Wednesday, November 18th 2020
Surprising Absolutely No One, AMD RX 6800 Series Pretty Much Out of Stock, And Scalping Becomes a Pervasive Industry Problem
The title says it all, really. We've only just been able to add AMD's latest RX 6800 and 6800 XT graphics cards to our shopping carts in multiple etailers, but the cat is already out of the bag and into scalpers' pockets. This has been a recurring event for all gaming-related tech, from DIY PC parts to the latest-gen games consoles from both Microsoft and Sony. At this point, it becomes moot to talk about availability issues, or demand issues, or reaching a conclusion between the two - the stock just isn't there for anything gaming-related, period.
Some etailers are only selling their graphics cards in-person, as a way to both control flow of stock and protect themselves from scalpers buying up the entire inventory with recourse to some digital sidekicks that automate the purchase process, and then allow them to resell anything from graphics cards from NVIDIA to AMD, passing through AMD's latest Ryzen 5000 series and the Xbox Series X and PS5 gaming consoles.
At a time where the COVID pandemic is still well underway and has actually been ever more pervasive and threatening in these winter months across the world (where winter months apply at this time of year, eh), the decision to only carry in-store inventory not only forces more people to enter possible infection scenarios, but also overturns the entire purchase process. Perhaps the time has come for etailers to actually review their online sale policies, and make things as hard as possible for scalpers to circumvent their (at times laughable) order mechanisms.
Selling only a single graphics card per purchase, not allowing the same credit card or billing information to be used for copies of the same or comparable articles, introducing captchas for every finalized cart, not allowing shipment for the same address, instituting a queue system that removes the products from stock for all but the contacted customers, and even manual filtering of orders like NVIDIA instituted on their store - these would all be sensible, partial solutions to fix this problem for the consumer, whilst simultaneously protecting customers from (I'm sorry) pretty poor choices in demanding they physically go to a store to maybe be able to get that latest gaming console or graphics card.
Of course, I guess for etailers, a sale is a sale, wherever and however it's done. They don't deal with the brand damage that surfaces from these practices, and they make their profit - as small as it sometimes is - all the same. For them, a card off the shelf is a card off the shelf, and that's that.
Source:
TechSpot
Some etailers are only selling their graphics cards in-person, as a way to both control flow of stock and protect themselves from scalpers buying up the entire inventory with recourse to some digital sidekicks that automate the purchase process, and then allow them to resell anything from graphics cards from NVIDIA to AMD, passing through AMD's latest Ryzen 5000 series and the Xbox Series X and PS5 gaming consoles.
102 Comments on Surprising Absolutely No One, AMD RX 6800 Series Pretty Much Out of Stock, And Scalping Becomes a Pervasive Industry Problem
also, will post benches as soon as mine gets here, y'all know I am not a scalper, so at least 1 non-scalper got one, and I am not a bot... unless Elon Musk is correct and this is all a simulation :roll:
my point is I am sure I am not alone ^ would be interesting to see actual percentages is all I am saying.
Plenty of 3090's and 3080's in stock here though.
Also, I think we need to make a petition to disable lynx29's signature forever.
30 units in stock, with pick up as soon as Friday.
Edit.
And they're gone:
Last unit left.
Consoles selling out fast due to people working from home,which will lead to having more time to be able to play games after it hits the 4/5/6pm mark.
Hey, AMD haters on TPU forums! Quote me (and Kyle Benett and Steve from HWUB), AMD did a paper launch. Make AMD lovers mad. Khek! XD
And this isnt just GPU launches that are selling out in 2nds. Consoles, CPUs, etc.
There is a serious supply problem. Apple is OK with their stock levels, but everyone else is extremely behind the curve. Looking at the bits of information that is coming in from retail, neither Nvidia or AMD shipped anywhere near enough units to equal demand. How many 6800?? cards could Amazon have sold today with unlimited supply.... 10,000 in the USA maybe. How many did they have, we will never know, but I wouldn't bet over a 100.
There is only one way to stop scalping and that is having a full inventory to sell at launch. Sneaker scalpers spend over $10k USD on bots plus maintenance fee's. You think captcha's will stop them. These folks have some advanced tech. Even if you or I or Average Joe buys one intent on using it, the lure of double or tripling the price on e-Bay get's in your head.
So why is all this happening. I have a feeling AMD and Intel feel pressure to keep their stock prices up and Wall Street loves these launches. So they paper launch in the Fall knowing they won't ship until Winter/Spring. It creates a buzz and their valuation remains high.
ON THIS DAY
I DEFEATED THE BOTS! I DEFEATED THE MAGNATES OF FALSE INDUSTRY!
I CONQUERED THE REALMS OF MAN!!! 5600X AND 6800 ARE MINE AT MSRP PRICE!!!! LONG LIVE LISA SU!!! THE BOTS AND SCALPERS HAVE NO SWAY OVER ME ON THIS DAY!!!!
*HOWLS*
edit: i'll calm down after this mods, I promise :roll: just having too much fun today