What ever happened to the forum deals?

[Martini1991]

It might just come down to balancing the books. Gibbo is still upgrading back orders at considerable cost. Can they afford to sell say 100 cards at close to RRP making next to nothing?

Wonder how many orders they're missing out on people not buying PC's because missing GPU.

 

[luismenendez]

OCUK is a business and like all businesses, they are looking for profit, they need it to survive and keep this forum alive.

Some people were lucky enough to get those bunch of GFX at reasonable prices. I personally had a problem with the payment at check out and I couldn't get the Radeon so also out of luck like many here.

Some of the GFX ended up re-selling for scalpers price, which is expected, pretty sure it was a minority and most people are using and enjoying their cards. Many people lost their jobs because of coronavirus so can you really blame them for trying to make a bit of extra money for reselling their GFX? I don't support scalpers so I don't buy their products but if they exist is because there is a market for it.

I couldn't get one of those graphics cards but I appreciate that OCUK tried to sell us a few cards a decent price. Not sure whether they will do it again but just in case I am checking the forum and the stock every day!

Anyway just sharing my thoughts guys and best of luck finding your dream graphics card.

 

[HangTime]

If they are no more it's a culmination of factors:

• Why sell for cheap when you can sell for not cheap?
• Scalpers ruining it
• Extra admin hassle
• Generates some bad publicity (disgruntled people, "I've been here for 137 years but don't have enough posts, boohoo") as well as good publicity
• Even if it does generate good publicity they haven't got much stock to sell before the goodwill decays anyway - a great reputation isn't much use if you can't capitalise on it

Personally I wouldn't bother with it at all, as I understand it was a halfway-house arrangement whereby they had single codes that obviously get leaked compared to a bespoke key-generator per user (which I completely get would be a headache to implement from scratch and yet more admin).

Ideally, I guess it would be somehow tied to the email addresses associated with trust accounts (that are allowed into MM), essentially a whitelist of email addresses that are allowed to login to the portal and place an order, but again, I know it's too much hassle to setup.

 

[melmac]

The issue with this lies in that '1000 posts and being here x time' does not make you a gamer. People actively using the company don't have to post and I think it's a real shame a forum-post-count is ever used as a reward system for any company that isn't literally based around their 'forum' (ie reddit). Imagine being here 10 years, spending many, many thousands of pounds at a company to be told you're not as valued as someone who spends nothing but posts drivel daily for the same year. 1 is making the company function/grow, the other is just costing them money.

To me, a better reward would be based on time and money-spent at the company, but unfortunately the vocal people have to be those that are on the forum, so they're the best people to keep happy, even if they don't buy much or help your company out.

But, that's not it at all. A forum is only as good as it's contributions. If everybody only posted 100 posts in ten years then there would be no forum. And then both OCUK and us would lose the benefits that having a forum brings. They had to make some kind of cut off and the 1000 post/1 year wait to get access to the MM isn't that big of deal. But, it does require a little bit of commitment and getting a little more involved in the forum than just using it whenever a deal comes around. That's the way they organised the first forum deal for loyal forum members, by putting it into the MM. That was the best chance of getting cards into the hands of forum members who wouldn't abuse the system. But, of course, people complained. So they organised the public forum deal. Which has ruined it for everyone and now there is unlikely to be anymore forum deals.

Been loyal to the shop is a different thing. If you have a been a customer of the shop for a long term, then you should talk to Gibbo about organising a deal for loyal shop customers. But, tell me, what would your cut off be? How many years? How much you spent?

 

[five8five]

Wonder how many orders they're missing out on people not buying PC's because missing GPU.

Wonder how many orders they're missing out on because they don't have many discrete GPUs to sell? How longs a piece of string?

 

[Thekwango]

The issue with this lies in that '1000 posts and being here x time' does not make you a gamer. People actively using the company don't have to post and I think it's a real shame a forum-post-count is ever used as a reward system for any company that isn't literally based around their 'forum' (ie reddit). Imagine being here 10 years, spending many, many thousands of pounds at a company to be told you're not as valued as someone who spends nothing but posts drivel daily for the same year. 1 is making the company function/grow, the other is just costing them money.

To me, a better reward would be based on time and money-spent at the company, but unfortunately the vocal people have to be those that are on the forum, so they're the best people to keep happy, even if they don't buy much or help your company out.

Spending 1000’s with them doesn’t make someone a gamer either. So does the spend have to be on specific gaming only related items?

 

[dtokez]

I was thinking the same thing. I've just started playing Microsoft flight sim and my 980 is really not enjoying it as much as I am.

