I bought one set of the four they had (Moltres, Articuno, Lugia, and Elekid) for Daughter #1 (they're going to be for Xmas) ... I had on several occasions almost bought similar items on eBay for her, but the price had always ended up being higher than I was willing to pay. BINGO! The thought hit me that I could probably buy up most of their stock and turn around and sell it off on eBay.
I did some research and found that these originally retailed for as much as $9.95 each, and that a few were still available (like through Amazon's "buy new/used" links) for around $5.00 a pop, and there were 13 currently available on eBay for as little as a buck (one) and as much as a "buy it now" of $6.50 (opening bid $5.75), averaging around $4 for an opening bid. I was thinking that I could get 100 of these (25 of each of the 4 they had at the dollar store), "bundle" them and start with a $10 bid, perhaps a $12 "buy it now", which would be an attractive price point versus the others.
{NOTE: The question did occur to me as to why these were discontinued, and it appears that this could be because of the configuration of the new Macs, which can't use the "business card" CDs ... I'm just guessing here, but the software is both for PC and Mac, but almost all the "bitching" on things like the Amazon listings were from people who'd bought these to use on a Mac and found that they were shit out of luck without a CD drive that had a tray!}
The problem, of course, is that things just fly out of that dollar store, and so I'm going to have to make a decision on this pronto ... ideally I should just hop on the el and run up there after I drop daughter #1 at school, as that would at least assure me that there'd be almost as many in stock then as there were last night. I am, however, "torn" on this, one one hand, it's a bit of a pain in the butt having to run all the way back up to Lincoln Square, and it's a chunk of change to throw at something like this, plus there's the fact that I have as yet not gotten myself set up for selling on eBay (although, now that I am "confirmed" with a checking account and stuff it shouldn't be problem setting up for it) and so haven't moved any of the other stuff I've accumulated with the intent of unloading there. I'm also questioning the return-for-effort, as even if all 25 sets sell at the $12.00 "buy it now" price, I'd only be clearing a bit under $200.00 (given the auction fees, etc.) for what would certainly involve a great deal of time involved (posting and following through with 25 auctions).
Sigh. I suppose that if I had a "hobby" of selling on eBay, this would be an easy decision as these are averaging a starting bid of 4x what I could get them for. However, the "start-up" issue weighs on the side of not going through the time and expense invovled. Bleh ... decisions, decisions ... I guess if I hadn't been looking to buy some of these for Daughter #1 on eBay they wouldn't seem quite so enticing!
Yeah, I know ... another post of mental fidgeting dumped out for all the world to see.