Scalping has been an ongoing issue for many years dating back to the early 1800s.  Scalping is when people buy too many of one product with the intent to sell it above retail price and turn a profit.

Many brands including Squishmallow, Pokemon, Mattel, and Nike are affected by this.                        

 When it comes to things like toys, these people should just leave them for the kids because that is who the interested audience is. 

On Oct. 1 of last year, Mattel came out with new Monster High dolls after years of not having them, and immediately they were bought and sold out. 

Walmart originally priced the dolls at around $20-30 and scalpers resold them for almost ten times the price. 

Scalping these days has become a hobby for some people. They like the adrenaline rush of finding the thing that they’ve been waiting for a good price. However, the cycle feeds on itself. More and more people are going to be doing the same thing and sooner or later, nothing will have personal value anymore. 

Not only do people do this with toys and shoes, but they also do it with concert tickets. 

One of the more recent instances of this happening was the Ticketmaster Taylor Swift situation where people bought and resold tickets for thousands of dollars more than what they bought them for. 

“The cheapest ticket for the May 26 concert at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, is going for as little as $500 to as much as $1,300 — and that’s just for the upper deck,” according to the New York Post.

A recent collaboration between Pokemon and Squishmallow at Walmart has broken the Internet with little Gengar and Pikachu Squishmallows. 

According to the Squish Alert app, some of the Squishmallows were put out too early in some stores in Washington, Ohio, and even Asheville, North Carolina. Many people on the app were expressing concerns about how the Squishmallows were cleared out within 15 minutes.

When two brands that already get resold immensely collaborate, it’s almost impossible to get what they’re selling due to scalping. 

Scalpers ruin the basic definition of what a toy even is. Some parents aren’t able to get their children the things they want for Christmas due to high demand and high prices. Things like dolls and stuffed animals are meant to be played with, not to turn a profit.