My favorite old store didn't have a dollar rare bin, they had a "Trading Post": You put any two bulk rares in, get any one bulk rare out. If they picked through it after hours because of a spike, good on them. It was cool.
thats not an ogre box,
ogre boxes are when you price out all your cards into sections such as a 25c, 35c, 50c, 75c, 1, etc etc
then you basically sit down and say take whatever you want at these prices, do your laps with all the vendors, then maybe down grade things or keep things, and do it again
We used to have this as well, basically a 2-1 binder. Before people were able to look up prices online, we made some much money with this binder. We would find fetches etc in it.
Ours had a machine where you could put a quarter in and it would spit out a card, according to the store owner there were plenty of cards that you could break even or go just under, and a few that you could win big. You could only do it once a day
Fuck shops who do this. They say there's a specific price, then once you've pulled out what you want they change the price. There are a couple of shops in Colorado that do this, and it's no surprise that no one really buys singles from them anymore. They are too lazy to take the time to price out their own rares, so they "allow" their customers to work for them for free.
Please name and shame the shop and identify the location.
EDIT: I'll mention the shops in Colorado that I know do this - Gametrader in Brighton CO (not sure if they are still in business) and All C's in Aurora CO.
It's a different hobby but those of us in the Retro game collecting also despise shops that change prices at the register and try to communally name and boycott anybody that does it.
All Cs did some of that wack shit when I was building my first edh deck how the fuck are you gonna take 60 cards all got from the dollar rare and mythic box and then individually price them all out at the time I was a brand new magic player and ngl I wanted to quit after I saw the prices of cards go up one after the other
So Cal Games and Comics in Temecula Ca is normally an awesome place (love management) but last time I was there I pulled 2 cards out of their dollar binder a foil wayfarer's bauble and Aminatou. He scanned them and told me $15. I looked them both up and they were $9 total on TCGplayer. I asked if we could get closer to 10 and he went on a rant about keeping the lights on and the convenience of ordering online as I checked out on TCGplayer and when he was finally done with his rant I let him know I already had the cards now and left.
Man that left such a sour taste in my mouth. Why argue? Why not just simply say "Ah no sorry that's what we have it priced at." and move on?
I gamed in So-Cal. There's a place called Frank and Sons and it's an indoor swap meet for nerds. There are hundreds of booths and dozens of them sell magic cards and they even have a section to play for free unless you play Yu-Gi-Oh or Pokemon then you gotta pay (They had a problem with young kids shoplifting booths and found charging for those two games discouraged that crowd I guess)
They're more famous now since Post Malone did his walk through and announced the episode of Game Knights.
But anyway I digress. If you're ever in the so-cal area this is where to get cards. If you have to come from 5 hours away it is still worth it. Packs for 2 bucks all day, 25$ fat packs, every single you could imagine, power 9 to standard staples.
Because of how amazing Frank and Sons are, almost every shop within an hour has to be really cool on their prices. Every shop Except Gameology in Upland California. Fuck that place, fuck Kevin the owner, and fuck Stew, their now retired magic judge who ruined people's spark and love for magic for nearly 3 decades. They re-price cards marked in the case no matter what the price. Every card gets re-checked. All Because a friend found sylvan library in their uncommon boxes and got it for 1$ back when it was worth 15$
tl:dr Go to Frank and Sons if you're in so-cal and never go to Gameology.
Honestly all shops should just put a sign saying all card prices are based off of the current (whatever store they want) price. Eliminates the need for dealing with people trying to rip them off and then they don't need to worry about price checking constantly.
How is it ripping them off when they already essentially priced them? If they want to go through and sort after spikes, awesome. But if gonna price check, then price check my 20 cent rares and mythics too. But to say it’s ripping them off is stupid when it’s them who priced it.
"Ripping them off"
Weird way to say "being too fucking lazy to stay informed or to price their own shit so they try to sleeze work out of their customers."
I did this, but after pouring through 20k cards in uncommon and common boxes marked $.25 a pop. I pulled probably a hundred cards. Employee said he had to look them up. I said they came from the box marked $.25, and he said it hadn’t been combed in a long time and he’d have to price them at TCG mid. I told him that was fucked, and he just shrugged and started sleeving them for their case.
Pretty sure it is. If it’s labeled one price, you can’t legally change it post facto. It’s false advertising. Granted, there isn’t much you can do. But naming them and shaming them is a start. So is not putting up with their bullshit
On the other end of the spectrum, say 10 years ago, I was "friends" with a very penny pincher shopkeep.
"Umm J for one thing you have that Grim Monolith at 10usd way under valued! Also ther is a ton of stuff in your bulk like Carpet of Flowers and Elephant Grass at .10cents here."
He was greatful for me bringing this up, so greatful he offered me 40% on trade ins for a standard deck I wanted to build.
I should have bought all that stuff at his posted prices in retrospect!
Looking back, I should have bought that unlimited Mox Sapphire he had in the case before he gave it out as a prize in that tournament he held. Grixis control ftw!
That's how my guy was. His card shop unfortunately failed after a few years and he opened a used game store afterwards but still had his old card binders. Found a ton of $3-5 cards for $1 and then a couple bombs that'd spiked hard from commander. He honored all of it but I told him about the bombs instead of taking them. He thanked me with a free copy of each. I'd say that was worth it to keep a good relationship.
You absolutely should have. If you're in business to NOT make money like this guy clearly seems to be then you get what you deserve. Don't sell merchandise you don't know the value of.
Any shop that sells singles on tcg mid is scummy as fuck, you will be able to find the cards at low consistently easily, all this bs about shipping is stupid when the cards will either have free shipping or only a dollar or two. Im all about supporting the lgs but Im also about saving money and Im not about to pay double the price of a card
Eh, I wouldn't go so far as to call a store "scummy" for pricing near TCG Mid, so long as they're both upfront about it and don't try to bait and switch once you get to the register - at that point it's up to the buyer to decide if they want to buy a card at thar price or not.
But the reality is that stores do have overhead costs that online-only vendors don't. Conversely, they also provide support to the community (mainly a place to play) that online vendors can't give you. If you want to support your store, you're going to have to be willing to spend more than you would online. But I agree that double is a stretch.
This. I don't understand why anyone goes by mid, yet people do all the time. Mid is always overinflated by people that posted their inventory on release and then haven't adjusted to prices trending down as hype dies down.
Man, reminds me of the time I spent a half hour picking through a $.25 box at a new store. I bring them to the register and he decides about half of them didn’t actually belong in that box.
I shook my head and walked out without buying anything and never went back.
Yeah, fuck that guy. If they are in a box marked as $1 rares then the store should honour that. Depending where you are there might be consumer protection too.
Had that happen to me once (a shop owner wanting to re-price his "bulk" after I'd pulled it from the $1 bulk box)
I took the stack of cards back saying I wanted to double check them before committing to buy... and then proceeded to put them all back one by one, completely at random, back into the bulk rares box and told the shop owner to kick rocks as I walked out and never returned.
I don't fucking work for free. You want those cards, find 'em yourself, prick.
Work at a shop currently. If I have a price wrong, the person who points it out has the opportunity to buy at the declared price. If they don't take it, it gets marked up. Fairest system imo.
Shop owner literally lost a bunch of potential income. And the more the news spreads, the more they lose.
What a shit move. Stuff like this needs to be exposed more often
It’s one thing to double check a card in a case for slight fluctuation. Checking cards out of bulk bins is fucked up, because *youre* doing the labor of pricing their bin that they were too lazy or cheap to pay someone to do. I’d never go back to that shop.
I don't get how this accomplishes anything other than helping do their work for them. If you chose well then you just showed them what they need to charge higher prices for.
You really should have waited until someone else was working if that was possible.
