MicroCenter Starts Limiting GPU Orders per Customer

[VSG]

Story updated, that $10k number isn't really what it seems to be.

 

[Prince Valiant]

How so? You're selling cards - selling cards means influx of cash to the retailers and the manufacturers.

All they need to do is cut back the return date period to 7 days or so and hike the prices (like they are doing)...

How would it be bad for you in the long term?

You run the risk of losing customers if you consistently fail to have stock they want.

For an online only store that might not be a problem but, Microcenter has a good number of physical locations. Someone coming into a store for a GPU might also poke around the monitor section, look at random peripherals, tell their friends, etc.

Someone looking to snap up cards for mining isn't likely to waste time on that.

 

[neatfeatguy]

You run the risk of losing customers if you consistently fail to have stock they want.

For an online only store that might not be a problem but, Microcenter has a good number of physical locations. Someone coming into a store for a GPU might also poke around the monitor section, look at random peripherals, tell their friends, etc.

Someone looking to snap up cards for mining isn't likely to waste time on that.

That's true in my case. I don't enter into my local Micro Center and simply buy the one thing I went there for. I mean, I probably could, but it so damn hard to walk out without seeing something else you could make use of and spending more.

I went out there last time because they had a $20 free on any purchase coupon (even if your amount didn't come out to be more than $20, you'd get your purchase for free) and I needed a HDMI cable. $14.99 on a 10ft HDMI cable, $12.99 on a 200mm fan, $20 on a cheap wireless keyboard/mouse set (was $10 off on sale, normally $30) and I almost picked up a $25 4port switch, but I was able to talk myself out of it. So, instead of getting a free HDMI cable, I spent an extra $30 on things I didn't need, but could certainly make use of.

I used to go out there every few months and browse for PC games. Sadly though, since we all know PC games have made a large shift to digital copies, physical ones are harder and harder to come by. About 5 years ago they rearranged their PC and console game section and instead of having 2 or 3 large, long shelves that housed tons of PC games, they have one small shelf to hold all their PC games now and I'm sure it's probably shrunk even more in the past few years since I've last looked. I'd almost always end up buying $20-40 in games and other things such as a spare mouse or looking over SSD/HDD and getting one. You get those items right there in your hand and you just have to buy them. When browsing online, it's just a picture and is meaningless to me so I can easily just close the web browser and be on my way.....I find it harder to put a piece of hardware down once I've picked it up and looked it over.

 

[R-T-B]

I don't think there will EVER be enough supply of graphic cards to meet the demands of miners.

The supply of money available to issue to miners from investors in crypto is fairly fixed. You know what this means?

At some point, equilibrium will be found. It's only a matter of time before buying more GPUs does not yield anymore profit. It's called Tragedy of the Commons, and it's already happening to miners everywhere with decreased profits.

 

[EarthDog]

Story updated, that $10k number isn't really what it seems to be.

Sorry... what was added? I dont see an editors note?

 

[Deleted member 67555]

Just out of curiosity can anyone here actually buy from MicroCenters website?
For me everything is out of stock or Available In Store Only.

By The Way...MicroCenter is the best store on EARTH!!!
I generally don't need anymore help than someone getting my stuff from the back room to take up front so I go around the sales floor and have the sales people put their stickers on stuff I picked out....LOL
It's not like Best Buy...The sales people actually know what they are talking about...
The guys and girl that work in the PC section at the MC I go to are either really good actors or are actually psyched to work in that dept..

 

[EarthDog]

Some do in the diy section...more than best buy...at least at the on here in cbus.

 

[VSG]

Sorry... what was added? I dont see an editors note?

Originally it was thought that the $10k number was actually it, but it's more like a number Microcenter put to deter buyers in a similar manner as how Newegg randomly puts in a very high number for items not in stock or coming in shortly. Let me add in a note at the end to clarify what the change was now, I should have done so earlier itself.

 

[eidairaman1]

Well about time, just hope others are willing to follow, as we know AMD cannot do shit about, remember they gotta keep those vendors happy.

Although i cannot see why people cannot just shop at 2 or more places for what they want.

