Monday, January 11th 2021
We're Changing How we Handle Pricing in Graphics Card Reviews
The major GPU releases in 2020 are all plagued by the same problem: good product, not enough stock. This has led to a perverse situation on the market: you can't just walk into your favorite store and purchase the product you want. This is a consequence of NVIDIA and AMD going to market with tiny volumes, and extremely optimistic MSRPs which opened up the market to the phenomenon of scalping. Scalpers are individuals, or groups, who buy up whatever little volume is available, often using sophisticated online shopping bots, and resell them at exorbitant premiums on marketplaces like eBay, for profit.
This system only works because there is zero retail stock available anywhere on the planet, and whatever volume comes in, is so low that it evaporates, often before hitting retailer shelves. The only way scalping can be defeated is for manufacturers to flood the market with large volumes of product that the scalpers cannot scale their purchases up to, and possibly for crypto-currency mining to become not worth it on the latest generations of graphics cards. Until these happen, marked-up pricing is an inescapable reality for consumers.
We believe that exposing readers to MSRP pricing alone in our graphics card reviews, would be doing them disservice. That's why I've decided to consider the pricing of the lowest valid eBay.com listing in my graphics card reviews, too, in cases where none are available on our main retail pricing source, Newegg.com. We do not condone the practice of scalping, but at the same time, it's just not right to report and discuss prices that you can't actually buy the product at.
How We Reported Graphics Card Prices in Our Reviews Until Now
If a price is available on Newegg for the tested product, use that. If not available, possibly because day-one review, for which no other source of information exists, use the MSRP. For the huge list of "reference" comparison cards in reviews, the cheapest Newegg price of the series is used. For older cards, which are no longer in production, the Newegg price can often be too high, because 3rd party sellers are trying to profit. In that case the last available reasonable price point is considered.
How We Intend to Report Pricing Now
I'll try to determine pricing by first looking it up on Newegg, and only use the Newegg price if the product is available (ready to purchase and ship) at the time of writing. For older products nothing changes. If a product is completely sold out on Newegg, like all GeForce RTX 30 and Radeon RX 6800/6900 Series currently, I will look it up on eBay, which is one of the leading marketplaces where people resell their graphics cards.
The search uses the following parameters:
For example, for a hypothetical RX 6700 XT, which is 15% slower than the RX 6800 non-XT (currently going for $850 on eBay, MSRP was $580), I would estimate $700 ($850, minus 15%, minus some premium for lower absolute performance). Obviously this isn't going to be 100% perfect, but I feel that will be more useful than simply parroting back "the MSRP is $400, super affordable, just buy it".
In the review's conclusion I will discuss MSRP, supply situation, the current market price and how that compares to other alternatives on the market. The Performance per Dollar charts will now have the price for calculation appended after the product name. When the MSRP is used, a pink bar with price/performance at MSRP gets added. Comparison cards (gray bars) will be shown at their street price only, MSRP won't be listed. The chart below should illustrate this sufficiently.
We welcome your comments and constructive feedback.
This system only works because there is zero retail stock available anywhere on the planet, and whatever volume comes in, is so low that it evaporates, often before hitting retailer shelves. The only way scalping can be defeated is for manufacturers to flood the market with large volumes of product that the scalpers cannot scale their purchases up to, and possibly for crypto-currency mining to become not worth it on the latest generations of graphics cards. Until these happen, marked-up pricing is an inescapable reality for consumers.
How We Reported Graphics Card Prices in Our Reviews Until Now
If a price is available on Newegg for the tested product, use that. If not available, possibly because day-one review, for which no other source of information exists, use the MSRP. For the huge list of "reference" comparison cards in reviews, the cheapest Newegg price of the series is used. For older cards, which are no longer in production, the Newegg price can often be too high, because 3rd party sellers are trying to profit. In that case the last available reasonable price point is considered.
How We Intend to Report Pricing Now
I'll try to determine pricing by first looking it up on Newegg, and only use the Newegg price if the product is available (ready to purchase and ship) at the time of writing. For older products nothing changes. If a product is completely sold out on Newegg, like all GeForce RTX 30 and Radeon RX 6800/6900 Series currently, I will look it up on eBay, which is one of the leading marketplaces where people resell their graphics cards.
