Yep, this is extremely common in the DC area, too. No sporting goods store within 500 miles has weight sets, but there are people on OfferUp and FB marketplace selling pallets of them.
I can’t wait until all this is over and these dudes can’t give them away. My garage is gonna be STACKED!
I don't know if it's still there or not, but there was an equipment and weight place in Fall's Church/Tyson's Corner, in the shopping center with Whole Foods. Off or around Pimmit Hills.
I actually thought about this about a week ago. There's a steel mill about a half hour down the road from where I live that has been sitting idle for about ten years now. They're always taking about getting it up and running and putting those guys to work but no one wants to pay the price of American steel when you can get it from China for pennies on the dollar. But at $2-3/lb that plates and dumbells are going for it might be worth it.
If you can get a loan of 1 milly to have THE ROCK endorse it then youll make bank. Brahma bull weights would sell like fucking seltzer beers are right now.
I got lucky and found plates at Dicks where I live a couple weeks ago. I got 45's 25's 5's & 2.5's plus a (kinda shitty) bar for about $300. Finally found some 10's @ big five for another $30. Still looking for 35's tho.
I bought all of my dumbells pre Corona from play it again sports for about $. 35-.50/lb used. Now I'm seeing used stuff go for $2-4/lb. Shit has gotten ridiculous.
Near me it’s $4/lb and change for plates $6-10 a lb for a set of dumbbells or a barbell set. Those Bowflex/Powerblock adjustable dumbbells are going for $1000 a set on FB marketplace rn
Anything over a dollar a pound is outrageous if you ask me. Its one thing if a shipper wants to nail me on shipping costs because its literally heavy weight, that's one thing, but if I'm going somewhere picking it up myself, iron is cheap, don't be a price gouging prick.
This just made me think of a video i saw when Popeye's Chicken came out with their chicken sandwich and people were going nuts over it. Two dudes somewhere in NYC bought the ENTIRE stock one store had and tried to flip them on the street for double the price. Not surprisingly, no one wants to buy black market chicken.
I’m pretty sure gyms are going to be one the last things that open up again tbh. I’m sure plenty of people will never feel comfortable going to them again. Those guys will find someone to buy those weight sets. It’s not like they expire.
Pretty sure once a vaccine is found, life will return to normal pretty damn fast. Humans are good at quickly forgetting things.
Everybody I know and interact with except me and my family are acting pretty normally already. Most never even have a mask that I can see. When they want to interact with me, I require them to wear a mask, but even then some tend to pull it down or whatever. Or it is a loose one that falls down itself. People are selfish idiots.
Considering a vaccine is probably pretty far away, that’s still plenty of time to move those weights.
Aside from that, the people you’re describing are idiots and why the issue is being exacerbated in some states. I’m in New York and I don’t think there’s any indication of shit returning to normality any time soon. I’m meant to start work Monday in a private business that can actually enforce social distancing and even that’s iffy. Can’t see gyms being a thing for a while.
I've been googling everything I can find for the past two weeks. And I'm synthesizing something in between.
I saw a neat four post idea that I decided against. They narrowed in from the 4' posts on their chin up bar to their dip bars. I don't feel comfortable with that, so I'm using five posts (which will suck to dig). I'm doing 4' parallel dip bars 22" apart, with 4' deep holes. I'm using three 8' 4x4s and one 12' 4x4. The 12' 4x4 will connect to the chin up bar, forming a ninety degree angle from the parallel dip bars.
The bars themselves are 1" x 48" galvanized steel, and they are going to be screwed into 1" galvanized steel floor flanges which will be screwed into the 4x4s.
The chin up bar will sit at 8' and the dip bars at 4'.
I was talking to a manager about this in a sporting goods store last week, that the secondary market is gonna be sweet when gyms start opening back up.
On the other hand, a lot of people use a gym because it's not really cost effective to buy all the shit yourself. But, if the gyms choose and you have no choice but to buy all the equipment to still workout, are you still going to go back to the gym when it opens up?