Lets face it they still ripping people of per unit, they can shove that price tag were the sun don't shine, that goes for best buy too.

Im glad this applies to both AMD and Nvidia. Things were easier before CUDA, as all gpus were soly for gaming, not compute.


This is a good move to keep Gaming stock around.

 

[Totally]

How so? You're selling cards - selling cards means influx of cash to the retailers and the manufacturers.

All they need to do is cut back the return date period to 7 days or so and hike the prices (like they are doing)...

How would it be bad for you in the long term?

The there are two scenarios that eventually happen with the cards

A: Miners work the poor card over until it dies and then return or rma the card. Miners have shown that they have no qualms about doing so, if fact abuse warranties. If this keeps up I wouldn't be surprised if cards with nearly no warranty or draconian warranties start being sold.

B: At the end of a card's useful life, Miners offload the cards in the second hand market. This point directly refutes the point a sale is a sale. With miners it's actually a sale today is a lost sale tomorrow. Not going to mention the poor schmucks who end up buying a these cards that have spent most of their lives being tortured.

 

[AsRock]

Im glad this applies to both AMD and Nvidia. Things were easier before CUDA, as all gpus were soly for gaming, not compute.


This is a good move to keep Gaming stock around, befor

They are still over charging like around $80-$100 for these cards.

 

[eidairaman1]

They are still over charging like around $80-$100 for these cards.

Still better than most places, 200+ anyone?

 

[phanbuey]

The there are two scenarios that eventually happen with the cards

A: Miners work the poor card over until it dies and then return or rma the card. Miners have shown that they have no qualms about doing so, if fact abuse warranties. If this keeps up I wouldn't be surprised if cards with nearly no warranty or draconian warranties start being sold.

B: At the end of a card's useful life, Miners offload the cards in the second hand market. This point directly refutes the point a sale is a sale. With miners it's actually a sale today is a lost sale tomorrow. Not going to mention the poor schmucks who end up buying a these cards that have spent most of their lives being tortured.

A: This leads to better designed hardware that fails less often.

B: This leads to manufacturers lowering prices.

It's uncomfortable for the buyer now, but ultimately this leads to the best outcome.

 

[yotano211]

Lots of people are still blaming miners for shortage of everything instead of taking advantage of it. Why complain and whine about it when you can learn to build those systems that miners want for a nice profit. So many people are just too lazy to do anything so they complain.

 

[GorbazTheDragon]

Lots of people are still blaming miners for shortage of everything instead of taking advantage of it. Why complain and whine about it when you can learn to build those systems that miners want for a nice profit. So many people are just too lazy to do anything so they complain.

Honestly mining is pretty pointless, so why do it in the first place... then again banker's salaries are too

 

[xorbe]

This is a common tactic when things are out of stock, and their crap system makes it hard to hide or temporarily delist, so the price is set to 99,999 as an indicator of "you can't do that". This is not new ...

 

[Eric3988]

About time they did this!

 

[Totally]

A: This leads to better designed hardware that fails less often.

B: This leads to manufacturers lowering prices.

It's uncomfortable for the buyer now, but ultimately this leads to the best outcome.

And that is a no-win scenario, if they are to design better cards then they have to dump more money into doing increasing the cost of the cards which would prevent them from lowering prices.

 

[cdawall]

So microcenter has been doing this for like 2-3 months now and has actually started relaxing the policy.

 

[yotano211]

So microcenter has been doing this for like 2-3 months now and has actually started relaxing the policy.

How are they relaxing this policy, can you say.

 

[cdawall]

How are they relaxing this policy, can you say.

There are certain skus in abundance at stores that they are perfectly willing to sell by the box.

They will also allow multiple transactions depending on salesman.

 

[R-T-B]

Honestly mining is pretty pointless, so why do it in the first place... then again banker's salaries are too

Yeah, try a world without bankers for a few days. I hope you packed rations.

And I don't see running a global highly secure digital payment network as pointless in the least.

 

[Vayra86]

Eh... so you get a couple of friends or family to order some for you. Problem solved?