Geobra's lawyers act against selling klicky-parts on ebay (?)

[Giorginetto]

Wel, since all these are paid items i really cant see why this coudl be a problem. Geobra sells them at a fixed price with profit, the more they selle the better for sure amd after all if ebay merchants buy them surely they will sell them at a higher price to make profit so by default geobra is the most price competitive.

I am not aware of any commercial laws prohibiting  volumes of sales  of spares/ consumables in Germany or any other  european country. A company due to production scheduling and planning limitations may put a limit to order numbers per customer order  to satisfy all of its customers and keep stock to a minimum  and for a few more reasons i wont bore you with, but the suggestion of a law reference this is irrelevant as far as my know how of commercial law is concerned... maybe someone else here knows more than me on this 

[Gis]

I speak German and make sometimes (non Playmo-related) business-calls to Germany.
I'm willing to make a phonecall or send an email to Zirndorf (if I'm not mistaking, the head of Playmobil Customer-Support is Frau Kupiak) to ask about their company policy on DS- spare parts orders from collectors and possible limitations on such parts-orders.
And if there are official limitations (perhaps some DS-deparments in specific countries install limitations themselves?), if and how there could perhaps be made exceptions for collectors.

That is if I get some backup-support from you guys; so that I won't be representing just myself.

Great initiative Hadoque, I already talked to the DS responsible in Belgium (BeNeLux office) and they were very accomodating in regards to collectors ordering larger quantities.

Also I would not make these kind of calls at this point. The PCC Pilot Group Board will have meetings in Zirndorf soon, surely these things will be discussed. I think going for a long term solution in this is better for everyone. So I hope you understand why I think waiting with calling them is the right strategy at this point.

[gaspodfreud]

an idea to get pieces : if we could compare the piece we can find in all ds in the world (and the disponibility) maybe we could help each other to get what we want .... (there's no ds in some country ). As we say "help yourself" and with that way to do , we maybe can stop bying too much , solidarity is the answer !   

in germany there's no shipping cost and that explain why pieces are cheap i think .

I think it's not possible for playmobil : "you can buy more only because you're a collector" (it's a bit like doing discrimination) , it will be easy for a seller to say he's a collector and don't forget some sellers are collector as well .

   

[mike1003]

but to be honest, the DS is not always cheap... sometimes its better to buy konvults or massive lots over ebay, i dont talk about malta

[Wolf Knight]

Gis, since the board is meeting with playmobil in Zindorf, please forward these questions and demands and come back to us with the answers. Firstly regarding the contest of the letter, and secondly, what their policy on spare parts will be for the collectors, through the PCC.

[Hadoque]

I already talked to the DS responsible in Belgium (BeNeLux office) and they were very accomodating in regards to collectors ordering larger quantities.

Ah, that's good!

Also I would not make these kind of calls at this point. The PCC Pilot Group Board will have meetings in Zirndorf soon, surely these things will be discussed. I think going for a long term solution in this is better for everyone.

Yes, then indeed it is better to wait. I wasn't aware there would be soon PCC-meetings with the management and that DS-spare parts orders for collectors might/will be on the agenda.

[Wolf Knight]

Well, unless playmobil greece gives me the quantities i want they will simply lose ( according to what they have told me ) one of  their best customers.

We've worked quite hard to persuade them to accept spare parts orders from us. They may think otherwise if one of us tells them ''I need more or else''... As I recall, the current situation with our DS spare parts, is a temporary one and they might feel its not in their best interest to continue with it if one of us stops ordering these spare parts from them. It may affects us all greek collectors.

[Rasputin]

As far as I understood the geobra lawyers are after professional retailers that use the DS as a cheap source for spare parts. There were some people arguing that a company should be happy about every part sold, but I do not want someone to buy all exisiting pickelhauben at DS just to have a huge stock and to sale them with benefits... This is not the idea and I do not think that we all are interested in this to happen.

So, in a way, I feel like they are acting in our interest, if they try to prevent these backdoor sales on ebay. Of course, only if they find a way to make DS available for everyone around the world.

In fact, there is a limit in parts that you are allowed to order. But, typically, they call you back and ask whether or not you are a collector. They even do ask for some pictures of your creations or collection, that's what I already read somewhere else... Then, they typically agree to place collector sized orders.
So, they are already making a difference between collectors and "normal" customers. But I guess, this differentiation is hard to make consistently. Maybe (hopefully) PCC will help on the way of doing so.
PCC should maybe have an honor code for personal use of potential DS purchases and special pricing...

best,
socrates

If keeping an item in stock for consumers is the problem what would be the difference if a commercial seller cleared out the warehouse stock of say 1000 pickelhauben or a PCC collector bought the same 1000 pickelhauben  ? In both cases the warehouse is still going to be out of stock for future orders

Is my memory serving me correctly in the idea that the warehouse is now a state of the art system. Set inventories are kept to a minimum and made on demand now? If so why not do the same for parts? IF an order comes in and clears out 10,000 of 30-xx-xxxx the system request a new batch to be made. The market gets flooded with the items, commercial sellers can buy what they speculate for future sales. Geobra sells way more individual parts due to high demands from many sources. Collectors keep getting large quantities to hoard in private. Then when the parts are no longer produced AKA discontinued which drives the price through the roof the sellers can flood the market a 2nd time with their over priced stashes . An idealistic playmo world 

Edit: typed not but meant now

[Rasputin]

Well, unless playmobil greece gives me the quantities i want they will simply lose ( according to what they have told me ) one of  their best customers.

I would not suggest this yet. First we need to know what the problems are all about before the ultimatum card is played, patience and diplomacy first, if it fails then bring out the big guns  This is so silly, over a toy with such a simple smile 

[Indianna]

If keeping an item in stock for consumers is the problem what would be the difference if a commercial seller cleared out the warehouse stock of say 1000 pickelhauben or a PCC collector bought the same 1000 pickelhauben  ? In both cases the warehouse is still going to be out of stock for future orders

Is my memory serving me correctly in the idea that the warehouse is now a state of the art system. Set inventories are kept to a minimum and made on demand now? If so why not do the same for parts? IF an order comes in and clears out 10,000 of 30-xx-xxxx the system request a new batch to be made. The market gets flooded with the items, commercial sellers can buy what they speculate for future sales. Geobra sells way more individual parts due to high demands from many sources. Collectors keep getting large quantities to hoard in private. Then when the parts are no longer produced AKA discontinued which drives the price through the roof the sellers can flood the market a 2nd time with their over priced stashes . An idealistic playmo world 

Again, Rasputin, you have distilled my own thoughts into a simple statement. 

Until we actually know what Geobra has done and what the law in Germany allows them to do, we cannot know what the real situation is.

So true! 

I speak German and make sometimes (non Playmo-related) business-calls to Germany.
I'm willing to make a phonecall or send an email to Zirndorf (if I'm not mistaking, the head of Playmobil Customer-Support is Frau Kupiak) to ask about their company policy on DS- spare parts orders from collectors and possible limitations on such parts-orders.
And if there are official limitations (perhaps some DS-deparments in specific countries install limitations themselves?), if and how there could perhaps be made exceptions for collectors.

That is if I get some backup-support from you guys; so that I won't be representing just myself.

This is a great idea, Hadoque!  The best way to solve the problem of limited quantities in DS orders (or any type of online/phone/email order) is to communicate with Playmobil to let them know that people want/need to be able to make purchases in large quantities.  My guess is that they are currently limiting quantities because they simply don't have the staff and the inventory to support the type of DS that we would all like to have - that's why we need to let them know what we want so that they can see the business opportunity there.