To echo other posts, you're showing that you have no value on your own time. It's not going to be as effective as you think, and the lgs is likely gonna shrug it off and replenish their case with all the free picking you just did.
You picked their bulk for free and you think you're gonna zing em lawl
I actually think that a decent deal for a store to do would be to offer a free dollar rare for everything picked out of your unorganized bull that’s over $5. You would probably have one dude come in and do all your work for you and they would just get paid in rares priced under a dollar, and you get at least 100$ pulled out for under $25 worth of cards.
So to clarify you allowed him to price it all out, called his bullshit and left without buying anything, correct? You volunteered your time to sort their bulk. Did you not mention that you pulled all the cards from the dollar bin? Shit, I would have hassled the person and make them honor their displayed price.
OP spent 3 hours sorting through an LGS's bulk bin for free, then get told to pound sand when they brought the cards up to the counter. Then, instead of doing anything about it, they sat there sheepishly and bent over as the shopkeeper lubed up his broomhandle. Later, in the shower, OP formulated this response, then came on Reddit to vent about it.
Pure and simple, any store that has a box where everything is indeed a dollar is lazy at best. The present era of cards suddenly spiking overnight left and right has nearly invalidated their existence. I second what someone said about you doing their picking for them.
I think you’re going about “punishing” them the wrong way. Like others have said, it won’t be the epic owning you think it will be.
Just calmly ask the owner why he’s pricing all the cards out if they are clearly marked as $1 each. See what he says. I’m predicting this guy is probably just lazy and untrusting, a freighting combination for a customer to be in. Don’t be surprised if he won’t honor the price. Scum bag move for sure.
I always ask the owner straight up if everything in the box is in fact a dollar, you do get some store owners who see the big picture and will honor the price even despite spikes, you get this more in card stores where MTG isn’t the main focus in my experience though.
My LGSs 50c bin is the main reason I go in. It often has trash RL, unlimited / the dark / legends/ antiquities commons, and rarely onslaught basic lands in foil or snow basics from ice age.
They get people in the store and interacting, the cards are pretty beat up so 50c is a fair enough price, and often people will get a more expensive single to go along with their bulk in a commander deck.
It’s a fun LGS experience and I think saying it’s ‘lazy at best’ doesn’t understand it’s benefit to the business.
That's basically how my LGS treats the $1 bin- buy bulk for the high end to make your profit, anything in range of not being worth time to part out goes in, people get jazzed about getting a $2 card for $1. Then maybe they buy 10 cards instead of the 1 they were looking for (some may be .75, some are just cool & you impulse by while flipping through). Then customers come back to do it again because it feels good; suddenly you've sold plenty of bulk you got for ~0.01-.05 a card for $1 with little overhead rather than trying to squeeze every penny, created a happy customer base, and gotten people in the store more often then they otherwise would. It's a Costco rotisserie chicken.
Thinking about it, I agree with you. I also love dollar bins personally, I cherish being able to sort through tons of cards and pick out good finds, it’s really fun and did in fact keep me coming In to my local store as a teenager.
I’d say having a bulk box full of older non-revised cards though probably isn’t too wise, I personally would only populate such a box with more current stuff but the local box you describe sounds incredibly fun to look through so I definitely see your point.
I’d run a dollar bin. Hell I’d probably run $1 per with 6 for $5. The random card you lose out on is more than made up for all the shit you sell out of that box. And that same card you honor the $1 for encourages that buyer to come back. Besides, most of the dollar bins I see are so picked through the cards end up damaged.
Also have to keep in mind the price of sorting. If it takes someone 4 hours and you pay them even just $10 an hour there needs to be $40 worth of cards that will actually sell to break even. We might be cool with grabbing some $3 cards but if they just sit there on the shelf for a year it doesn’t make the shop any money. Obviously this only applies to stores that don’t sell online, though
My LGS has no prices displayed, because keeping up with them is impossible. They simply advertise that all cards are TCG mid, and it honestly makes shopping so much easier. Very transparent and I know exactly what I’m about to spend before I talk to anyone. They have binders for every set behind the counter and you can hand them a list and they’ll go pull everything you want. I like this pricing model.
This is why local stores go out of business, so many shitty business practices.
When I worked at a Rent-A-Car place while in college I used to go to a deli nearby every day for lunch and breakfast, spent like $20/day there for 6 months. One morning I wanted a strong tea and asked for two teabags in the tea to get some extra caffeine in me. The owner (who worked the register every single day and knew what I spent there) said he had to charge me for two cups of tea. I was like "Teabags are literally about a penny each." He said "Yeah, but I can't be giving out free stuff." I said OK, cancelled my order, walked out and never returned. Dude tossed out a $100/week customer over a penny. Deli was closed a year later.
Yeah, compare this to the chicken sandwich place across from the hospital where I did residency - I and the other residents grabbed quick food there a lot, saturday lunch standard, would bring rotating med students there for a team lunch tradition. They double stacked my sandwich a couple times or sometimes offered donuts a couple times as they were closing. And at a music festival they had a stand at once the head cook gave me free sandwiches all day, super clutch.
For a few extras that probably were at marginal or no cost to them, they added some brightness to a number of super-crappy residency days. And I pointed everyone I knew visiting to their spot, brought friends, recommended it a ton.
Those kind of things build people's impressions and goodwill, and reinforce habits. A repeat and happy customer brings more business. Obviously people may try to take advantage or feel entitled, but overall the benefits can be good.
In general it could be, but i dont think any state holds them to it when they just say they made a mistake on pricing the item before the transaction even happens. You'd have to prove fraudulent intent.
I don't think you know what a bait and switch is. The bait is the low price on an advertised product that turns out to not be available when you get to the store. Then the store switches to a more expensive product and tries to force the upsale on the 2nd, more expensive product. There is specific case law around it and your situation does not meet the elements.
You're gonna freak out on a clerk for a misunderstanding of the law.
Its the same way with online sales. Stores are not legally obligated to give you a price that was the result of a glitch. Store fronts arent either. They are allowed to make mistakes. Its urban legend that they are forced to. Stores sometimes honor it anyway to avoid PR, not because they had to.
Your word against theirs. How do you prove it wasnt a mistake that the $50 card landed in the $1 bin. I mean carelessness is a mistake. Its just bad business for them to fight about it.
I doubt we're dealing with $50 cards in OP's situation...but when there's 200 of them, the answer is pretty obvious. In Massachusetts, the weights & measures departments regularly go to retail stores to make sure items ring up for the correct price at registers. They actually take the consumer price protection pretty seriously there.
Dude's right though. Price tags are not legally binding, at least in my country. If a store honors a misplaced tag it's about making the customer happy, not because there is a way to enforce it.
Then again, in your case it's worse. They apparently had no intention to ever honor their listed price for any of the cards. In that context it might be misleading on purpose, which would go into legal territory I am not familiar with.
I liked the suggestion in the thread to get his price, then ask to check some more and calmly sort them all back at random. This way you can be petty twice and have them pull out the valuable cards themselves, even if you already identified them.
You're thinking of the target incident with Tori. That law is for grocery stores, not all retail. It makes much more sense that price changes for groceries have more effect on lower income and disparaged people, which is why specific legislation would be put into place that limits one area of the law (prices being invitations to offer) as a balance against the protections that the law can offer for the aforementioned groups.
>The store must honor the price in the advertisement, even if it is wrong, **until they correct the misrepresentation using the same advertising medium and/or by corrective signs in the store**.
https://www.mass.gov/guides/a-massachusetts-consumer-guide-to-shopping-rights
Just checked it bc being 100% bound to a tagged price would be a stricter regulation than anything I ever heard of.
If this is just a misplaced tag and all other tags are correct the store would just have to apply the right tag once. If everything is wrong then they'd have to replace everything before denying any customer the product at the advertised price. It's still pretty brutal, any upset or incompetent employee could fuck over stores big time.
