From: jcowling@ophelia.UVic.CA (Scowling Jim Cowling)
Subject: Re: Superman, Superman, Everybody's talking about Superman ...
Organization: University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, Canada
Date: Tue, 24 Nov 92 01:08:16 GMT

In article <7eqp03z4bd8H00@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com> jsp@pls.amdahl.com writes:
>jcowling@ophelia.UVic.CA (Scowling Jim Cowling) writes:
>Gouging is still gouging, no matter how many stores engage in it and no
>matter who "started it".  Think about it this way:  So what if the store
>across the corner is selling them for over cover?  So what if someone
>could buy it from you at cover and then sell it over there at a profit?
>What skin is it off *your* nose that that person made that profit?

Plenty of skin.  Why should he get the profit and not the owner of the store?
The owner had no guarantee of selling his books; the guy who buys it at
$2.95 does.

I should mention here that we sold out completely at $25.00 a pop in less than
24 hours.

>Think about it this way:  Those issues that you are selling for $25, how
>much did *YOU* pay your distributor for them?  The normal price for a $2.50
>cover price comic?  Hmmmm, so how come it's not "INCREDIBLY STUPID" for
>the distributor to be selling them at the normal price?  Would your feeling
>of "Gouging?  NO WAY" be the same if your distributor started charging you
>$12 or $25 or more instead of the normal price?

If the distributor offers them at $12 apiece, we'll take them.  We'll take
them all.  

The distributor orignally offered the books at (X%) of $2.50 US.  We had to
preorder the books; they can't change the price as we have a contract with 
them.

However, they are fully within their rights to increase the price of the book
for reorder (and, in fact, all major distributors have done this on occasion).
There is no difference between paying a distributor an inflated price for
a book (which happens) and paying an inflated price for a book as a consumer.
It's the law of supply and demand.  We had the only supply, and the demand
was several thousand people strong.  

Time makes no difference.  There is no inherent difference between selling
Action Comics #1 in NM for $80,000 fifty-odd years after release and selling
Superman #75 for $25.00 two days after release.  That's the VALUE of the
book, hence it's the PRICE of the book.

Now, if we weren't paying (say) 50% of the retail price for it, then that
would be gouging.  But we were, and are.  We're now paying $15.00 for unopened
copies of the bagged Superman #75.

Remember the law of resale:  the value of an object is exactly equal to the
price someone is willing to pay for it.

>Stupid rationalizations don't cut it.  You *are* gouging, plain and simple.
>Hey, all's fair in a free market.  I may not like the gouging, but I don't
>really fault you much for it.  But at *least* have the damned honesty to
>call it what it is, ok?

Oxford English Dictionary:

gouge - n. 2. US colloq. a swindle  -v.
	   3. tr.  swindle; extort money from.

We're neither swindling nor extorting.  We are setting an extremely high price
on an extremely popular product.  It's fair business.

I never said I liked it, either.  Especially when I didn't get a copy :(

-------
Scowling Jim Cowling
Creative Writing Department, University of Victoria (opinions disassociated)
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