Yeah, but who would decide who gets in? How would we know who’s on the up-and-up, and who’s not? Sometimes, in the real world, it is the person you least expect that is selling you out. Reminds me of the quote “keep your friends close and your enemies closer”. As long as you have to eventually disclose details to the buyer about the seller, there is a chance that someone is taking those details and disclosing them to another interested party that you were trying to keep the info from in the first place.
The only way to be completely sure a GB will go through would be for the retailer doing a GB to actually have all the GB lights in stock, and assign them to the individuals on the list, with no possible way for anyone to overbuy. Then the manufacturers can’t screw it up, because there is already stock at the retailer. And greedy individuals can’t screw it up, because they have to tell beforehand exactly how many they will buy, and that’s all they get. I guess you couldn’t keep a competitor from undercutting the price, but at some point you have to be able to trust people to keep their commitments. Some people don’t know how to keep a commitment, I guess, but you can’t predict that. You just have to roll with it when it happens, and remember who they are the next time a GB comes around.
And to those BLF members who are “playing” the competitors against each other when you know the information is sensitive: Be ashamed, be very ashamed. I don’t care how much better of a deal you think you can get. When you’ve already been told that the information has to be kept a secret, and the reasons why, then you already know that you’re more likely than not to screw it up if you divulge that info to anyone! Now, both of the retailers’ deals have been shut down by Nitecore, and somebody did it to us for their own selfish reasons! Don’t kid yourself, when the situation is this sensitive, there is no way you had the group in mind when you played that hand!
I dont understand why so many people are upset. Sure, it wasnt nice to tell Nicecore about the coupons. But on a free market the sellers imo should be free to set their own prices so I dont really like Nitecores behaviour either. In Sweden the resellers are free to set whatever price they want (atleast in theory).
I also think we should not expect a deal to last forever. A deal that lasts for a long time is no deal but a regular low price, right? This time many of us had the opportunity to buy the lights from either group buy or from coupons from different members on this site. There was also email-coupons directly from atleast one of the big resellers.
But I´m just a noob, so I am probably very wrong. I am sure you will let me know