Mindfactory.de Self-administers Insolvency Proceedings, Resumes "Normal Operations"

[T0@st]

Earlier in March, Mindfactory Germany's webshop looked very threadbare—in terms of readily available modern PC hardware stock—thus generating plenty of online speculation about bankruptcy/insolvency. Regional news outlets have highlighted a recently-issued official press release—titled: "things are running smoothly again at Mindfactory." According to Heise Online, regular webstore customers were subjected to "internal changes" last week—requiring the creation of brand-new accounts. Logging in with old credentials (apparently) prompted a friendly auto-greeting message: "hey, it's great to see you back! Our store database has been technically optimized and tidied up. Please register again with your data." Additionally, Heise Online reckons that Mindfactory did not respond to any press inquiries throughout the month.

Monday's German language PR piece confirms normal service being re-established (via machine translation): "the online store is open as usual, and customers can once again access a growing selection of products...Mindfactory's suppliers have resumed deliveries—without requiring advance payments. In fact, they are even offering discounts to support the restructuring process." A portion of Heise Online's readership reported problems with Mindfactory's after-sales support department (around mid-March); the organization appears ready to address these issues: "along with sales, the company's service operations have also returned to normal. Returns and other service requests are now being processed as usual. Pending cases from the start of the self-administration process are also being gradually handled and resolved." VideoCardz put a spotlight on newly-replenished inventory turning up on Mindfactory's online shop. Multiple XFX and PowerColor Radeon RX 9070 series cards are back in stock—as of last week—with slightly elevated prices. Various AIB GeForce RTX 50-series options are also available to purchase. Heise Online noted that "Mindfactory is rarely one of the cheapest providers, at least at the moment," given the shop's €539.50 (including VAT) listing of AMD's popular Ryzen 7 9800X3D gaming CPU.



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[_roman_]

Some moderator may lock this topic and link it to the other mindfactory topic please.

Just for information for the german / austrian customers: It seems cyberport / computeruniverse seems to struggle also

source: https://www.pcgameshardware.de/Wirt...s/Cyberport-mit-unzufriedenen-Kunden-1468958/
they quote golem.de

 

[trsttte]

If they stopped being idiots and opened their online store Europe wide instead of restricting it to Germany they wouldn't be struggling as much

 

[firefly36]

This company has terrible customer service and does not value its customers.

Two months ago I placed an order, it took over a week before they shipped it (Product was marked as “in Stock”), the product I received was defective, I sent it back right away. Two weeks after they received my return I still had no

communication from them. After I sent several emails (very politely written), I got an unprofessionally written response saying they are busy! I did not get any information as to what is going on, I asked for a replacement product. It is

now over 2 months and I do not have a replacement product, refund, or any information from Mindfactory!

 

[R-T-B]

Some moderator may lock this topic and link it to the other mindfactory topic please.

Just for information for the german / austrian customers: It seems cyberport / computeruniverse seems to struggle also

source: https://www.pcgameshardware.de/Wirt...s/Cyberport-mit-unzufriedenen-Kunden-1468958/
they quote golem.de

More likely the opposite will happen. Historically speaking news posts here get precedence.

 

[Bwaze]

If they stopped being idiots and opened their online store Europe wide instead of restricting it to Germany they wouldn't be struggling as much

I don't think that's entirely their fault. Most of the German shops now limit shipping to Germany only, or to select neighbouring (Germanic) countries only. Most of these shops offered much wider shipping before. And a lot of them really check their buyers (is your credit card issued in Germany?), trying to prevent purchases through shipping forwarding services.

I still don't know the reasons. It started happening before EU enforced paying VAT to the country of customer, not the country of shop, and that transition went smoothly. But I think something encourages shops not to sell outside borders, especially to Eastern Europe. I wouldn't be surprised if this isn't some policy to protect local PC shops here, which really had hard time competing with shops from larger markets, but I have no idea how that would be implemented.

And that "News Article" only cites Mindfactory press release - those often don't have much common with reality. And yes, several large PC shops apparently have financial problems, and it's not hard to see why.

 

[_roman_]

I'm from a neighbour country. Germany -> Austria.

In past ~20 years I only remember two "nice shops" who really annoys me:

Alternate.de refuses to sell. Alternate.at sells, but only trash. The good deals are only in alternate.de (they call it scalpernate and I have to agree by now. Only reason I bought a ryzen 5800x was they were in the list of amd rewards)
Mindfactory.de refuses to sell. Some people use some tricks which I will not use. Logoix, allespost are these subcompanies called. You ship to a german address and than you pay that it is shipped to you. You are not allowed to participate in their raffles and other stuff. Mindfactory hurts because they had the processor I wanted but refuse to sell me one.

It's also a matter of trust. For some reasons there are hardly any proper online shops in austria. I do order from time to time from germany. Even when I have to pay ridiculous shipping fees of 16€ for a graphic card and such.

I do not mind out of stock items when I know it before ordering at the shopping cart step. And when the payment is done when the stuff arrives at my doorstep. I waited for car motoroil recently for 4 months.

 

[trsttte]

I don't think that's entirely their fault. Most of the German shops now limit shipping to Germany only, or to select neighbouring (Germanic) countries only. Most of these shops offered much wider shipping before. And a lot of them really check their buyers (is your credit card issued in Germany?), trying to prevent purchases through shipping forwarding services.

I still don't know the reasons. It started happening before EU enforced paying VAT to the country of customer, not the country of shop, and that transition went smoothly. But I think something encourages shops not to sell outside borders, especially to Eastern Europe. I wouldn't be surprised if this isn't some policy to protect local PC shops here, which really had hard time competing with shops from larger markets, but I have no idea how that would be implemented.

And that "News Article" only cites Mindfactory press release - those often don't have much common with reality. And yes, several large PC shops apparently have financial problems, and it's not hard to see why.

I can understand them not wanting to deal with cross country invoicing, the beauty of capitalism is if they don't want to address the market needs someone else will leaving them to die.

They could be addressing a market of ~450 million potential clients, they instead choose to limit themselves to ~80 millions customers in germany in the age of online shopping, their loss lol

 

[Visible Noise]

What about all those AMD graphics cards they were selling?

Guess it wasn’t very much after all

 

[Bwaze]

I think all the success in AMD GPU sales there always came with "but it's not that AMD sales are high - Nvidia sales are low". Nvidia's own revenue has been falling in that sector, even with combining Gaming with "AI PC". And apparently more PC shops here are in same troubles.