I don't understand scalping beer on ebay

[Apendecto]

I recently tried to get some Founders CBS since it just came out in bottles. I figured I'd buy two and save one to see how it ages. The dude at the liquor store tells me hardly anyone got it and you can check out ebay to find crazy prices over $100 for a bomber.

What?!?

So, I've got two questions.

A. Who on earth would buy it? Lots of people as ebay would tell. What are you going to do with a $100+ of beer? Save it for 10 years and hope to double your investment? Collect it to say you have it? Drink $100 worth of beer in two glasses? It just seems absurd to me. I'd like a bottle but not for beer scalping prices.

B. Who sells this? I understand that people want to make money and can with something like this. But that person must either be a beer fanatic or a liquor store owner. Who's going to know something like this is released and knows it's money in a bottle? The lucky dude who happens to be there and sees a $20 bomber and buys it just to find out it's super rare? Unlikely. Or is it some a-hole who buys a case of bombers and sells off most of it.

I've seen scalping like this on 120 minute, Dark Lord, etc. and it just makes me sick. I also don't know what I would do as a brewer to prevent this.

 

[IffyG]

Don't blame the scalpers, blame the idiots willing to pay through the nose for a 'rare' beer that is only rare because the brewery wants it to be exclusive.

 

[McGarnigle]

I don't see this being any different than so many other things. Yes, there are people who know the limited release will be worth a lot of money on eBay. And people who buy probably don't enjoy the taste quite that much, but think it's worth it to try something rare. They're hobbyists of sort.

 

[Apendecto]

I don't see this being any different than so many other things. Yes, there are people who know the limited release will be worth a lot of money on eBay. And people who buy probably don't enjoy the taste quite that much, but think it's worth it to try something rare. They're hobbyists of sort.

True, I just feel like this is a stab at my hobby.

 

[wcrooker]

I wouldn't pay $100 a bomber but I did buy some Pliny off eBay for $20. I live in Michigan and I'm probably never gonna go to California, but I've always wanted to try it so me and a brew buddy decided to go halfs on it. It was worth it to me though.

 

[Brewnicorn]

I also don't know what I would do as a brewer to prevent this.

Ummm... increase your production? If people are willing to pay that much for your beer, then it's pretty clear that there is untapped demand.

 

[Apendecto]

I wouldn't pay $100 a bomber but I did buy some Pliny off eBay for $20. I live in Michigan and I'm probably never gonna go to California, but I've always wanted to try it so me and a brew buddy decided to go halfs on it. It was worth it to me though.

Damn dude. I just came back from CO with a bunch of it. And I'm a MI guy. $20 isn't a horrible price though.

 

[Phunhog]

Ummm... increase your production? If people are willing to pay that much for your beer, then it's pretty clear that there is untapped demand.

+1....basic supply and demand economics. Most beer is not like wine in that there are vintages that can never be duplicated. I don't know if the owner's of Founder's care if their beer is on the black market but if they did they should brew more.
I would never buy beer on the black market. You are spending a lot of money for a questionable product. You have no idea how the beer was handled. It could have sat in some guys trunk for a month during the summer. Heck a person could even drink the original beer fill the bottle back up with something "close" and sell the "original" bottle. I believe it is against Ebay policy to sell alcohol but people get around it by selling "beer bottles". Pretty hard to say you were ripped off when you got an "orginal" bottle.....just what was inside wasn't what you thought.

 

[GTO_Guy]

a 4 pk of palo santo i just got for 18 bux goes for 70 on ebay!

 

[Dunerunner]

I bought a $180 bottle of wine......It was delicious.

Difference is red wine (unfiltered) gains in complexity as it ages, beer )generally) doesn't.

Of course a good old ale or barleywine, some Lambic styles are excluded from that statement.

 

[Glossolalia]

In general I think there's an unresolved dichotomy of philosophy in the American craft brewing scene. There are a lot of craft beer drinkers that advocate for this small, local movement of craft brewing, where single brewer/owners nurture this local scene, ideally using local ingredients and local labor, while eschewing evil profit-seeking or corporatism. At the same time, the number of craft beer drinkers is rapidly increasing in the US. On top of that, you have craft beer drinkers demanding local access to all the top craft beers (or at least the top 100 lists of BeerAdvocate and RateBeer). We also have a growing number of people who cellar and trade beers. They no longer need beer just for their own consumption, they need rare beer as leverage to obtain other rare beers. This all serves to create a gap between supply and demand; however, if the craft brewer grows too rapidly or too large, or employs a macro company/corporation to aid in distribution or brewing, they may suffer a backlash as they will no longer be seen as "small," or perhaps they may even lose the nebulous-in-definition "craft beer" appellation all together. They could raise the price to resolve demand (which, in essence, Ebay sellers are doing via free market economics), but then that creates a product that is only obtainable to a certain class of people. Until craft beer drinkers can resolve this philosophical dichotomy, I think we can expect the situation to get worse.

