Knowing several Bricklink sellers personally, it’s not so much a lack of ethics that makes a profit if the littler stores beneath yours can undershoot the price and sell their sets and parts because nobody will touch the price of yours. There’s also the issue of one or two people artificially jacking the prices up by heavily inflating the value of a given item, making it allegedly worth a great deal more than it actually is.
Take this piece, for instance:
It appears in white in the brand-new, honestly quite ugly Bugs Bunny set (40920) which released at the beginning of the year. The retail price is $40 USD, but this particular piece (in white) has been jacked up to $8 - for all four that come in the set, you are paying nearly the price of the entire set just to obtain them.
This is all due to the handiwork of one Bricklink seller who single-handedly decided what the piece was worth. There are definable metrics to determining the validity of a resale estimation, such as the frequency of pieces in a given set appearing in other sets, if the line has proven desirable in the eyes of the general consumer, or other such standards for determining worth. But the result of this decision is another store has backed up the estimation with a slightly cheaper price to compete.
Most Bricklink resellers aren’t unethical, penny-pinching scrooges who thrive off the improper sale of low-value items, but there are a select few who tamper with the markets to set expectations well in advance of the rest of the sellers having the opportunity to assess things for themselves, not to mention the rest of the world.
Bionicle (and Hero Factory) have both felt the effects of the aftermarket for Bionicle G2, which is so ridiculously valuable at this point that few other themes can compare. Bionicle, as a whole, will undoubtedly get more expensive after the next few releases, so those with Bionicle investments will receive ample opportunity to cash in on their investment.
I have my thoughts on collectors as well, but I think it’s better suited for a different topic.
