It's a Scalping Christmas: Scalpers of Latest Games Consoles, PC Hardware Rake In ~$39 million

[bug]

The Manufacturers should flood the market with cards in the moment they realize that scalping will be made at launch.
That would involve a bit of planning, but so the scalpers would buy stuff wich could be nearly worthless one or two weeks later.
So if a manufacturer would buffer 3x the supply for the first few weeks but trick the scalpers with faked low preorder-volume, yeah that is what i would do.
And in week 2-3 flood the market with supply, f*ck the scalpers.

"A bit of planning", lol.
It's impossible, you can't just reserve fab capacity on a whim. And you can't really stockpile until you can flood the market either.

 

[R0H1T]

These are just estimates, based on sometimes the dubious assumption that every (ebay) listing ends in a sale ~ which it most certainly doesn't. Though between stolen goods, items lost in mail/transit et al I'd say this is pretty close to what the "grey market" market has made on the latest & greatest in tech this year!

 

[yotano211]

Who are the fools actually paying these ebay prices lol.

I have many who bought from me.

 

[bonehead123]

The only thing in short supply here is a sense of common decency and respect for others.

Scalpers should be rounded up, tarred & feathered, hung upside down by their toenails, and left to rot in desert sun while the vultures pick their bones clean...

IMHO, of course, hehehehe

 

[fynxer]

My Scalping only generated €500 profit selling one ASUS 3080 Gaming OC

 

[Legacy-ZA]

Lot's of stock here in South-Africa. Very few people here can afford them:

https://www.wootware.co.za/computer-hardware/video-cards-video-devices/shopby/geforce_rtx_3090-geforce_rtx_3080-geforce_rtx_3070-geforce_rtx_3060_ti/in_stock_with_wootware-stock_coming_soon

As far as I know, the international community can't purchase these. I wonder... If I make the offer to buy it for someone on their dime and ship it to them, will they buy me one too?

*Edit*

Just had a look, even the new Ryzen Processors.

https://www.wootware.co.za/computer-hardware/cpus-processors/shopby/amd_ryzen_4th_gen

 

[erocker]

With Amazon and Newegg allowing scalpers to operate on their own sites, this is not going away.

 

[RandallFlagg]

Lot's of stock here in South-Africa. Very few people here can afford them:

https://www.wootware.co.za/computer-hardware/video-cards-video-devices/shopby/geforce_rtx_3090-geforce_rtx_3080-geforce_rtx_3070-geforce_rtx_3060_ti/in_stock_with_wootware-stock_coming_soon

As far as I know, the international community can't purchase these. I wonder... If I make the offer to buy it for someone on their dime and ship it to them, will they buy me one too?

*Edit*

Just had a look, even the new Ryzen Processors.

https://www.wootware.co.za/computer-hardware/cpus-processors/shopby/amd_ryzen_4th_gen

I was about to say you have an opportunity there to resell into the US via ebay, then saw what they are charging.

They want $732 USD for that marked down 3060 Ti. Yeah but no, the scalpers here are cheaper.

 

[Voultapher]

Still rocking my i7-920, so I have no problem waiting a bit longer for an upgrade.

 

[LFaWolf]

One side effect of scalping that I fear is that AMD and nvidia will see that people are willing to pay above msrp to scalpers and raise prices themselves in the next go around.

 

[xBruce88x]

And yet my coworker wonders why I tell him building a gaming pc for his kid for Christmas will be hard with "only" $1000 usd

 

[Darmok N Jalad]

Sorry? Not sure why you're replying to me, as there is stock here at normal retail pricing.

I was simply replying to your comment about things in short supply. My comment though was more directed at the article topic in general. Scalpers are only making what they are because enough people are willing to overpay for the "now" factor. If you have supply at MSRP, then you sound pretty fortunate compared to many others!

 

[tomc100]

I'm good with my water cooled rtx 2080 super. I can wait until summer and beyond. Never buy from a scalper.

 

[Chrispy_]

The people being scalped are either imaptient idiots getting what they deserve, or those rich enough to not care.
The rest of us can make do with our existing cards for another three months.

• Neither console has enough exclusives to make it that important to get one RIGHT NOW.
  
  
• Zen2 is still capable of running everything on the market right now.
  
  
• A lowly RTX 2060 (6GB) can run CP2077 with medium raytracing as long as you use DLSS, and if you're on an older RX 580 or GTX 1060 then you're going to be absolutely fine at 1080p. Better graphics don't magically make the story or gameplay better, they're simply a nice cherry on top. More importantly, the non-DXR graphics look really good with some excellent raster-based reflections, AO, shadows, and lighting; I'm not denying that the raytracing looks nice but CP2077 is an example of really good "faked/baked" effects that we had before raytracing was a thing.