 

[Yuri_Rage]

I understand why folks do what they do on eBay with limited edition beers, but I think it's rather unscrupulous. On one hand, it's capitalism at its finest. On the other hand, craft breweries proudly release a limited run of great beer, and it gets snatched up by profit-hungry "scalpers" faster than its intended audience can buy and enjoy it.

IMHO, eBay should revise its policy and not allow any capped bottle sales.

 

[kscaglio]

Damn dude. I just came back from CO with a bunch of it. And I'm a MI guy. $20 isn't a horrible price though.

If you want to sell a bottle PM me.

 

[Phunhog]

I hate to say it but what will stop a large part of this "speculation" and scalping is for people to start getting ripped off!! Ebay's policy clearly states that the value in the item is for the collectible bottle NOT for the contents. You wouldn't have any legal standing IF you bought a Founders' CBS bottle that didn't contain CBS and tried to claim fraud. You got what you paid for.... a Founders's CBS bottle.

 

[BrewKnurd]

I understand why folks do what they do on eBay with limited edition beers, but I think it's rather unscrupulous. On one hand, it's capitalism at its finest. On the other hand, craft breweries proudly release a limited run of great beer, and it gets snatched up by profit-hungry "scalpers" faster than its intended audience can buy and enjoy it.

IMHO, eBay should revise its policy and not allow any capped bottle sales.

This. In my opinion, the best economic system is ethical capitalism, and this is just one of many examples that highlight that frequently the ethical part is missing from our version of capitalism. To buy something rare just to be able to turn around and sell it immediately at high profit is not something that I am particularly impressed with. Not that the scalpers care about my opinion.

 

[nebben]

I passed by a bunch of people at Wynkoop in Denver waiting for a "rare beer tasting event." I'm sure the beers are interesting, but I've got kegs and kegs of other rare beers in my kegerator at home...some probably only have a couple gallons left!

 

[TheMan]

I find this annoying as well. The solution:

Frequent a liquor store that carries a good beer selection and chat up a few of the staff members...then when you know something good is coming out all you have to do is give a call and ask one of them to put a bottle aside for you.

Obviously this only works if they carry the beer you're looking for. So selection will vary depending on location. But it helps.

 

[wonderbread23]

I passed by a bunch of people at Wynkoop in Denver waiting for a "rare beer tasting event." I'm sure the beers are interesting, but I've got kegs and kegs of other rare beers in my kegerator at home...some probably only have a couple gallons left!

Yeah, that was me. FYI - It was a fundraiser for Pints for Prostates -- a good cause. Plus the $80 spent was a bargain to try 30 different beers, many of which are never sold commercially. Out of the 20 beers I had there, half of them we absolutely phenomenal. The rest were very good, with a couple that were simply average.

 

[cyberbackpacker]

I had the same experience trying to get the CBS, only my local place told me there was waiting list "x" number deep and that it had been that way for weeks! This is just as bad to me as the ebay reselling.

Get the beer, but a one or two bottle limit per person to purchase, and then do a lottery on the day of release or something of the sort. Being able to obtain a beer solely because you know someone that works there, have earlier knowledge of release dates than others, etc. is just shady in my books... and I am only 25 minutes from Founders brewery! (but I couldn't make it to the brewery for the pub release because of work and taking my kids to school!)

 

[IrregularPulse]

I recently tried to get some Founders CBS since it just came out in bottles. I figured I'd buy two and save one to see how it ages. The dude at the liquor store tells me hardly anyone got it and you can check out ebay to find crazy prices over $100 for a bomber.

What?!?

So, I've got two questions.

A. Who on earth would buy it? Lots of people as ebay would tell. What are you going to do with a $100+ of beer? Save it for 10 years and hope to double your investment? Collect it to say you have it? Drink $100 worth of beer in two glasses? It just seems absurd to me. I'd like a bottle but not for beer scalping prices.

B. Who sells this? I understand that people want to make money and can with something like this. But that person must either be a beer fanatic or a liquor store owner. Who's going to know something like this is released and knows it's money in a bottle? The lucky dude who happens to be there and sees a $20 bomber and buys it just to find out it's super rare? Unlikely. Or is it some a-hole who buys a case of bombers and sells off most of it.

