Resellers have struck again in Japan – the second time in several months in connection with a Sanrio special event. Local reports (and my wife, who’s a very frustrated fan this week) say that goods for a new event celebrating the character My Melody sold out in seconds online – and appeared later on resale sites at a markup.
Just as Hello Kitty celebrated her 50th anniversary last year, this month saw the 50th anniversary of My Melody. (This year also marks the 20th anniversary of her frenemy Kuromi.) To celebrate, Sanrio did a merchandise drop on January 9th of a set of limited edition dolls and keychains.
Just like the Hello Kitty 50th anniversary goods at Tokyo Museum, the event was beset by people who weren’t fans but were looking to make a quick buck.
The anniversary shop in Toshima City in Tokyo had a huge line before it even opened on the morning of the 9th. Many fans report the items they had been trying to obtain were already sold out by the time their turn came around. Meanwhile, goods on the online store sold out within a few seconds.
Later that day, the same dolls showed up on reseller sites like Mercari – with a markup, natch. The set of eight dolls below was selling for 43,000 yen (USD $272). That puts each doll at around 5,375 yen. With each doll originally selling for 3,894 yen, that’s a total markup of 11,848 yen ($75) for the set.
Sanrio limited sales to one each per buyer of the new goods. However, resellers are reportedly getting groups of friends together to purchase goods on their behalf at volume. FNN Prime Online saw people exchanging cash for My Melody anniversary goods on the street outside the store. In Harajuku, they spotted one person hauling over 20 bags stuffed with Sanrio goods.
Such incidents are stoking hate towards resellers, or 転売ヤー (tenbaiyaa) in Japanese. However, the resellers don’t seem to mind. In the book Tenbaiya Yami no Keizagaku (The Dark Economic Art of Reselling), one reseller said they search 転売ヤー死ね (tenbaiyaa shine, “die, reseller”) on social media to identify what goods are currently hot.
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