, we were going through the department store with my then toddler daughter. The "Sing and Snore Ernie" was the newest toy release, and my daughter was thrilled. It would go on to become one of the big holiday toys, although not nearly as big as the "Tickle me Elmo" of the previous year.
After it had grabbed its niche as the big toy of the year, but well before Christmas, I was walking through the same department store as a display full of the popular toys was being stacked in the aisle. Never one to miss an opportunity, I bought one (they had been out of stock for some time) and took it home. I then watched the "bottom line" prices on eBay, determined that it would be worth reselling if the price climbed high enough. It never got high enough for my satisfaction, though, so it was the main Christmas gift for my daughter that year.
My rationale behind the planned sale was sound: if it was about the toy, we knew we could easily get it AFTER Christmas, and with the potential profits to be made, we could have given our daughter a much better Christmas. In return, we would be providing someone else with a gift they considered ESSENTIAL for their children.
This year, the hot item in question is the XBox 360, and already accusations are flying about price gouging and the ethics of reselling the unit at such a large profit margin. In years past, I might have weighed in on the debate myself. But see, I have, over time, learned about supply and demand and why the price they are asking is reasonable, as long as the other is willing to pay it. Interestingly enough, my education in this area was brough about by the post Katrina gas hikes...but I digress.
The people who purchased the Xbox 360 did so at a cost to them. That cost was TIME. They preordered, they sat around and waited for the release, in long lines in many areas. They paid for an item that most of them fully intended to use for their family's Christmas gift, often with hard earned cash that looked to be in great peril of nonexistence during our brief gas crisis. For those individuals, it will take a lot of cash to separate them from their systems.
The potential buyers of these systems are driven by simple motives: They want their children (or themselves) to have an XBox 360 and January 1 is too late for them. They're willing to pay the high prices to ensure that the unit will be sitting under the Christmas tree (I could easily launch into a missive of capitalism vs. socialism in this regard, but I'll refrain from digressing further). And, thanks to the Internet, they HAVE the availability of the systems, but at a price.
The thing about eBay, you must remember, is, it is an AUCTION site. While some items may be available at a "Buy it NOW!" price, the fact is, the market will be driven by the willingness of buyers who will bid up the price. This is how supply and demand works...and it is working quite well. To drop the price of the items, buyers need to do one thing: NOT BID!
Now, there may be a few folks who managed to wrangle large quantities of the gaming unit. If they broke any laws in doing so, they should certainly be punished. But they should NOT be punished for reselling at profit what they have legally obtained. That is, after all, one of the core principles that drives our system.
They just need to remember to pay their taxes!