Are Scalpers Here to Stay?

[Gregster]

Wonder if we will see an explosion in the second hand market

What a **** joke!

 

[NathG79]

Also we have had over 800pc 6800/6800 XT cards

Wow. And the’re all gone?.

 

[Blackjack Davy]

That would mean that by the time many of us are able to get hold of a new GPU (somewhere near RRP), the next gen will be just around the corner

And just in time for the scalping cycle to start all over again. Basically pay upfront to a scalper or wait years and be a lowly peasant. Welcome to GB 2020.

AMD can afford to sell at MSRP for obvious reasons, no middle men (board partner & reseller, plus shipping companies). As stated in the original 6800 / 6800 XT MBA launch thread we are unwilling to make profits that slim, so set a fair price which was 12-15% margin.

Also we have had over 800pc 6800/6800 XT cards now so we are doing OK, but as AMD make the card and also sell it direct, it is there product so they make the final decisions on who gets what and if they want to keep the most for themselves, well they own the product and that is upto them and I would certainly hope AMD have had way more stock than a single reseller.

Plus they're probably selling them at cost or near enough, to maintain the official RRP. Which is why theres basically none available. Even the "other" site had to slap P&P on top of their reference card sales just to break even I shouldn't wonder.

 

[Bobtherock]

AMD can afford to sell at MSRP for obvious reasons, no middle men (board partner & reseller, plus shipping companies). As stated in the original 6800 / 6800 XT MBA launch thread we are unwilling to make profits that slim, so set a fair price which was 12-15% margin.

Also we have had over 800pc 6800/6800 XT cards now so we are doing OK, but as AMD make the card and also sell it direct, it is there product so they make the final decisions on who gets what and if they want to keep the most for themselves, well they own the product and that is upto them and I would certainly hope AMD have had way more stock than a single reseller.

Have 6800XT custom boards been made available or was that 800 the initial stock? Just not heard anything on 6800XT availability? thanks.

 

[nikoliath]

No, really, it won't. Just take a look at what the government did regards ticket touts. I don't this is about supply and demand, it is more about a group of individuals forcing the prices high and they are so blatant that it really annoys people. People make the law. There are plenty of laws in place to stop annoying tactics like this.

Ok, then tell me as I'm interested in how you would stop people buying something and selling it for whatever price the market commands? I know of someone who spends a large amount of their time buying multiple consumer items that are in high demand and selling them, not sure how you'd prevent that without causing more problems than you solve.

 

[GloriousMess]

A few months ago, I would totally agree with you and for the majority of time, my principles are steadfast in "doing the right thing". Maybe I am a little grumpy today and feeling a bit low but I do see people making a tidy profit from those who don't have patience (That is me generally) and wouldn't mind a bit of that.

I wouldn't mind it either, it's free real estate, but I'm sure you're aware that the difference between acting on it or not is what separates people into one of two categories. I'm sure you're in the good category, at least that's what I understand from reading your posts. It's not worth changing that and breaking one's principles for a small short-term profit, in my opinion.

 

[Zernath]

Until the government legislates against it, which is looking increasingly likely. After all, scalpers are unlikely to be paying tax on their earnings, and if there's one thing governments hate with a passion, it's tax evasion!

 

[Durzel]

Because I know the facts.

The launch price on 3080 was basically our cost or just under, as such the add in board partners funded a quantity of stock to hit the MSRP pricing, and capped those quantities and so we launched at MSRP's thinking all would be well and the prices would remain for at least a few hours, maybe even a day.

However all was not normal, the demand for 3080 was unprecedented and the supported MSRP quantities had sold out and thus over sold within seconds, so prices were moved otherwise we would be losing money and as such the prices went up minutes after launch and thus caused people to see prices in their basket going up as ordering causing a lot of upset.

We oversold massively on MSRP product, all of which shall be honoured irrelevant of us making nothing or losing, but we had to act fast as within minutes thousands were sold and each manufacturer was typically only willing to support upto 100 cards, so the cards arriving now on MSRP product we actually lose money on due to that support/rebate not being there and the cost price increasing further.