The search uses the following parameters:
- Brand new
- Ships to the USA
- Sort pricing by "lowest first" (price+shipping)
- Manually inspect and filter out individual listings that look "fake"
- The listing must be ready to purchase ("Buy it Now"), and must ship within 7 days of receipt of payment (ensures that the scalper physically possesses the merchandise they're trying to sell)
For example, for a hypothetical RX 6700 XT, which is 15% slower than the RX 6800 non-XT (currently going for $850 on eBay, MSRP was $580), I would estimate $700 ($850, minus 15%, minus some premium for lower absolute performance). Obviously this isn't going to be 100% perfect, but I feel that will be more useful than simply parroting back "the MSRP is $400, super affordable, just buy it".
In the review's conclusion I will discuss MSRP, supply situation, the current market price and how that compares to other alternatives on the market. The Performance per Dollar charts will now have the price for calculation appended after the product name. When the MSRP is used, a pink bar with price/performance at MSRP gets added. Comparison cards (gray bars) will be shown at their street price only, MSRP won't be listed. The chart below should illustrate this sufficiently.
56 Comments on We're Changing How we Handle Pricing in Graphics Card Reviews
It was perfect the way it was
You might also try looking at Stock X. It doesn't have as much variety in brands, though that has expanded a lot in the last month. However two big advantages is that it does give price trends and you can see the depth of the market (how many buy offers there are vs bids, and at what price point). It works a lot like buying and selling stock with a decent stock application. This helps prevent taking a momentary 'blip' in price as reflective of the market.
Not everyone is completely aware of what is going on with these CPU/GPU markets. Someone who is just visiting specifically to read a review on a particular product, and maybe buy the product, is likely to get mad there is even a review up and hence wasting their time.
I mean, take it out of the PC space for a moment. If you read a review on say a washing machine that said it was fantastic and way better than anything before, and only cost $500 - then went to buy it and found it was actually $800... would you trust or go back to that review site anymore?
How about a car? Say a $30,000 car that ticks all the check boxes but the dealers all have them marked up to $50,000? That does sometimes happen and people will dump entire brands for those kinds of things.
I guess like above listing both prices with notes is very helpful
You should list both MSRP and current pricing in all reviews in your charts (on launch, it's only MSRP, but subsequent reviews with that card should list MSRP and actual). No need to play reindeer games with pricing. You're not going to be able to please everyone as some will be taxed more, some less. Some available more, some less. Also, the writing becomes stale when you use current pricing and availability. Your GPU and CPU reviews are, hands down, the best on the net to me, but the way you list pricing was always off-putting and confusing. Don't make it worse. I would stick with Newegg or Amazon for current pricing as those sites are the most used globally, it seems, and you likely get kickback from each.
And using Ebay for pricing? No... jesus, no, please do not do that. Yikes. Availability and pricing is not your issue (at least in RE to listing pricing) and varies so wildly this may confuse people more with how it's laid out. I don't want to read a review and see a link to ebay with scalper pricing... no way.
The fact that these are vaporware on store shelves is not TPU's (or any reviewer's) issue. You report the MSRP and a link to Newegg/Amazon where you get a kickback. What pricing is and availability has nothing to do with reviewers and how they list the price. Each country is going to have different pricing and availability. Comparing MSRP of one to 'street' price on another feels confusing at best to misleading at worst.
Reviewers need to stick to parroting for price/listing MSRP since it is different for each country and region (among other variables that effect price).that sounds like the reader's personal issue than it is anyone else's responsibility. Availability is most certainly worth a mention in the review, but basing prices off ebay and such.....scary.. yikes....fake news yikes.Absolutely. I'm conscious enough to understand that reviewers have no responsibility in this space. If you're a consumer that reads a review, sees MSRP listed and flips out when you get to the store it isn't MSRP..........that is more so a personal issue than it is a reviewer not sharing pricing. YMMV was ALWAYS a disclaimer on pricing. I was utterly shocked to hear how pricing changes to 'actual' with each subsequent review already...
A simple statement about pricing and availability where applicable along with MSRP pricing listed (and a generic link to NE/Amazon) is the way to go IMO. Don't make a curious process even worse. This process will look really off once prices settle...listing ebay when these are on store shelves doesn't sound like the way to go. MSRP.... K.I.S.S... :)
Retailers like Newegg state that they are combating bots, but they really aren't doing much to that effect. They still haven't placed a verification which bots couldn't do to purchase. The IP bans are easily circumvented by using VPN.
stick to msrp, you dont need to re-invent the wheel.