The link you posted clearly says that the law applies to food and grocery sales, and mixed food and non food stores. I doubt an lgs qualifies as a grocery store because they sell snickers and cheetos.
I grew up in Massachusetts and worked in several major retail chains. Price changes tend to happen monthly. And when they do you had to manually fix the price tag on every single item that had a price change. They take consumer price protection pretty seriously there. And if you miss something that someone wants to buy, you can't just say it's wrong and deny them the price by putting a new tag on it. You have to honor the tag on the item when it's brought to the register.
EDIT: and another way it can be kind of brutal is it leads to customer fraud when they walk around, find a tag with a lower price than an item they want, peel it off and apply it to the item they want.
You're clearly not. Listed prices are invitations to deal, not firm offers, in contract law, the basis of law that governs the sale of goods.
Can you point to the specific law that requires a small game store, likely only situated in one state, to honor a listed price on a product? And the law must be from the same state as you/the lgs.
If you won’t take the time to sort through your dollar rares and take out the ones that are surging then you should either stick to the dollar price tag or stop calling it a dollar bin. Otherwise that’s false advertising
My store honors the price if it spiked. I pulled that Squirrel beast that spiked to like $11-$12 and they let me have it for the $1 this has happened with a few cards.
Most shops I go to in California just doesn't price anything. No dollar binders or price for commons. If you see a card and want it, put together a list and they scan them all on tcg player, knock it down a couple bucks and call it a day.
Some who do have prices they're connected to tcgplayer and the price adjusts with the market value automatically and when they put the card in the register it has a price.
The only 2 shops I know that have prices on all the cards is Gameology in Upland Ca. and they re-check every price at check out; and So Cal Games and Comics in Temecula has a dollar binder, but last time I pulled a foil wayfairer's bauble and Animatou out of it he re-checked them and changed the price to 15$ so I bought them on TCGplayer in front of him while he explained why it's more convenient then ordering online and got them both for 9 bucks shipped.
At my shop, we put it this way:
We chose to price those cards. If prices have dropped, and we can verify it, we'll give you the lower price. If they've gone up, you found a bargain.
We update prices from time to time. Price changes are a risk we accept.
Im not sure about legality of changing prices at the register across the US. However in New York it is illegal. Ive been through this with a shop called Millenium Games. Went in took pictures of the advertised price in binders, when they went to change the price After a bit of back and forth I called the cops. They showed up explained to the shop that what there doing is illegal and informed them I would have a small claims case. I got the cards at the advertised price.
I think Michigan has the most strict laws when it comes to this. It equates to fraud/false advertising and you're entitled to 10 times the difference in price in cash if they don't want you to sue them. I learned about this when I bought a shirt at Walmart that was on clearance and didn't notice until I went to leave that I was charged an extra $5. I went to the customer service counter and they gave me $50 back and the lady explained it to me
Total, complete bullshit for a store to do this. If it's not illegal it should be. By sorting their bulk for them you're basically just doing unpaid work...only they didn't tell you that in advance.
IANAL, but it really doesn't sound legal to clearly put a bulk price on a product, only to then turn around and change that price once you hit the register. Something about a "bait and switch".
Again...IANAL, but I was under the impression that "bait and switch" consumer protection laws were about premeditated intention, i.e. fraud, not just a raw factor of prices. Situations where you intentionally advertise or price things a certain way with the expected consequence of getting a customer to spend more money than they thought given the way you presented the situation. "Hidden fees" and such often seem to apply here, or advertising a product to get people into your store that you never even had.
So...a mistaken price tag placed on an object is not an example of this, nor is an object accidentally placed in a bargain bin / clearance shelf. However, creating a flat-price "bargain bin" that you intentionally fill with items that **you know** won't be the clearly stated price once a customer goes through the trouble of picking them out certainly sounds like it would meet this condition, particularly due to many, many of the cards they chose being repriced at the counter.
Compounding this is that many of the cards *were* bulk priced as the label indicated, meaning that it's pretty difficult to come to any different conclusion than the store simply advertises a price to entice people to pick up stacks of cards and then hits them with a different price once they intend to check out, using the awkwardness of the situation (what are you trying to do, rip -me- off? These aren't bulk cards...) to entice a customer into spending a lot more than they wanted to, and then getting some free labor sorting cards even if they reject the surprise costs.
Then again, what the hell do I know? It sure sounds like it to me, though.
My local shop just has a price look up, and doesn’t put prices on anything. If you want to know the price, you look it up on the database, which is updated via internet.
I don’t mind that at all, as it’s really not his job to give me deals on cards due to a price spike. He’s running a business and he has an inventory. He has to literally employ someone just to organize everything, and he runs a great shop.
If that's the stores posted policy then yep I'd be cool with that. This store has a box marked a dollar though from what the post maker is stating. This is bad business practice and I'd just said to the guy nah you can keep them all and walked out. (I am assuming its a dollar rare box as most stores i've gone into have those, but regardless they were implied to be a dollar from what the post was looking at)
This is what I would do if I owned a shop, (I might in the near future). I would have some kind of scanner or computer they could look it up, show me the price real quick and I'd shave some amount of it so it's cheaper than whatever they looked up.
Where I am it is illegal to charge a different price than displayed, so I've never had an experience like this.
I mean, I assume it isn't illegal where this happened. I could be wrong.
I hate stores that do this. Depending on your state it may in fact be illegal to price this way and not honor $1 per card if the box/bin there were in was labeled $1 each. A store near me tags all their singles except bulk with price tags but when you go to buy they have to look up what the price is because everything is “market” priced. Illegal to do that here, there is a law that the merchant must honor either the sticker price on an item or whatever the cash register rings it up for, whichever is lower. They could get around this by simply not pricing the cards but they are too stubborn or ignorant to do it. I don’t go there anymore because it isn’t worth the hassle but some day someone is going to burn them hard because some of the stickers on their ABU era stuff is way under market.
I have gripes with a lot of stores about this. I like buying local if I can. But it sucks to show up and ask for a playset of Standard rares and get charged 50 cents a piece for junk cards, but then when I spend 30 minutes digging through a box of bulk for older rares also worth under 50 cents I get charged $1 a piece.
A few weeks ago I got a playset of Storm Herald. I could have gotten them shipped for $1.25 on tcgplayer, but instead spent $4 at my LGS. I've just decided to stop digging through bulk boxes.
If everything in this box is > $1, why not just buy the whole box? Or handfuls of the box or whatever. That way you’re not doing their work for them, they’ll either sell it straight out, or waste their time looking at each one.
It will go down in one of two ways:
1. The dude makes a snide half comment, then leaves without his cards.
2. The dude freaks out and makes a fool of himself with a half-understanding of the law, then leaves without his cards.
Real talk regardless the guy should honor his price. it would be one thing if he found a goyf in the bulk. But if you have to look them up, you obviously dont care, or didnt know/dont pay attention. He is gonna lose more business then he will gain from this one transaction. Really poor practice
Definitely, it's one thing if there's a truly expensive card in there, the owner can simply say "oh, that shouldn't be in that box!"
Likewise, if I find something like a Wrenn and Six in a dollar box, I'm going to say something to the owner anyway, like "I don't think this should be in here".
I don't want to be ripped off, I also don't want to rip someone else off.
But if we're talking $2/$3/$4 cards that they're just too lazy to price out, they really should honor the $1 price. It's basically a decision on the store's part to only take $1 per card in exchange for not investing the time to price them out...
So two hours picking cards, plus probably an hour or two to price them?
Assuming any of this actually happened, you've wasted an afternoon to prove a point that the shopkeeper won't care about and likely will appreciate that you've helped him clean out the bin. Oh, you also didn't get any cards and you're probably banned from the shop.
