These limited sets sure get all of our blood pumping! I wanted to comment on what I think the two major issues are that get people riled. No, I am not making any earth-shattering new revelations here. I will post each one as a separate post to try and stay brief.
One thing people are frustrated with, is the absence of an equitable way to sell a very limited quantity of product. No matter what time of the day or what the venue of the sales is, there will be those who are unavailable to participate. I envision the selling of one of these sets in my mind like the days when they opened territory for the land rush. We are all at the starting line with our buckboard wagons, women, cows, etc. waiting for the starting gun to sound. We furiously start hitting the refresh icon looking for that first sign of change on the web site.
Several have suggested a prescription approach which, at first sounded very appealing to me. But then I started thinking that that would really just move the frenzy to the point where registration opens. You still have the issue of the first X people who can register being the haves and those that missed out being the have nots. I don’t hear anyone lobbying for a “lottery approach” where you register your name to win a chance at purchasing sets. I just don’t like the taste of that myself.
The only “fairer” way I can think of would be to do the sales just as they did on Wednesday, except perhaps break the inventory into half or thirds and have several sales over a period of a day or two at different published times. I know, its not a very elegant solution and from Topps perspective would be more time consuming and costly. That’s the best I got. The reality is, some will always get in on the initial sale and some won’t Topps will never have an iron-clad way to guarantee someone is not purchasing more than the prescribed amount. In fact, the technology that make it so easy to purchase quickly is the same technology that would make it easier for someone to purchase under multiple accounts/IDs/addresses.
