Retailer Sold Marked-Up Wiis on eBay

Slackers, a small chain of game retailers in the Midwest, has admitted to selling Wiis directly on eBay for a markup of $150.

It’s no secret that a good amount of the Nintendo Wiis sold at retail stores this time of year end up on eBay courtesy of entrepreneurial shoppers, but a small retail chain in the Midwest has been skipping the middleman and selling its shipments of Wiis directly on eBay this season, causing quite a stir on the Web.

Ars Technica originally broke the story with a tip-off from a Slackers employee, who claimed that all of the company’s shipments of Wiis were making it to eBay listed for $499.99. Records from the company’s eBay store seemed to bear this out, although Buy-It-Now prices were $399.99. After news of the Slackers’ eBay business spread, another Slackers employee e-mailed Wired Magazine’s Game|Life blog confirming the practice.

All the negative publicity eventually reached Slackers president Kurt Jellinek, who released a statement on the company’s Web page on Friday explaining the situation. While Jellinek confirmed that Slackers had sold Wii systems on eBay for $399.99, he attempted to paint a picture less of a greedy business attempting to cash in on the system’s scarcity, and more of a struggling independent retailer attempting to stay afloat.

According to Jellinek, the store only received 44 Wiis this season, and the vast majority of them ended up in the hands of family and friends, sold at MSRP, or were donated. Only five ever made it to eBay, and from them Jellinek claims the store made a profit of only $375, less than the store supposedly lost through systems donated and given away.

Regardless of the store’s rationale, the practice would seem to violate Nintendo’s strict enforcement of a $249 retail price on its systems, which could put Slackers in jeopardy of receiving future products from Nintendo. Both the original tipster and Ars Technica have contacted Nintendo regarding the store, although no word has yet surfaced on whether there will be any repercussions.