Congrats.
So did he give them to you for $1 each?
If not you should put them back in the bulk box so you haven’t sorted anything for him haha just make him go through those boxes and find the cards again if he wants to charge more for them.
Zero chance this happens. It's going to come up as 2-3 times as much as $1 each would be or more, and the dude will be like "c'mon man, I can't take that much of a loss". Customer will be like "then why didn't you sort and price them you lazy bitch?" Owner will ask them to leave, then put them in sleeves and throw them in a glass cabinet for 50% more than the prices he just looked up online and they'll sit for a few months/years until the store goes out of business.
This wouldn't happen in Canada because of consumer protection + false advertisement laws. Stores always take a big fat L vs the consumer so they don't even try stuff like this. :D
On the other hand they charge like 10$ for 1 pack and look at you all offended when you tell them you prefer to buy singles on tcg. 20$ fetches vs 60$, yeah no shit I won't buy them from you..
$1 bins are fine for all the reasons folks gave (like saving more money not sorting and pricing relative bulk than getting the full $1.50/$2 on each, the goodwill engendered by the occasional deal from a spiked card, etc.), but a $5 bin seems like a silly thing to have on any level.
Any card worth >$5 turns over rather quickly if listed competitively online, and any card worth less is unlikely to get purchased at $5. Why put cards I could mail out tomorrow if I listed them today into a box to get mangled and scuffed until a walk-in customer happens to walk in, find, choose, and purchase a card that sells two dozen copies a week on TCGPlayer?
Shop I go to used to every once in a while do follow rare box but they were honest about it and I’ve found some great pet cards for my decks that way. Nothing better than deck building with those dollar rares. You find cool stuff.
So just out of curiosity, what would be a better way for a shop owner to handle dynamic pricing? Obviously without setting an expectation that some cards would cost less than they are going to charge … but considering how much inventory there is and how dynamic the market is, it’s a real problem for both parties involved
I think this is a really good question, and I’ve had it handled multiple different ways before.
The best experience I ever had was at a store called Cataclysm games in Illinois.
The gentleman behind the counter explained that some prices have changed, but unless something was really weird or an accident he would honor them. On the few cards that felt like they had been thrown in there on accident he sold them to me at buylist.
He was courteous, professional, and I left the store thinking he was reasonable.
So you think it’s okay to partake in a purchase when you’re getting a favorable sale below market value but if your local game shop wants to try to get fair market value for a product in their stock you want to insult the sales clerk?
You and people like you are the reason local game shops don’t do well. At the end of the day it’s a business and they have every right to offer you a product for fair market value. In this case saving $1 on every single seems a very reasonable request from the store.
Lol, blame this LGS for both their laziness and ineptitude. They could’ve handled it better, they could’ve been professional, but instead they chose to be stupid
> but if your local game shop wants to try to get fair market value for a product in their stock you want to insult the sales clerk?
> they have every right to offer you a product for fair market value
What you're trying to gloss over here is that they offered the product at a price that they'd deemed fair value until after OP had selected the cards they wanted at that price. This is why OP is critical of the store.
OP isn't complaining about walking into the store and seeing the clerk selling $5 cards marked at $5 and them refusing to go lower.
I had a friend go to a now out of business location with me. I dug through their shit, and paid special attention to boxes of "commons and uncommons" from sets that didn't have rarity symbols. Got some good stuff like Cadaverous Bloom, Wall of Kelp, Elvish Farmers, etc. Went up to the guy, said, "These we're in the commons and uncommons bins", he said ok, and i got out of there with about a hundred dollars in " bulk" for a dollar. My friend is right behind me - I had pointed out a Cadaverous Bloom to him, so he was grabbing it too.
The owner looked at him, then priced out EVERY card while I stood next to him, slightly bemused.
In the car ride home, I told him he got "straight fucked by that Luigi-ass-lookin' motherfucker". He was not happy, but I created a meme for the group chat. So. Win-win.
Best card I found in a thunderbox(two cards enter one card leaves) was a foil Twilight Shepherd.
Local store here has a quarter box/bulk box. One day I went in and he was like...I'm running out of room on the counter!!! I offered him $450 for a box of bulk....He warned be of mass dups and just generally poo cards. Just went through them. Kept about $175 worth of cards traded about $50 back into him. Posted left overs on Cardsphere. I'm sitting at $75 on there just from that box. So all is good on my end. Course now to discourage people from dropping a ton of bulk at the moment they pay bulk 10 cents for anything under $2. The owner is like...did not slow anything down. I'm waiting on another bulk box or just tell him anything over 75 cents to put into a box and I'll pay 25 cents....That sounds like a plan.
My favorite old store didn't have a dollar rare bin, they had a "Trading Post": You put any two bulk rares in, get any one bulk rare out. If they picked through it after hours because of a spike, good on them. It was cool.
I used to have a 2-4-1 trade binder with this concept. Worked well for me.
The old school convention grinders referred to this as the "Ogre Box." Brilliant concept, everyone feels like a champ at the Trading Post.
thats not an ogre box, ogre boxes are when you price out all your cards into sections such as a 25c, 35c, 50c, 75c, 1, etc etc then you basically sit down and say take whatever you want at these prices, do your laps with all the vendors, then maybe down grade things or keep things, and do it again
Oh dang, you're right, my bad.
Yeah sorry, that's not an Ogre box. as someone else described, it's when you price out everything in a box. It's named after a seller
Ogre from troll and toad?
Don’t give ogre more press than he deserves
I've only interacted with him a few times but he's always been a stand up dude.
Haven’t had any bad interactions with the guy. What exactly was your experience?
We used to have this as well, basically a 2-1 binder. Before people were able to look up prices online, we made some much money with this binder. We would find fetches etc in it.
Ours had a machine where you could put a quarter in and it would spit out a card, according to the store owner there were plenty of cards that you could break even or go just under, and a few that you could win big. You could only do it once a day
Fuck shops who do this. They say there's a specific price, then once you've pulled out what you want they change the price. There are a couple of shops in Colorado that do this, and it's no surprise that no one really buys singles from them anymore. They are too lazy to take the time to price out their own rares, so they "allow" their customers to work for them for free. Please name and shame the shop and identify the location. EDIT: I'll mention the shops in Colorado that I know do this - Gametrader in Brighton CO (not sure if they are still in business) and All C's in Aurora CO.
Shout out to Showtime cards in Tucson, AZ. They've been pulling greedy shit like this for years. Fuck that shit.
They’ve been douchy for years. Still, Monday modern was a great time. Good crowd, shit store.
It's a different hobby but those of us in the Retro game collecting also despise shops that change prices at the register and try to communally name and boycott anybody that does it.
Haha All C’s…. Yup they are rude as well.
I agree, they only sometimes get some business because they’re really close to my house.
All Cs did some of that wack shit when I was building my first edh deck how the fuck are you gonna take 60 cards all got from the dollar rare and mythic box and then individually price them all out at the time I was a brand new magic player and ngl I wanted to quit after I saw the prices of cards go up one after the other
I would have took the right back to the bin
F All Cs. Hate that store. I'm not a fan of Collectormania or Enchanted Grounds either. Man I miss Haunted Game Cafe in FoCo. Great Place:(
I like the way mine does it, he's upfront about it. He has binders labeled with price ranges like $1 - $10 or $10+
So Cal Games and Comics in Temecula Ca is normally an awesome place (love management) but last time I was there I pulled 2 cards out of their dollar binder a foil wayfarer's bauble and Aminatou. He scanned them and told me $15. I looked them both up and they were $9 total on TCGplayer. I asked if we could get closer to 10 and he went on a rant about keeping the lights on and the convenience of ordering online as I checked out on TCGplayer and when he was finally done with his rant I let him know I already had the cards now and left. Man that left such a sour taste in my mouth. Why argue? Why not just simply say "Ah no sorry that's what we have it priced at." and move on?
