I spoke with a dealer a while back about his feelings about discounting collectibles. He felt it definitely hurts the collectible business and will eventually destroy the foundation of the collectible itself.

He described it as a malignant growth, a cancer which will eventually put store owners out of business.

Stores must compete for the collectible dollar. The process of selling something for less will reduce inventory but make less profit for the store. If competition gets too great then stores sell for even less making next to nothing for profit. How can you stay in business doing that? The answer? They can't.

Everytime a person buys a collectible at another store because it is discounted, another dealer selling at retail loses a sale. This can only happen for so long before the store will have to drop a line of collectibles because they can't make enough of a profit to warrant carrying that line.

If enough stores stop carrying that line then the manufacturer suffers and may be forced to cease production. Less dealers and the threat of a manufacturer going out of business usually causes a drop in the market value. Value is caused by demand. Scarcity is caused by demand. If the value drops then the whole line may fail. Then many people find themselves with collectibles they bought for a bargain that are worth less than the bargain price.

This is another person's view on discounting collectibles. It does make sense to me. How about you?

Bob