I've seen scalping like this on 120 minute, Dark Lord, etc. and it just makes me sick. I also don't know what I would do as a brewer to prevent this.

You answered it in your own post.

 

[Bobby_M]

Capitalism just works this way and while it's annoying, it's also fair. The only people that should be pissed off is the company who knows that certain people around the country are willing to pay a premium for their product but their distribution channels are too complicated to actually get that money in their own pocket. Why would a company be concerned exactly who bought their beer when it is released. My goal would be to get it to fly off the shelves as fast as possible. If someone wanted to buy it all and ship it to Japan, have fun. If you want to focus on local consumption, work the keg accounts harder.

There was a guy in my neighborhood driving around with a trailer full of portable generators in the middle of Hurricane Irene selling them for double retail price. He drove a couple states away and bought them knowing that they'd all sell out locally. Is he an evil ****** or just opportunistic? If 100% markup is evil, what is a fair markup? Would it be more fair if he sold auction style? If so, do you think the price would go higher than 100% markup?

This is essentially Ebay.

 

[Acoma]

ECO101: Supply and Demand. The law is blind to the subject.

 

[osagedr]

Difference is red wine (unfiltered) gains in complexity as it ages, beer (generally) doesn't.

I see no reason why filtered red wine wouldn't "gain in complexity" as it ages.
And most homebrew improves with age, although whether it "gains in complexity" could be open to interpretation.

 

[weirdboy]

I have sold "rare" beers on ebay.

I sorta gave it up, because I'm lazy about going out to actually get the beers, but I essentially funded all of my own beer purchases for a year or so doing that.

And the people who bought stuff from me were always ecstatic to get the beer. I don't see a problem selling a product to someone who is willing to pay that amount for it. If they weren't willing to pay it, they wouldn't bid on it at that price.


At the same time, I have also traded "rare" beers with other folks here on HBT. It is nice to be able to sample highly-regarded local beers from other areas that I would otherwise not be able to, and in exchange, they get to try beer from my area.

 

[j1laskey]

Meh.

There are way too many choices. If I miss out on getting any CBS I know there will be another "special" beer that will be released by some other brewery at some other time. And if I miss out on that...then the cycle repeats....Its just beer.

Now scalping concert tickets on the other hand drives me insane....Dicks! Missing out on a show because some ticketing agency ate up the tickets then resells them for higher amount makes me want to pull a Rambo.

 

[eastoak]

Capitalism just works this way and while it's annoying, it's also fair. The only people that should be pissed off is the company who knows that certain people around the country are willing to pay a premium for their product but their distribution channels are too complicated to actually get that money in their own pocket. Why would a company be concerned exactly who bought their beer when it is released. My goal would be to get it to fly off the shelves as fast as possible. If someone wanted to buy it all and ship it to Japan, have fun. If you want to focus on local consumption, work the keg accounts harder.

There was a guy in my neighborhood driving around with a trailer full of portable generators in the middle of Hurricane Irene selling them for double retail price. He drove a couple states away and bought them knowing that they'd all sell out locally. Is he an evil ****** or just opportunistic? If 100% markup is evil, what is a fair markup? Would it be more fair if he sold auction style? If so, do you think the price would go higher than 100% markup?

This is essentially Ebay.

i know for sure that you can be prosecuted for profiteering from natural disasters. i grew up in south florida and there were always a few gas stations getting busted for jacking up prices before/after a hurricane, usually it was the local news that ran the story first, then the minions of civil order would grind them up.

 

[TheDom]

i know for sure that you can be prosecuted for profiteering from natural disasters. i grew up in south florida and there were always a few gas stations getting busted for jacking up prices before/after a hurricane, usually it was the local news that ran the story first, then the minions of civil order would grind them up.

And homebrewing in Alabama can also get you busted. Just because the state is doing it doesn't mean it is right. Is it better to have expensive but available fuel after a disaster, or have a few people running around with tanks full of "fairly priced" gas while the rest go without?

Isn't this in the wrong section?

 

[Phunhog]

The other point that you guys are missing out on is that selling beer on Ebay, rare or not, is completely illegal. You can say you are buying the "collectible bottle" and the contents are incidental but it's still illegal. I can't sell "collectible bottles" of my homebrew and argue that people are just buying "the bottle".

 

[badmajon]

f*ck em and brew your own.