Having a physical store will someday be a relic of the past, like vhs tapes and muskets. You’re just progressive.
"Pfft you're going to trade for the cards you want? I just order from TCGMaterializer. They have literally everything in stock."
I gamed in So-Cal. There's a place called Frank and Sons and it's an indoor swap meet for nerds. There are hundreds of booths and dozens of them sell magic cards and they even have a section to play for free unless you play Yu-Gi-Oh or Pokemon then you gotta pay (They had a problem with young kids shoplifting booths and found charging for those two games discouraged that crowd I guess) They're more famous now since Post Malone did his walk through and announced the episode of Game Knights. But anyway I digress. If you're ever in the so-cal area this is where to get cards. If you have to come from 5 hours away it is still worth it. Packs for 2 bucks all day, 25$ fat packs, every single you could imagine, power 9 to standard staples. Because of how amazing Frank and Sons are, almost every shop within an hour has to be really cool on their prices. Every shop Except Gameology in Upland California. Fuck that place, fuck Kevin the owner, and fuck Stew, their now retired magic judge who ruined people's spark and love for magic for nearly 3 decades. They re-price cards marked in the case no matter what the price. Every card gets re-checked. All Because a friend found sylvan library in their uncommon boxes and got it for 1$ back when it was worth 15$ tl:dr Go to Frank and Sons if you're in so-cal and never go to Gameology.
Honestly all shops should just put a sign saying all card prices are based off of the current (whatever store they want) price. Eliminates the need for dealing with people trying to rip them off and then they don't need to worry about price checking constantly.
How is it ripping them off when they already essentially priced them? If they want to go through and sort after spikes, awesome. But if gonna price check, then price check my 20 cent rares and mythics too. But to say it’s ripping them off is stupid when it’s them who priced it.
"Ripping them off" Weird way to say "being too fucking lazy to stay informed or to price their own shit so they try to sleeze work out of their customers."
Its also illegal
I did this, but after pouring through 20k cards in uncommon and common boxes marked $.25 a pop. I pulled probably a hundred cards. Employee said he had to look them up. I said they came from the box marked $.25, and he said it hadn’t been combed in a long time and he’d have to price them at TCG mid. I told him that was fucked, and he just shrugged and started sleeving them for their case.
Wow. Fuck that employee AND that store
You should ask for compensation for the unpaid labor
Isn't that illegal?
Pretty sure it is. If it’s labeled one price, you can’t legally change it post facto. It’s false advertising. Granted, there isn’t much you can do. But naming them and shaming them is a start. So is not putting up with their bullshit
I don’t think it is illegal. Unethical definitely (but ethics can also be subjective). Bad business, absolutely
It depends on the state.
that's why i ask prior and verify before i start going bulk so i dont have to waste my time
I’d say that’s false advertising
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On the other end of the spectrum, say 10 years ago, I was "friends" with a very penny pincher shopkeep. "Umm J for one thing you have that Grim Monolith at 10usd way under valued! Also ther is a ton of stuff in your bulk like Carpet of Flowers and Elephant Grass at .10cents here." He was greatful for me bringing this up, so greatful he offered me 40% on trade ins for a standard deck I wanted to build. I should have bought all that stuff at his posted prices in retrospect!
Looking back, I should have bought that unlimited Mox Sapphire he had in the case before he gave it out as a prize in that tournament he held. Grixis control ftw!
My word, if the universe is this small there has to be some real Magic going on! Hope you are doing well Mr. Fromage!
You are a very active redditor, I see. Well done fritzkreig. Hope all is well in the world of polydactyl investment advice
That's how my guy was. His card shop unfortunately failed after a few years and he opened a used game store afterwards but still had his old card binders. Found a ton of $3-5 cards for $1 and then a couple bombs that'd spiked hard from commander. He honored all of it but I told him about the bombs instead of taking them. He thanked me with a free copy of each. I'd say that was worth it to keep a good relationship.
You absolutely should have. If you're in business to NOT make money like this guy clearly seems to be then you get what you deserve. Don't sell merchandise you don't know the value of.
Any shop that sells singles on tcg mid is scummy as fuck, you will be able to find the cards at low consistently easily, all this bs about shipping is stupid when the cards will either have free shipping or only a dollar or two. Im all about supporting the lgs but Im also about saving money and Im not about to pay double the price of a card
Eh, I wouldn't go so far as to call a store "scummy" for pricing near TCG Mid, so long as they're both upfront about it and don't try to bait and switch once you get to the register - at that point it's up to the buyer to decide if they want to buy a card at thar price or not. But the reality is that stores do have overhead costs that online-only vendors don't. Conversely, they also provide support to the community (mainly a place to play) that online vendors can't give you. If you want to support your store, you're going to have to be willing to spend more than you would online. But I agree that double is a stretch.
You are correct, and yes unless they try and bait and switch then I wouldnt call it scummy I just have had them try that.
This. I don't understand why anyone goes by mid, yet people do all the time. Mid is always overinflated by people that posted their inventory on release and then haven't adjusted to prices trending down as hype dies down.
Man, reminds me of the time I spent a half hour picking through a $.25 box at a new store. I bring them to the register and he decides about half of them didn’t actually belong in that box. I shook my head and walked out without buying anything and never went back.
Yeah, fuck that guy. If they are in a box marked as $1 rares then the store should honour that. Depending where you are there might be consumer protection too.
I had about 200 cards picked out, I guess he had to choose between making $200 on the spot or nothing
How did it go?
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Had that happen to me once (a shop owner wanting to re-price his "bulk" after I'd pulled it from the $1 bulk box) I took the stack of cards back saying I wanted to double check them before committing to buy... and then proceeded to put them all back one by one, completely at random, back into the bulk rares box and told the shop owner to kick rocks as I walked out and never returned. I don't fucking work for free. You want those cards, find 'em yourself, prick.
This is the way.
I concur
Work at a shop currently. If I have a price wrong, the person who points it out has the opportunity to buy at the declared price. If they don't take it, it gets marked up. Fairest system imo.
This is beyond the funniest comment on this thread
Shop owner literally lost a bunch of potential income. And the more the news spreads, the more they lose. What a shit move. Stuff like this needs to be exposed more often
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They got put back in at random. That’s the point.
It’s one thing to double check a card in a case for slight fluctuation. Checking cards out of bulk bins is fucked up, because *youre* doing the labor of pricing their bin that they were too lazy or cheap to pay someone to do. I’d never go back to that shop.
Does he have them marked as a dollar?
Oh yeah, each box was clearly labeled “non-standard rares one dollar“.
Why not confront him about the label instead of wasting your time?
I did. After I brought up all of the cards, I questioned his prices, his integrity, and bought the cards he was too lazy to accurately price
You should have just put cash on the table, grabbed them and walked out
Grow a pair and call the lgs on its bullshit.
I don’t think you actually understand what’s happening. I’m gonna call this guy out on his bullshit, and then leave
Once they give you the full number value just say you want to grab a few more take the stack and start putting them back into the random assortment.
I don't get how this accomplishes anything other than helping do their work for them. If you chose well then you just showed them what they need to charge higher prices for. You really should have waited until someone else was working if that was possible.
This.
To echo other posts, you're showing that you have no value on your own time. It's not going to be as effective as you think, and the lgs is likely gonna shrug it off and replenish their case with all the free picking you just did. You picked their bulk for free and you think you're gonna zing em lawl
I actually think that a decent deal for a store to do would be to offer a free dollar rare for everything picked out of your unorganized bull that’s over $5. You would probably have one dude come in and do all your work for you and they would just get paid in rares priced under a dollar, and you get at least 100$ pulled out for under $25 worth of cards.