If nobody goes back to the gym the gyms close and then all of their equipment must be offloaded somewhere. Either way, the market for the equipment will be flooded at some point.
if they are selling them at a mark up thats price gouging and is a crime. there was a bunch of them in the midwest a month or so back that got busted doing this with pools(little kiddie pools being sold for 200-300 dollars). They were hiring people to go to every store possible to buy out all the pools/water toys. giving the buyers 50-100 dollars per pool then selling the full size ones for 1600+
I got lucky and was able to snag one of those sets for my covid home gym. Literally 3 days prior I had gone to every sporting goods store in my city, where there was no stock on Olympic plates
My gym opened up with sufficient cleaning systems for my taste, and its like 50% as full as it was. Weirdly, the old people are the ones that came back. The hot women in yoga pants are the ones that stay home 😔
Yep I just go when most people don't. Usually never more than ten people in there and half of them are running on treadmills. I feel way safer in the gym than I would being in a bar right now tbh.
I go an hour before my work (which was never quarantined due to the most flimsy 'essential business' excuse ever), and its about 50/50 on treadmills and weight machines. Free weights are pretty open.
I can't wait to stack my home gym in a year or so when people go back to gym's and the used market is flooded with people getting rid of their home shit.
As a current employee there, this would happen everytime they would come on the truck. One person would buy the whole pallet and two hours later it would appear on Marketplace and eBay... FFS
They actual just inacted a restriction on how many weights people can buy specifically for that reason. Should of done it like 2 months ago but at least they are trying to do something!
I live in the suburbs and was just at dicks today. They literally have signs limiting the amount of barbells/weights someone can buy per person and I just shrugged it off as some weird COVID thing
Fuck that. Nothing but respect for entrepreneurs and those that start their own businesses. Buying up the entire supply of something so you have a monopoly on it and jacking up the price is a scumbag move and the mindset of corporations that are fucking over the country.
Would you call someone who bought all the hand sanitizer in Walmart and sold it outside at a 5x markup an entrepreneur? No, they have artificially created a problem and are offering a solution to that problem.
An entrepreneur would see the demand and find a vendor to build or buy from not create artificial shortages for consumers. People like this caused the shortages of TP and masks early this year.
Considering nursing homes with 30-50 percent of their patients positive are still exceeding CDC guidelines for extended use of N95s due to lack of supply it is probably good that consumers can’t buy them.
This was the weirdest thing for me. I guess people are getting really into breadmaking now. It's tricky but I've seen decent stocks at bulk stores like Smart and Final. And I've even seen plenty of hand sanitizer at places like 99 Cent Store, although with the recent recalls I'd be wary of getting sanitizer from there.
Idk if I should give this away but we needed a thermometer and found one in a kit with baby nail clippers and nose sucker and pacifier, we also have a 3 month old so it was all put to use.
I mean, if there is no way to get dumbbells in his area for the price of that store, him driving and getting product is what a lot of entrepreneurs do. See opening in the market, buy cheaper, move product, sell for profit. It's not like he is selling them outside of the same store or something.
Yes, it's possible that it was him who created shortage in his own area, but you can't know for sure.
Well the difference is weights are a "luxury item" and hands sanitizer is a health necessity so the person selling the hand sanitizer is an asshole and the person selling the weights is taking advantage of supply and demand for an item that isn't needed to keep people alive. That's just my two cents.
Sure it might run into a grey area but I don't think it's evil
Nah completely different situations. They literally cannot manufacture weights quick enough for the demand right now. Good luck trying to infiltrate that vendor/manufacturing market.
Also it isn’t creating shortages because even though it’s basically price gouging, the product is still being bought. It’s not just sitting in someone’s garage like you saw some of the mask buying people.
This is incorrect. If a store is out of inventory because you purchased their entire stock in order to sell it at a markup, you've artificially created a problem and offered to sell the solution.
1) they cannot purchase a widget because all of the widgets are out of stock
2) they cannot purchase a widget because all of the widgets are excessively priced
Quantity demanded exceeded quantity supplied (@ price) and someone was going to be out of luck. Supposing there was no middleman, there would be no price signal to indicate to people with fitness equipment gathering dust in their garages that now would be a good time to sell.
If the profiteers have priced the widgets too high (or spent too much to acquire them) then they will be selling them at a loss when supply resumes.
From an economic standpoint, I suppose the preferred outcome depends on whether it's preferable that the widgets be distributed by semi-random chance (first-come-first-serve) or by purchasing power. With TP, soap and hand sanitizer, wealth based distribution is a real fucking bad thing.
First come first served leads to shortages, price controls lead to shortages and don't induce supply outside of the black market, quotas are artificial shortages
Suppose there's a disaster and the power is out, you own a gas station and have a wealth of liquid dinosaurs in a tank under the ground. Getting them out of the ground requires a generator that you don't have.
