This season’s hottest, out-of-stock toy is Hasbro’s Pie Face, the whipped cream version of Russian Roulette and it’s close to impossible to find online or in stores this week. Yesterday, by luck, I did find a newly-delivered stock of the game at a local Toys R Us, on sale for $14.99 (regularly-priced $24.99) and with a purchase limit of two. But the purchase limit and the fact that it’s really a $15 toy has not stopped price gougers from taking full advantage of the demand for this game of suspense and chance (for kids, ages 5 and up) and driving the price of the must-have toy passed the $80 mark on resale options like Amazon Marketplace and Ebay. I’ve seen dozens of blog feeds and comment boxes complaining about the reselling gougers, but if you are that person to pay $80 for this $15 game, it is you who should get the pie in the face. Supply and demand. That’s how this works. If you want the $15 toy and are willing to pay $80, then the delight on your little one’s faces on Christmas morning was worth the $65 extra you threw away with to get that toy in your hot little hands on a deadline. Don’t blame the gouger.
We’re in a generation of instant gratification. Don’t you think your kid would be as excited to receive the same toy a week after Christmas? Wouldn’t it be nice to receive an extra gift, for seemingly no reason, when the price and demand has relaxed?
Think Cabbage Patch Kids. Think Tickle-Me Elmo. Think Furby. Think Zhu Zhu Pets. The game will be reselling for $5 each within weeks of Dec. 26, when every store in the free world will have an overflowing supply of this game.