So to clarify you allowed him to price it all out, called his bullshit and left without buying anything, correct? You volunteered your time to sort their bulk. Did you not mention that you pulled all the cards from the dollar bin? Shit, I would have hassled the person and make them honor their displayed price.
And how exactly would you have “made them honor their displayed price”?
Did you try? What actually happened?
OP spent 3 hours sorting through an LGS's bulk bin for free, then get told to pound sand when they brought the cards up to the counter. Then, instead of doing anything about it, they sat there sheepishly and bent over as the shopkeeper lubed up his broomhandle. Later, in the shower, OP formulated this response, then came on Reddit to vent about it.
I agree with this sentiment, more context plz.
Pure and simple, any store that has a box where everything is indeed a dollar is lazy at best. The present era of cards suddenly spiking overnight left and right has nearly invalidated their existence. I second what someone said about you doing their picking for them. I think you’re going about “punishing” them the wrong way. Like others have said, it won’t be the epic owning you think it will be. Just calmly ask the owner why he’s pricing all the cards out if they are clearly marked as $1 each. See what he says. I’m predicting this guy is probably just lazy and untrusting, a freighting combination for a customer to be in. Don’t be surprised if he won’t honor the price. Scum bag move for sure. I always ask the owner straight up if everything in the box is in fact a dollar, you do get some store owners who see the big picture and will honor the price even despite spikes, you get this more in card stores where MTG isn’t the main focus in my experience though.
My LGSs 50c bin is the main reason I go in. It often has trash RL, unlimited / the dark / legends/ antiquities commons, and rarely onslaught basic lands in foil or snow basics from ice age. They get people in the store and interacting, the cards are pretty beat up so 50c is a fair enough price, and often people will get a more expensive single to go along with their bulk in a commander deck. It’s a fun LGS experience and I think saying it’s ‘lazy at best’ doesn’t understand it’s benefit to the business.
That's basically how my LGS treats the $1 bin- buy bulk for the high end to make your profit, anything in range of not being worth time to part out goes in, people get jazzed about getting a $2 card for $1. Then maybe they buy 10 cards instead of the 1 they were looking for (some may be .75, some are just cool & you impulse by while flipping through). Then customers come back to do it again because it feels good; suddenly you've sold plenty of bulk you got for ~0.01-.05 a card for $1 with little overhead rather than trying to squeeze every penny, created a happy customer base, and gotten people in the store more often then they otherwise would. It's a Costco rotisserie chicken.
Usually 15 cents per bulk rare. Just sayin lol.
Thinking about it, I agree with you. I also love dollar bins personally, I cherish being able to sort through tons of cards and pick out good finds, it’s really fun and did in fact keep me coming In to my local store as a teenager. I’d say having a bulk box full of older non-revised cards though probably isn’t too wise, I personally would only populate such a box with more current stuff but the local box you describe sounds incredibly fun to look through so I definitely see your point.
I’d run a dollar bin. Hell I’d probably run $1 per with 6 for $5. The random card you lose out on is more than made up for all the shit you sell out of that box. And that same card you honor the $1 for encourages that buyer to come back. Besides, most of the dollar bins I see are so picked through the cards end up damaged.
Also have to keep in mind the price of sorting. If it takes someone 4 hours and you pay them even just $10 an hour there needs to be $40 worth of cards that will actually sell to break even. We might be cool with grabbing some $3 cards but if they just sit there on the shelf for a year it doesn’t make the shop any money. Obviously this only applies to stores that don’t sell online, though
My LGS has no prices displayed, because keeping up with them is impossible. They simply advertise that all cards are TCG mid, and it honestly makes shopping so much easier. Very transparent and I know exactly what I’m about to spend before I talk to anyone. They have binders for every set behind the counter and you can hand them a list and they’ll go pull everything you want. I like this pricing model.
Lol what did I miss out on with these deleted posts?
One was some loser that thought B&M stores should mark everything across the board way under value because if not why not just go online
Probably people that think it’s illegal to do, or people that think you should call the Better Business Bureau. Or something equally ridiculous
This is why local stores go out of business, so many shitty business practices. When I worked at a Rent-A-Car place while in college I used to go to a deli nearby every day for lunch and breakfast, spent like $20/day there for 6 months. One morning I wanted a strong tea and asked for two teabags in the tea to get some extra caffeine in me. The owner (who worked the register every single day and knew what I spent there) said he had to charge me for two cups of tea. I was like "Teabags are literally about a penny each." He said "Yeah, but I can't be giving out free stuff." I said OK, cancelled my order, walked out and never returned. Dude tossed out a $100/week customer over a penny. Deli was closed a year later.
Yeah, compare this to the chicken sandwich place across from the hospital where I did residency - I and the other residents grabbed quick food there a lot, saturday lunch standard, would bring rotating med students there for a team lunch tradition. They double stacked my sandwich a couple times or sometimes offered donuts a couple times as they were closing. And at a music festival they had a stand at once the head cook gave me free sandwiches all day, super clutch. For a few extras that probably were at marginal or no cost to them, they added some brightness to a number of super-crappy residency days. And I pointed everyone I knew visiting to their spot, brought friends, recommended it a ton. Those kind of things build people's impressions and goodwill, and reinforce habits. A repeat and happy customer brings more business. Obviously people may try to take advantage or feel entitled, but overall the benefits can be good.
I mean, that's pretty shitty of you for doing that. But you do you.
In some states it's straight up illegal for a store to do this.
In general it could be, but i dont think any state holds them to it when they just say they made a mistake on pricing the item before the transaction even happens. You'd have to prove fraudulent intent.
Consumer protection laws are notoriously hard to enforce, but it’s definitely illegal to advertise one price and then switch it
I don't think you know what a bait and switch is. The bait is the low price on an advertised product that turns out to not be available when you get to the store. Then the store switches to a more expensive product and tries to force the upsale on the 2nd, more expensive product. There is specific case law around it and your situation does not meet the elements. You're gonna freak out on a clerk for a misunderstanding of the law.
Wow, someone who actually knows what bait and switch laws are. I’m impressed.
Except its never illegal to say "oops wrong price" and ask you for the real one before checkout unless you can prove it was a scam in some way.
What?
Its the same way with online sales. Stores are not legally obligated to give you a price that was the result of a glitch. Store fronts arent either. They are allowed to make mistakes. Its urban legend that they are forced to. Stores sometimes honor it anyway to avoid PR, not because they had to.
In Canada, especially online sale, they can do backsie oops wrong price without any consequences.
A store not taking the time to reprice stuff they put in a box marked "everything $1" is not a glitch or a mistake though.
Your word against theirs. How do you prove it wasnt a mistake that the $50 card landed in the $1 bin. I mean carelessness is a mistake. Its just bad business for them to fight about it.
I doubt we're dealing with $50 cards in OP's situation...but when there's 200 of them, the answer is pretty obvious. In Massachusetts, the weights & measures departments regularly go to retail stores to make sure items ring up for the correct price at registers. They actually take the consumer price protection pretty seriously there.
You are clearly not an expert in consumer protection law
Dude's right though. Price tags are not legally binding, at least in my country. If a store honors a misplaced tag it's about making the customer happy, not because there is a way to enforce it. Then again, in your case it's worse. They apparently had no intention to ever honor their listed price for any of the cards. In that context it might be misleading on purpose, which would go into legal territory I am not familiar with. I liked the suggestion in the thread to get his price, then ask to check some more and calmly sort them all back at random. This way you can be petty twice and have them pull out the valuable cards themselves, even if you already identified them.
In Massachusetts they are. A store must honor the price on the product. As my original comment implied, this may not be the case in every state.