The proof is out there you won't find a single add in board partner card at MSRP today or even close, because the MSRP was funded, then since then the add in board partners have further increased the cost as their margins were simply to slim, as such hitting the MSRP is no longer possible unless a loss leader for a board partner/reseller. Also this was not an OcUK thing, every single reseller put prices up within 24 hours of launch with the big resellers like ourselves putting prices up within minutes/hours.

So without the support to hit launch price, and the general cost of them increasing around $30-50 per unit, the cost is near as dammit $100 more expensive now than the funded stock was at launch.

That is why we have stopped launching product on GPU's and stopped hitting MSRP as the MSRP is very miss leading as it fails to exist a day or two later, apart from the manufacturers own shop which very rarely have any stock availability.

Forgive me but this doesn't make much sense to me. Maybe I'm just an idiot when it comes to logistics. Obviously only you have visibility of what was ordered, supplied, etc at whatever price.

Presumably before anything was launched you had signed contracts with various AIBs for an amount of product at a given price. I presume, based on my own admittedly limited experience in business, that the suppliers didn't then renege on signed purchase orders by saying "actually, we want some more money for these ones". Maybe things work differently in the lucrative GPU/CPU world, I dunno.

To be honest though, none of this really excuses continuing to take pre-orders (and cash up front) for cards you would have known would not be fulfilled for months, if at all, and giving nebulous, elliptical statements about incoming stock like "a small amount", "a healthy amount", "an indifferent amount", etc when other etailers were upfront about preordered quantities and delivery dates, as well as ending preordering completely once it became obvious that they had taken months worth of their allocations. On the one hand you're saying that stock movement was so precise that it was necessary to raise prices by the minute to account for projected onward supplier price increases, but on the other hand we were expected to believe that there was no information about when this stock would actually appear, if ever. A cynical man might think that this vagueness was deliberate, to keep customers in the dark and to reduce the number of cancellations.

Ultimately - the concept of supply and demand and etailers charging whatever they want is perfectly fine with me. Obviously whatever OCUK charge for a given product and how much profit they want to make is entirely up to them, as it is every persons decision whether or not to buy it. And at the end of the day we're not talking about facemasks or antibacterial gel. Clearly these strategies have worked well enough over the years for you and the company to do well, so I'm not questioning competency or anything else.

But, I do not think talk of "exchange rates" (remember - this was your original suggestion) and the like being the cause of immediate price rises is honest, to be perfectly frank. I think, like many companies, OCUK decided they could try and sell these cards for more, so increased the prices - and it was that simple. I personally saw the EVGA 3080 FTW3 Ultra go up AND down in price by £50-£100 over the course of about an hour, while it was available, which doesn't square with the logic given above, but it is explained by someone testing the water to find your customer base's pain threshold.

I also think it's beyond the pale to be playing the "I'm just one of you little people, trying to get the best deal I can for you" persona whilst also waving around the spoils from these business strategies over the years elsewhere on the forum. It is disingenuous, to say the least. You're obviously a big car nut though so I'll give you the benefit of the doubt on that one

 

[henson0115]

AMD can afford to sell at MSRP for obvious reasons, no middle men (board partner & reseller, plus shipping companies). As stated in the original 6800 / 6800 XT MBA launch thread we are unwilling to make profits that slim, so set a fair price which was 12-15% margin.

Also we have had over 800pc 6800/6800 XT cards now so we are doing OK, but as AMD make the card and also sell it direct, it is there product so they make the final decisions on who gets what and if they want to keep the most for themselves, well they own the product and that is upto them and I would certainly hope AMD have had way more stock than a single reseller.

i dont buy that you only make profit above mrsp i/e the 79 if profit, amd wont sell them to you at mrsp vastly under for buying in bulk. if this was true how have you sold all previous gen cards at mrsp and not gone bust now apply this to all otehr products at mrsp in your shop. this applies to nvidia too. sorry but i call bs. your products to do what you like with at the end of the day, but you might as well be honest about it.

just as an example: you agreed with me a few years back that amd should not on release sell vega 56 for more than 350 which they did and you did for a period. if you didn't make any profit on that why would you sell them.

i wont mention the fact that a 5700xt now costs more than release or about 6 months ago.