I feel sorry for the few people who want to play these latest games and have been trying to stretch an old card out until now (a friend of mine finally upgraded his GTX 460 last week) but that is a tiny minority and if they truly can't wait it's easy to find a 1660 Super at a reasonable price and that will tie them over until mid-2021 when hopefully this scalping/supply/COVID nonsense is history.

 

[seth1911]

In my Country its:
3060TI 490$
3070 700$
3080 900$
3090 1500$

6800 800$

Nope never ill dont buy this shit, my 1060 with 5 years warranty was 145$ in sale
15$ cheaper than the 1650 Super and with 2GB more RAM

 

[bug]

In my Country its:
3060TI 490$
3070 700$
3080 900$
3090 1500$

6800 800$

Nope never ill dont buy this shit, my 1060 with 5 years warranty was 145$ in sale
15$ cheaper than the 1650 Super and with 2GB more RAM

At least for you, the solution is pretty obvious: get a better country

 

[seth1911]

Who knows maybe ill go to another country after my work education

 

[MDWiley]

And none of this will go away until fools stop buying from them. It truly is that simple. When scalping is no longer profitable, it will stop.

Use lots of stock trackers and set them up for mobile text alerts. Have the product pages open on different stores, ready to hit add to cart. There are no guarantees but it'll help your chances for sure.

 

[trog100]

over promote a product and then fail to supply into a market that expects instant gratification and what you see is the end result..

in a communist world everyone waits for ever.. in a capitalist world the available product goes to the highest bidder.. ether way when there isnt enough to go round the majority will have to go without..

whats odd at the moment is both seller and buyers aint sure what kind of a world we now live in..

trog

 

[Minus Infinity]

I only answered not looking, because there is no point looking. I'm not wasting my life hanging around online shopping sites hoping a batch of overpriced GPUs or CPUs shows up. Screw that, I'm delaying my new build by at least 3-6 months. Frankly AMD and Nvidia don't deserve my money.

 

[Deleted member 24505]

Everyone might hate them, but you can't blame them. I think secretly everyone would do it if they could. If no one was buying the stuff they couldn't sell it, it's only the desperateness of the pc market that makes it worth while. Must have newest GPU CPU now it's the need for the items now that inflates the price. I don't give a crap if I have to wait, unfortunately there are thousands of fidiots that won't and keep buying the scalpers stuff

 

[The Von Matrices]

Why don't manufacturers just set the MSRP higher and take out all the incentive for scalpers?

 

[Fouquin]

The only thing in short supply here seems to be the Ryzen 9 5900X, AMD graphics cards and obviously consoles.
Everything else is available, not in huge quantities, but in enough supply to meet demand.
Ended up buying and shipping a Ryzen 7 5800X and an Nvidia card here and send it to a make in the UK so he could build his new rig.
He's even had a hard time finding a case and PSU that he wants that's in stock. His first, second and third choices weren't available.

Must be nice. Here I had to go through my nVidia rep and it still took him 3 weeks to find a 3080 from any of the AIBs. We went through EVGA, ASUS, Zotac and eventually found an SI with a single card available.

 

[RandallFlagg]

Why don't manufacturers just set the MSRP higher and take out all the incentive for scalpers?

I hate to say it but this is exactly what should happen. It's part of basic theory of economics, there's a curve of volume produced / price where you maximize returns on a product vs cost to manufacture, keeping in mind that the more you make the less the unit cost.

They are basically leaving money on the table, which the scalpers are stepping in and taking. Having the wrong price set is what this is, it reflects badly on management, and investors should really be pissed since their companies potential profit is going to scalpers.

The customers also suffer more as not only are they paying more to scalpers anyway, but many will have a hard time for example returning a defective product, while others will get scammed because these back door channels lend themselves to scams (like someone relabeling a 2060 and selling it as a 3060 Ti or some such, or selling a picture of a 3070 and so on).

 

[Legacy-ZA]

I was about to say you have an opportunity there to resell into the US via ebay, then saw what they are charging.

They want $732 USD for that marked down 3060 Ti. Yeah but no, the scalpers here are cheaper.

Yes, it's disgusting, right? As I said, they are in stock for a reason, very few can afford them at these non-MSRP prices. I desperately need a new card as my GTX 660Ti can't even open modern games anymore, I wanted to by an RTX3070 at MSRP... but this... this I can't do, they essentially double charge on everything.

Beyond disgusting and they aren't the only store doing this, there is no place to turn to.