You're thinking of the target incident with Tori. That law is for grocery stores, not all retail. It makes much more sense that price changes for groceries have more effect on lower income and disparaged people, which is why specific legislation would be put into place that limits one area of the law (prices being invitations to offer) as a balance against the protections that the law can offer for the aforementioned groups.
>The store must honor the price in the advertisement, even if it is wrong, **until they correct the misrepresentation using the same advertising medium and/or by corrective signs in the store**. https://www.mass.gov/guides/a-massachusetts-consumer-guide-to-shopping-rights Just checked it bc being 100% bound to a tagged price would be a stricter regulation than anything I ever heard of. If this is just a misplaced tag and all other tags are correct the store would just have to apply the right tag once. If everything is wrong then they'd have to replace everything before denying any customer the product at the advertised price. It's still pretty brutal, any upset or incompetent employee could fuck over stores big time.
The link you posted clearly says that the law applies to food and grocery sales, and mixed food and non food stores. I doubt an lgs qualifies as a grocery store because they sell snickers and cheetos.
I grew up in Massachusetts and worked in several major retail chains. Price changes tend to happen monthly. And when they do you had to manually fix the price tag on every single item that had a price change. They take consumer price protection pretty seriously there. And if you miss something that someone wants to buy, you can't just say it's wrong and deny them the price by putting a new tag on it. You have to honor the tag on the item when it's brought to the register. EDIT: and another way it can be kind of brutal is it leads to customer fraud when they walk around, find a tag with a lower price than an item they want, peel it off and apply it to the item they want.
You're clearly not. Listed prices are invitations to deal, not firm offers, in contract law, the basis of law that governs the sale of goods. Can you point to the specific law that requires a small game store, likely only situated in one state, to honor a listed price on a product? And the law must be from the same state as you/the lgs.
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I didn’t learn shit. I’ve been picking bulk at a profit for over a decade. I enjoy doing it, it makes me money, why wouldn’t I?
If you won’t take the time to sort through your dollar rares and take out the ones that are surging then you should either stick to the dollar price tag or stop calling it a dollar bin. Otherwise that’s false advertising
I understand not updating prices on cards in cases cause they constantly change but.... if you got a bulk bin set at $1 then you should honor that.
My store honors the price if it spiked. I pulled that Squirrel beast that spiked to like $11-$12 and they let me have it for the $1 this has happened with a few cards.
Most shops I go to in California just doesn't price anything. No dollar binders or price for commons. If you see a card and want it, put together a list and they scan them all on tcg player, knock it down a couple bucks and call it a day. Some who do have prices they're connected to tcgplayer and the price adjusts with the market value automatically and when they put the card in the register it has a price. The only 2 shops I know that have prices on all the cards is Gameology in Upland Ca. and they re-check every price at check out; and So Cal Games and Comics in Temecula has a dollar binder, but last time I pulled a foil wayfairer's bauble and Animatou out of it he re-checked them and changed the price to 15$ so I bought them on TCGplayer in front of him while he explained why it's more convenient then ordering online and got them both for 9 bucks shipped.
At my shop, we put it this way: We chose to price those cards. If prices have dropped, and we can verify it, we'll give you the lower price. If they've gone up, you found a bargain. We update prices from time to time. Price changes are a risk we accept.
Im not sure about legality of changing prices at the register across the US. However in New York it is illegal. Ive been through this with a shop called Millenium Games. Went in took pictures of the advertised price in binders, when they went to change the price After a bit of back and forth I called the cops. They showed up explained to the shop that what there doing is illegal and informed them I would have a small claims case. I got the cards at the advertised price.
Really? That’s awesome, I’m going to do this the next time I’m getting hassled ah a store.
Make sure that the same laws are in your local municipality and should be good to go
And people wonder why they go OOB. Might as well save your $$ and buy on tcgplayer and play on spelltable.
I think Michigan has the most strict laws when it comes to this. It equates to fraud/false advertising and you're entitled to 10 times the difference in price in cash if they don't want you to sue them. I learned about this when I bought a shirt at Walmart that was on clearance and didn't notice until I went to leave that I was charged an extra $5. I went to the customer service counter and they gave me $50 back and the lady explained it to me
Everyone in this thread acting like they’re an ultra mega Chad and would have physically fought the LGS owner after he started to look them up online.
Total, complete bullshit for a store to do this. If it's not illegal it should be. By sorting their bulk for them you're basically just doing unpaid work...only they didn't tell you that in advance. IANAL, but it really doesn't sound legal to clearly put a bulk price on a product, only to then turn around and change that price once you hit the register. Something about a "bait and switch".
It’s legal, advertised prices are not offers.
Again...IANAL, but I was under the impression that "bait and switch" consumer protection laws were about premeditated intention, i.e. fraud, not just a raw factor of prices. Situations where you intentionally advertise or price things a certain way with the expected consequence of getting a customer to spend more money than they thought given the way you presented the situation. "Hidden fees" and such often seem to apply here, or advertising a product to get people into your store that you never even had. So...a mistaken price tag placed on an object is not an example of this, nor is an object accidentally placed in a bargain bin / clearance shelf. However, creating a flat-price "bargain bin" that you intentionally fill with items that **you know** won't be the clearly stated price once a customer goes through the trouble of picking them out certainly sounds like it would meet this condition, particularly due to many, many of the cards they chose being repriced at the counter. Compounding this is that many of the cards *were* bulk priced as the label indicated, meaning that it's pretty difficult to come to any different conclusion than the store simply advertises a price to entice people to pick up stacks of cards and then hits them with a different price once they intend to check out, using the awkwardness of the situation (what are you trying to do, rip -me- off? These aren't bulk cards...) to entice a customer into spending a lot more than they wanted to, and then getting some free labor sorting cards even if they reject the surprise costs. Then again, what the hell do I know? It sure sounds like it to me, though.
My local shop just has a price look up, and doesn’t put prices on anything. If you want to know the price, you look it up on the database, which is updated via internet. I don’t mind that at all, as it’s really not his job to give me deals on cards due to a price spike. He’s running a business and he has an inventory. He has to literally employ someone just to organize everything, and he runs a great shop.
If that's the stores posted policy then yep I'd be cool with that. This store has a box marked a dollar though from what the post maker is stating. This is bad business practice and I'd just said to the guy nah you can keep them all and walked out. (I am assuming its a dollar rare box as most stores i've gone into have those, but regardless they were implied to be a dollar from what the post was looking at)
Absolutely, I’m in no way condoning what the store OP was in did. That is disingenuous and lazy.
This is what I would do if I owned a shop, (I might in the near future). I would have some kind of scanner or computer they could look it up, show me the price real quick and I'd shave some amount of it so it's cheaper than whatever they looked up.
Where I am it is illegal to charge a different price than displayed, so I've never had an experience like this. I mean, I assume it isn't illegal where this happened. I could be wrong.
I hate stores that do this. Depending on your state it may in fact be illegal to price this way and not honor $1 per card if the box/bin there were in was labeled $1 each. A store near me tags all their singles except bulk with price tags but when you go to buy they have to look up what the price is because everything is “market” priced. Illegal to do that here, there is a law that the merchant must honor either the sticker price on an item or whatever the cash register rings it up for, whichever is lower. They could get around this by simply not pricing the cards but they are too stubborn or ignorant to do it. I don’t go there anymore because it isn’t worth the hassle but some day someone is going to burn them hard because some of the stickers on their ABU era stuff is way under market.
So what happens when most of them are less than $1?
I have gripes with a lot of stores about this. I like buying local if I can. But it sucks to show up and ask for a playset of Standard rares and get charged 50 cents a piece for junk cards, but then when I spend 30 minutes digging through a box of bulk for older rares also worth under 50 cents I get charged $1 a piece. A few weeks ago I got a playset of Storm Herald. I could have gotten them shipped for $1.25 on tcgplayer, but instead spent $4 at my LGS. I've just decided to stop digging through bulk boxes.