350eur over initial price... meh
for example the current UK ebay (actual going price) is around £1200 quid for an nvidia 3080 card..
the manufacturers are running a scam.. good stuff wiz at least you now wont be part of the scam..
trog
I think a fair assumption would be these big traffic site, the 1000 or so people who post regularly to forums are not the norm. TPU gets millions of hits per month. For most of those folks, they are trying to plan an actual purchase.
On other items outside of PCs I may not be aware of the actual costs, just like those millions of clicks mentioned above. I expect the review to tell me that. If it doesn't tell me that then the review is fairly useless and I'm not likely to go back in the future. If I look at a comparison of food processors and the #1 rated food processor is $150 in the review but it's $300 when I go to find int, I'm not going to give that review site many new chances. This is not a 'personal problem' it is me deciding on the service I want to get and acting on that.
Your approach seems to be to attack the readers, it's a good thing W1zzard trys to cater to the needs of the readers because your approach would be a real good way to wind up with only a handful of hard-core techies as readers. Hardly something one could make a living at.
More info is not always more useful. Being presented with a higher than MSRP price when there is an intent to purchase, is going to be a harder sell than being well aware of the deviation from MSRP and having factored it in during a review.
Or put simply, this gives more visibility and credibility to the presence of pricing over MSRP. I doubt it will deter anyone or 'get things straight' from the review. The MSRP is what it is. If availability is good, MSRP is likely to be reached, if there is no stock, the price will be inflated. Its a basic principle of trade and if you fail to grasp that, this 'GPU crisis' (lmao) is the best way to get that rammed into a skull.
As for the data itself though... I question the usefulness of it. Prices fluctuate and are influenced locally as well. Its not even just different tax regimes, but also general availability, trade tariffs / deals, local law, etc. There are tons of considerations and the best piece of info is what each individual can locally get his hands on. Using Ebay for anything is just reinforcing free-for-all marketplaces at the expense of normal businesses. And if normal businesses 'scalp' or 'increase price'... its up to CUSTOMERS to do the walking away. On each personal motivation for each personal consideration.
I don't know, I just resent the inability for people to google something themselves I guess. Not a big fan of this change. It harms customer due diligence, a typical less is more situation. Or, rather: review the product and not the market, its so much safer and probably gets the same results.
If you simply list the MSRP and a link to NE/Amazon, that doesn't happen and the data doesn't become stale. ;)
So its either live and accurate, or its not there at all. And if its live and accurate, it was never integrated into the review, but just an addon box they stick under anything related.
EXAMPLE
Conclusion page of GPU review:
The models under review are lined up with the lowest found price at a retailer - which is a link to the Pricewatch, a local database of all products with constant, live updates.
MSRP is mentioned in the text itself, along with some notes on how stuff is screwed up right now. What more can you expect from a review, I really wonder.
What really needs reflection is how we've come to that point that feelings get hurt when seeing a higher price for something people want. That's what you're saying here should be avoided. Maybe repeat that sentence a few times, to grasp the idiocy of it. You're saying W1zzard is indirectly responsible for your feelings when reading a review he wrote.
Beyond that, I do not need and will always dismiss someone who lives in Europe telling me what things cost in the US and vice versa; apply this logic to other situations, it doesnt make any sense.
This is much better for all readers especially those who care about ''perf per dollar'' metrics knowing that they will have a clear picture of what the market should had been and what it factually is !
But again, we're adding scope to a review which (IMNSHO) doesn't remotely need to be there. If people don't understand that when a review lists MSRP it is just that, a SUGGESTED price from the MFG that changes with the times, We can't help those people. THIS, isn't helping those people, but sends them to a place to potentially get ripped off (their choice of course, but that is what an ebay link accomplishes).
That said, I have couple of things I don't like:
1. Newegg as a reference. Newegg is a marketplace now. It still has great search so you can actually find stuff over there, but I don;t think it's the great store that it was 15 years ago. Maybe consider getting the price from the manufacturer directly, if the manufacturer has stock or otherwise directs you to a reseller that does.
2. Ebay as a reference. I believe many people tend to avoid ebay (strong buyer protection makes sellers keep some distance), I'm not sure that is the best reference these days. Unfortunately I'm not using ebay and I'm not US based, so I can't suggest a better reference.