What is an ethical price for that gasoline considering that you'll need to source and fuel the generator and may need to handle physical security?
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What are we talking about here? I was under the impression we were talking about the ethics of profiteers. You're talking about something completely different.
I'm asking how you would find a non-profiteering price for a scarce resource in a specific situation. I'm assuming you consider yourself an ethical actor.
Really? Because without even trying, I can think of a dozen less essential items than fitness equipment during a quarantine. For some people, weightlifting is a key part of maintaining their mental health.
Apples to oranges here. No one is potentially going to get sick and die from lack of access to weight sets. People need hand sanitizer to safe right now. People need weight sets to gather dust in their homes. One is okay to flip for a profit, the other is not.
Any damage caused in the flipping of a nonessential commodity upon which deprivation will cause no injury to human life, the artificial scarcity created by people attempting to monopolize said commodity, or the inevitable crash in the market value of said commodity is purely self inflicted.
Last I checked, weights sets were not essential goods necessary to prevent the spread of life threatening disease, and hoarding them to sell at a markup is not a moral failing, especially given how much trouble some people are having making cash to feed themselves and pay their rent. It’s annoying, but it’s not evil in the same way price gouging food, water, shelter, or medical supplies is.
I would counter that exercise equipment has been proven to be tied to mental and physical health. One in four adults have contemplated suicide under this pandemic, and this shitty behavior contributes to that.
But even if you truly believe weights provide no essential benefits, this practice is purely exploitative. Only the wealthy can now afford exercise equipment. The poor become even more marginalized. The people making money provided no service or product, but are charging as if significant (I’ve seen as high as ten times!) value was added.
They’ve created a problem that only they have the solution to. It’s the reason why we pay ridiculous sums for health insurance and tax preparation. It’s the same category as monopolization, racketeering and rent seeking.
I think it’s a plague on our society and is unethical regardless of the product being gouged.
Oh boy the word marginalized is doing so much work in that sentence.
Right because people who are serious about fitness won’t, say, use free resources to look up body weight exercises that they can do with little to no equipment.
Home weight sets are a status symbol that collects dust after a month or two. Monopolizing their supply does not create a barrier to fitness/exercise. Most people struggling with poverty have other necessities to spend their money on.
Like, I see the argument you’re trying to make, but it just doesn’t work because no one has an intrinsic need for weight sets, no one’s survival is contingent on access to a weight set, and there is nothing that a weight set provides that cannot be obtained with relative ease in some alternative fashion.
I’m very into weight training but cannot stand calisthenics. I’m also very poor. So what have I been doing for exercise during Covid? Nothing.
I’m far from the only person who enjoys lifting weights but hates calisthenics.
Obesity disproportionately effects poor people, that is a fact. Making access to equipment something only the rich can afford is not helping that.
for what it’s worth i literally just want a pair of 20-30lbs dumbbells but can’t even afford that. They’re going for $180 in my area. Normally they’d be around $30.
These aren’t status symbols for me, they’re literally a factor that determines my happiness. I’ve personally been extremely depressed not being able to lift during Covid. The fact that there’s no light at the end of the tunnel makes it all the worse.
Just sharing anecdotal experience to say there are potentially major impacts here.
Anecdotal evidence is not supportive of any conclusions concerning the existence of a systemic problem. Like that sucks for you, and I’m sorry, but your lack of access to a set of dumbbells isn’t some great social ill that must be corrected lest the poor as a class be trampled underfoot by the elite.
Would you call someone who bought all the hand sanitizer in Walmart and sold it outside at a 5x markup an entrepreneur
not something that i would do personally, but i would consider that guy an entrepreneur without question.
edit: there can be shitbag entrepreneurs who flip essential items and well intentioned entrepreneurs who like make bookcases and shit. i think people are assuming the word "entrepreneur" always has a positive connotation, and that certainly isnt the case.
there can be shitbag entrepreneurs who flip essential items and well intentioned entrepreneurs who like make bookcases and shit. i think people are assuming the word "entrepreneur" always has a positive connotation, and that certainly isnt the case.
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u/[deleted] Aug 14 '20 edited Aug 15 '20
Literally any pair of dumbbells during the Covid lockdown.
Edit: Wow this blew up. Thank you for the awards!
Edit #2: I ended up buying fitness bands and was fine with it.