 

[pp111]

Ok, then tell me as I'm interested in how you would stop people buying something and selling it for whatever price the market commands? I know of someone who spends a large amount of their time buying multiple consumer items that are in high demand and selling them, not sure how you'd prevent that without causing more problems than you solve.

Well for ticket touts the government has now made it illegal to use a bot to purchase items. On top of that if you prod HMRC to be a bit more proactive, then scalpers start getting charged tax. What this means is that anyone who gets reported for potential scalping gets investigated and least is they end up paying tax on their earnings but perhaps more importantly get their initial purchase investigated and can readily find that they are on the wrong side of the law and get a hefty fine. I mean this probably won't stop the odd scalper but it should stop it becoming an industry that dominates the GPU scene.

 

[benparker]

Is OC a small time company? I'm reading they get a few cards, then another place they sold thousands.

 

[henson0115]

Is OC a small time company? I'm reading they get a few cards, then another place they sold thousands.

small in terms of what? define the quantity, people, profit, turnover, etc you can have a few employees but turnover millions/billions, does that make you small? guess so in terms of people. so really depends in what way you asking, but it seems like based on sales.
how can anyone know what there sales are like unless they tell us?

 

[eeek]

Until the government legislates against it, which is looking increasingly likely. After all, scalpers are unlikely to be paying tax on their earnings, and if there's one thing governments hate with a passion, it's tax evasion!

Is it - all I see is the SNP making a political point (badly).

 

[Deleted member 66701]

Until the government legislates against it, which is looking increasingly likely. After all, scalpers are unlikely to be paying tax on their earnings, and if there's one thing governments hate with a passion, it's tax evasion!

What they really need to do is legislate against mining. Massive waste of electricity that puts the governments eco targets at risk.

Deal with miners the same way they do when the find a cannabis farm - confiscate all the stuff and auction it off in a proceeds of crime sale.

 

[DeathStorm]

I think the UK traditionally has been more ultra-capitalist and dog-eat-dog than our neighbours. Not that I like it, but it seems to be baked into our country's values.

So I can avoid scalpers in the rest of Europe then?

 

[DeathStorm]

What they really need to do is legislate against mining. Massive waste of electricity that puts the governments eco targets at risk.

Perhaps a quota on the amount of electricity for a household then?

Not a slippery slope this at all.

 

[Scougar]

One thing I hadn't realized is that the tools to do this are now readily available. You can 'buy' bot tools to monitor for things like PS5/XBOX etc. This is easily extendable to gpus or whatever. I think consumers with bots are going to become a growing problem, and once people realize they can buy limited supply products are resell, it will get worse.

If manufacturers could get prod volume sorted that would be great.

 

[FoxEye]

What they really need to do is legislate against mining. Massive waste of electricity that puts the governments eco targets at risk.

Deal with miners the same way they do when the find a cannabis farm - confiscate all the stuff and auction it off in a proceeds of crime sale.

I agree with mining being a complete waste of resources and generally bad for the planet.

But since the supreme court has just ruled to allow Heathrow runway 3, I think it's clear that nobody really cares, and money will always trump eco concerns.

 

[Deleted member 66701]

Perhaps a quota on the amount of electricity for a household then?

Not a slippery slope this at all.

What said anything about a quota?

 

[Martini1991]

To be honest, the problem is exacerbated by *not* being able to pre-order.

There's only finite demand, by limiting the opportunity to buy you're allowing bots to control the stock?
I'd be happy to go on AMD's site and pay the £600 for a 6800XT pre-order, at this point I wouldn't care if I got it in February, but it's unacceptable to have to fart around trying to find that 10 second gap to buy one. And when they did have stock their handling was a shambles and I couldn't buy it in the UK for reasons?