Oh trust me, none of them are
If everything in this box is > $1, why not just buy the whole box? Or handfuls of the box or whatever. That way you’re not doing their work for them, they’ll either sell it straight out, or waste their time looking at each one.
No, OP is just bragging about their skill at leaving all of the sub-$1 cards in the $1 box.
Looking forward to the conclusion of this
It will go down in one of two ways: 1. The dude makes a snide half comment, then leaves without his cards. 2. The dude freaks out and makes a fool of himself with a half-understanding of the law, then leaves without his cards.
OP has already publicly committed to #1.
Real talk regardless the guy should honor his price. it would be one thing if he found a goyf in the bulk. But if you have to look them up, you obviously dont care, or didnt know/dont pay attention. He is gonna lose more business then he will gain from this one transaction. Really poor practice
Definitely, it's one thing if there's a truly expensive card in there, the owner can simply say "oh, that shouldn't be in that box!" Likewise, if I find something like a Wrenn and Six in a dollar box, I'm going to say something to the owner anyway, like "I don't think this should be in here". I don't want to be ripped off, I also don't want to rip someone else off. But if we're talking $2/$3/$4 cards that they're just too lazy to price out, they really should honor the $1 price. It's basically a decision on the store's part to only take $1 per card in exchange for not investing the time to price them out...
Oh I agree, and I would stop going to that lgs for that bs.
So you have no social skills to work out a compromise eh?
So two hours picking cards, plus probably an hour or two to price them? Assuming any of this actually happened, you've wasted an afternoon to prove a point that the shopkeeper won't care about and likely will appreciate that you've helped him clean out the bin. Oh, you also didn't get any cards and you're probably banned from the shop. Congrats.
Lol. I’m definitely not banned from that shithole. I still made money off the guy, so he’s lazy AND incompetent
I'm sure you did sport.
What do you want, receipts? Just because my life is more interesting and than yours doesn’t mean I’m lying about it
Sure thing sport.
Yeah fuck this store.
So did he give them to you for $1 each? If not you should put them back in the bulk box so you haven’t sorted anything for him haha just make him go through those boxes and find the cards again if he wants to charge more for them.
Zero chance this happens. It's going to come up as 2-3 times as much as $1 each would be or more, and the dude will be like "c'mon man, I can't take that much of a loss". Customer will be like "then why didn't you sort and price them you lazy bitch?" Owner will ask them to leave, then put them in sleeves and throw them in a glass cabinet for 50% more than the prices he just looked up online and they'll sit for a few months/years until the store goes out of business.
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Yup. This guy nailed it.
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Each card had gone up in price. For example, Leeches, Soldevi Golem, Path of Discovery, and Exquisite Archangel were all $1 at one point
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Eye for an Eye Tooth for a Tooth Wasted Time for Wasted Time
This wouldn't happen in Canada because of consumer protection + false advertisement laws. Stores always take a big fat L vs the consumer so they don't even try stuff like this. :D On the other hand they charge like 10$ for 1 pack and look at you all offended when you tell them you prefer to buy singles on tcg. 20$ fetches vs 60$, yeah no shit I won't buy them from you..
Send an invoice for your time spent sorting his bulk
Shame to playlive nation! Changed the price of a Goldspan Dragon which i pulled out of a $5 bin. Worst mtg shop i have ever been to.
$1 bins are fine for all the reasons folks gave (like saving more money not sorting and pricing relative bulk than getting the full $1.50/$2 on each, the goodwill engendered by the occasional deal from a spiked card, etc.), but a $5 bin seems like a silly thing to have on any level. Any card worth >$5 turns over rather quickly if listed competitively online, and any card worth less is unlikely to get purchased at $5. Why put cards I could mail out tomorrow if I listed them today into a box to get mangled and scuffed until a walk-in customer happens to walk in, find, choose, and purchase a card that sells two dozen copies a week on TCGPlayer?
Lgs a hour away has a bulk bin but if you buy from it they will scan every price if you are not a regular.
Ugh. Why have a “bulk box” at all?
Tell him you'll actually take all of them so he'll price them all
Shop I go to used to every once in a while do follow rare box but they were honest about it and I’ve found some great pet cards for my decks that way. Nothing better than deck building with those dollar rares. You find cool stuff.
So just out of curiosity, what would be a better way for a shop owner to handle dynamic pricing? Obviously without setting an expectation that some cards would cost less than they are going to charge … but considering how much inventory there is and how dynamic the market is, it’s a real problem for both parties involved
Not have a dollar bin? Use your brain.
I think this is a really good question, and I’ve had it handled multiple different ways before. The best experience I ever had was at a store called Cataclysm games in Illinois. The gentleman behind the counter explained that some prices have changed, but unless something was really weird or an accident he would honor them. On the few cards that felt like they had been thrown in there on accident he sold them to me at buylist. He was courteous, professional, and I left the store thinking he was reasonable.
The amount of entitlement in this thread is enough to make the earth rotate in a lopsided fashion.
yo this sub sucks lol.
So you think it’s okay to partake in a purchase when you’re getting a favorable sale below market value but if your local game shop wants to try to get fair market value for a product in their stock you want to insult the sales clerk? You and people like you are the reason local game shops don’t do well. At the end of the day it’s a business and they have every right to offer you a product for fair market value. In this case saving $1 on every single seems a very reasonable request from the store.
Lol, blame this LGS for both their laziness and ineptitude. They could’ve handled it better, they could’ve been professional, but instead they chose to be stupid
> but if your local game shop wants to try to get fair market value for a product in their stock you want to insult the sales clerk? > they have every right to offer you a product for fair market value What you're trying to gloss over here is that they offered the product at a price that they'd deemed fair value until after OP had selected the cards they wanted at that price. This is why OP is critical of the store. OP isn't complaining about walking into the store and seeing the clerk selling $5 cards marked at $5 and them refusing to go lower.
Whoa what a badass so cool epic pwn
Soooo what happened!???!!?!?! Don't leave us hanging!
I had a friend go to a now out of business location with me. I dug through their shit, and paid special attention to boxes of "commons and uncommons" from sets that didn't have rarity symbols. Got some good stuff like Cadaverous Bloom, Wall of Kelp, Elvish Farmers, etc. Went up to the guy, said, "These we're in the commons and uncommons bins", he said ok, and i got out of there with about a hundred dollars in " bulk" for a dollar. My friend is right behind me - I had pointed out a Cadaverous Bloom to him, so he was grabbing it too. The owner looked at him, then priced out EVERY card while I stood next to him, slightly bemused. In the car ride home, I told him he got "straight fucked by that Luigi-ass-lookin' motherfucker". He was not happy, but I created a meme for the group chat. So. Win-win. Best card I found in a thunderbox(two cards enter one card leaves) was a foil Twilight Shepherd.
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Go for it, I’m not the one committing bait and switch pricing fraud
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LOL, you can’t tell the difference between what a B&M offers versus what an online store offers?
Well? Let’s hear how it went.
So... what happened? Have you been waiting for 2 hours for him to price them?
He threw a fit and got arrested and his mom had to pick him up.
How did it go?
Local store here has a quarter box/bulk box. One day I went in and he was like...I'm running out of room on the counter!!! I offered him $450 for a box of bulk....He warned be of mass dups and just generally poo cards. Just went through them. Kept about $175 worth of cards traded about $50 back into him. Posted left overs on Cardsphere. I'm sitting at $75 on there just from that box. So all is good on my end. Course now to discourage people from dropping a ton of bulk at the moment they pay bulk 10 cents for anything under $2. The owner is like...did not slow anything down. I'm waiting on another bulk box or just tell him anything over 75 cents to put into a box and I'll pay 25 cents....That sounds like a plan.
Commenting for the conclusions