The concept of scalping is buying high demand items and then flipping them for a huge markup. This is based on the extremely high demand for certain items that are either difficult to get or are limited in nature. This is the case for the Sony PS5 in which Sony is struggling to try and meet the demand of the market right now, creating a space for scalpers.
In fact according to a report from Business Insider, they found a PS5 scalper calling himself Mark F who apparently managed to nab himself 221 PS5 consoles. Mark F also sold these scalped units for a whopping $1,000 each, and in the first week of his sales alone, he managed to nab a cool $40,000.
His total cost would have been a little over $100,000 given that the PS5 is priced around the $500 mark, meaning that by the time he blows through his inventory, he would have pocketed an estimated cool $100,000 in profit. According to the report, he had somehow managed to get around Sony’s limitations through the use of bots and online sales.
Sony had tried to curb scalpers by allowing customers to purchase one unit each, but it looks like it did not work as previously, it was reported that a scalping group had managed to get themselves a total of 3,500 units, which assuming they sell it at similar marked up prices, should get them over $1 million in profit.
Filed in . Read more about Ps5, Social Hit and Sony. Source: businessinsider