I've had a little pot of cash saved up for a 3060 for a long time, I just hope I'll be able to use it sooner rather than later lol

 

[HangTime]

"Loyalty" is a bit of an overrated concept anyway when it comes to reseller-retail (i.e. where the retailer isn't peddling their own brand of products much), I've bought a fair bit from OcUK over more than 20 years, more than any other retailer (if just counting PC hardware purchases), but that doesn't mean I won't buy elsewhere if they their pricing isn't competitive. I don't care where I buy from (with a couple of exceptions if I've had a bad experience); conversely the retailers as a rule don't care who is buying. So as a 'loyal-ish customer' of over 20 years I don't feel any sense of entitlement - I want a good deal, they want my money, we both understand each other.

I agree however that when it comes to forum engagement the whole point is that it's a two way street, if people are passively consuming the forum (as I did originally) then they aren't actually contributing no matter how religiously they are reading it every day.
That said I've often felt post count can be a bit misleading in isolation' it's quite easy to build post-count with one liners, emojis and suchlike. Would be cool if there were advanced stats available like number of posts with 100+ words, average word count per post (excluding quotes) etc. Of course some of the most helpful people might do a lot of short posts like providing links to resources and such.

 

[FoxEye]

If they are no more it's a culmination of factors:

• Why sell for cheap when you can sell for not cheap?
• Scalpers ruining it
• Extra admin hassle
• Generates some bad publicity (disgruntled people, "I've been here for 137 years but don't have enough posts, boohoo") as well as good publicity
• Even if it does generate good publicity they haven't got much stock to sell before the goodwill decays anyway - a great reputation isn't much use if you can't capitalise on it

Personally I wouldn't bother with it at all, as I understand it was a halfway-house arrangement whereby they had single codes that obviously get leaked compared to a bespoke key-generator per user (which I completely get would be a headache to implement from scratch and yet more admin).

Ideally, I guess it would be somehow tied to the email addresses associated with trust accounts (that are allowed into MM), essentially a whitelist of email addresses that are allowed to login to the portal and place an order, but again, I know it's too much hassle to setup.

This. I doubt the deals are coming back in any significant amount. Might do the odd token gesture here and there.

But the fact is it's a hassle and a lot of the cards end up being re-sold/scalped anyhow.

The sad truth is, if you want a card in 2021 you need to pay scalper prices. There is no alternative (I'm not advocating this and won't be doing so myself, but I won't be getting a card in 2021 as a result.)

 

[SkillTim]

I'm starting to hope that the UK government will ban the use of bots on retail sites. I know it's hard to implement but maybe when they jail a few people known for using them, others will think twice.

 

[Dontrocktheboat]

Dont make promises you cant keep OCUK.

That's all i am saying on the subject.

 

[SkillTim]

Dont make promises you cant keep OCUK.

That's all i am saying on the subject.

That ship sailed a long time ago...

 

[Cooler running]

That ship sailed a long time ago...

Possibly, at the end of the day it's just another chapter in the false hope packed fiasco that is the GPU shortage.

 

[Surveyor]

Dont make promises you cant keep OCUK.

That's all i am saying on the subject.

The discount code for the public forum deal was leaked and members were caught buying cards to resell from the MM deal. That's why, at least partly, you can't have nice things.

 

[pastymuncher]

A bank holiday deal would be nice today.

 

[ANDREW GREEN]

The discount code for the public forum deal was leaked and members were caught buying cards to resell from the MM deal. That's why, at least partly, you can't have nice things.

All of the MM deals went to forum members though (even if 1 got caught reselling on an auction site)

 

[Surveyor]

All of the MM deals went to forum members though (even if 1 got caught reselling on an auction site)

There were at least two.

WARNING!

I have been informed by the DON's a second loyal member has been caught selling a card purchased on an MM deal.
They have been dealt witrh, also let me inform you now all DON/Admins decisions are final, the moderating team put in a huge amount of work moderating the forum and like me they take a dislike to anyone discovered abusing these deals.

So today we have a public deal and I warn you now both staff and moderators will be watching, if anyone leaks the voucher code or buys to sell on, we will find you and we will ban you!

 

[chaparral]

Wonder how many orders they're missing out on because they don't have many discrete GPUs to sell? How longs a piece of string?

There also missing out on orders of other stuff due to not shipping outside the UK & Ireland

They now no ship CPU's & GPU's , Etc to the Channel islands anymore so i now have to order my stuff from other places

 

[Spils]

I'm starting to hope that the UK government will ban the use of bots on retail sites. I know it's hard to implement but maybe when they jail a few people known for using them, others will think twice.

Get real never going to happen. Much bigger problems to fix and we dont have the resources for, than chasing naughty people for selling PS5s and GPUs over RRP.

 

[The Old School Gamer]

There also missing out on orders of other stuff due to not shipping outside the UK & Ireland

They now no ship CPU's & GPU's , Etc to the Channel islands anymore so i now have to order my stuff from other places

Yeah it's all a bit strange as they are happy to ship certain items, but not others.
Add a GPU, CPU or monitor to the basket and it comes up and says it cannot be delivered to your location.

*Sample basket