Ways to counter hardware scalping?

[SpaceGhostC2C]

It's really down to three options:

 

1) Communism

2) Anarchism

3) Retail prices that make sense for the available supply instead of arbitrary magic numbers that maybe make us look good on paper.

 

Alternative 3 has many variants:

3.a) set the market-clearing price from the get go

3.b) have more supply

3.c) auction all the units you have

probably more

 

On 9/19/2020 at 11:37 AM, Senzelian said:

"Don't buy from scalpers and wait" is my personal solution.

True, there's also that, although it's kind of wishing the problem ("problem"?) away. In the end there are people who like a new GPU better than $2,000 in their pocket or spent elsewhere, so they have no incentives not to buy (they probably aren't complaining in forums either, though).

[Senzelian]

1 hour ago, SpaceGhostC2C said:

In the end there are people 

That sums it up.

Nothing I can do about people being people and them doing shitty stuff in a free market.

 

 

The only real solution to this is

1 hour ago, SpaceGhostC2C said:

3.b) have more supply

 

[Mark Kaine]

On 9/19/2020 at 4:29 PM, Autoism said:

Figured

Considering retail also loves to scalp, it really does not matter, as long scalping isn't illegal it will be done. 

 

 

[Mark Kaine]

15 hours ago, Senzelian said:

The only real solution to this is

How is that a solution when the stock is artificially limited by manufacturers? 

 

ie so called "paper launches", do you think you can force manufacturers to only launch when they have stock for the entire population? Good luck with that. 

 

A better solution would be to make MSRP *binding* by law... (as that would actually work at least in terms of saying "oh look this item is only 500, except you can never get it at this price lul") 

[Parideboy]

14 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

How is that a solution when the stock is artificially limited by manufacturers? 

Not having enough stock for everyone doesn't mean artificially limiting stock.

 

Retailers change the price, not manufacturers. AMD and NVIDIA want to sell as many gpus as they can.

[Senzelian]

20 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

How is that a solution when the stock is artificially limited by manufacturers? 

The solution implies that they wouldn't artificially limit the stock. But let me take a shortcut: People are *ssholes. So yeah, that doesnt work.

Doesn't mean it isn't the solution tho.

 

20 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

force manufacturers to only launch when they have stock for the entire population

No, no one ever said that.

 

20 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

A better solution would be to make MSRP *binding* by law...

Holy sh*t that would be bad.

Imagine the manufacturer can decide the prices of retailers. That would put all retailers immediately out of business.

 

 

 

Here's a fun fact:
In the EU the MSRP (in Germany UVP) is commonly used by retailers to advertise products.
The manufacturer suggests an artificial retail price that is up to 10x greater than the actual retail price, so that retailers can then heavily "discount" them, but they have to disclose that. So for example a Samsung TV has an MSRP of 1000€, but the retailer sells it to you for 500€ and says that it's discounted 50%. In the US this is seemingly the other way around, where the MSRP is taken as a valid price, as if that's what the product has to cost.

I guess what I am saying is, that in the EU we got already used to being lied to, so that we don't take MSRPs serious anymore, while for some reason across the pond everyone holds on to the MSRP.

 

(Also I'm making the assumption that the MSRP behaves similar in all EU countries compared to Germany here. So take that with a grain of salt)

[Mark Kaine]

52 minutes ago, Senzelian said:

The solution implies that they wouldn't artificially limit the stock. But let me take a shortcut: People are *ssholes. So yeah, that doesnt work.

Yeah, exactly, doesn't work. 

Hence forth 

52 minutes ago, Senzelian said:

Doesn't mean it isn't the solution tho.

It isn't the solution

 

52 minutes ago, Senzelian said:

No, no one ever said that.

So how do you make sure there's enough stock for everyone, let the manufacturer evaluate it?  :lol

 

 

52 minutes ago, Senzelian said:

that would be bad

True, if you take it literally, I didn't mean retailers not being allowed to under cut it. 

 

 

Also the thing you said about MSRP isn't widely applicable, even in Germany (see NVIDIA GPUs for example, or candy... or anything really) 

 

 

[Senzelian]

51 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

It isn't the solution

It is.

 

51 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

So how do you make sure there's enough stock for everyone, let the manufacturer evaluate it?  :lol

I don't.

 

58 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

True, if you take it literally, I didn't mean retailers not being allowed to under cut it. 

Then we end up at the exact scenario that I described, which suddenly would become applicable to Nvidia GPUs and all other hardware.

We're running in circles...

 

 

I'm still in favor of letting the market decide.

[Mark Kaine]

10 minutes ago, Senzelian said:

I'm still in favor of letting the market decide.

Which is your good right, however it's also what enables scalping... 

 

I tried to explain that it's not possible for manufacturers to provide enough stock for everyone - it may work for food etc (also only because of high state's side subsidies most likely) but it doesn't work for "luxury" electronic goods like high end gaming gpus, especially not when having limited stock means free advertising for the manufacturer. 

 

We'll just have to agree to disagree on this matter I suppose.  

[Heliian]

3 hours ago, Senzelian said:

Here's a fun fact:
In the EU the MSRP (in Germany UVP) is commonly used by retailers to advertise products.

In Canada there was actually a court case against retailers selling mattresses.  They would always just give a list price more than double and sell them at "deep discounts".    It cost HBC 4.5million CAD after they lost the case at the competition tribunal.  

 

Canada's competition bureau is in charge of that. 

[Senzelian]

40 minutes ago, Heliian said:

In Canada there was actually a court case against retailers selling mattresses.  They would always just give a list price more than double and sell them at "deep discounts".    It cost HBC 4.5million CAD after they lost the case at the competition tribunal.  

 

Canada's competition bureau is in charge of that. 

Interesting.

I'm all for customer protection laws, but I also believe that if we take everyone by the hand, then we end up with a really dumbed down society.

When I worked in the retail-business I really quickly understood that people's buying decisions are mostly nonsense and that they can't read, no matter how giant the text is. 

I think I spend roughly 30% of my time there to educate people, instead of trying to sell them stuff, which in return helped to boost sales, because I introduced our business to something called "customers trust". Anyway, I'm rambling again...  

[Roswell]

Nvidia and their hardware partners don’t care because they’re getting the money regardless along with free hype. Nothing illegal is happening either.

 

Supply and demand, really. That’s all it is. It’s purely a consumer created issue.

[Mondale]

The thing that nobody is mentioning, Ebay. They are the ones allowing the scalpers to continue profiting the way they are. If Ebay didn't allow the scalpers to sell, at least that would be a start. Sure they'll always find a way but maybe it would slow things down.

[BlueChinchillaEatingDorito]

6 minutes ago, Mondale said:

The thing that nobody is mentioning, Ebay. They are the ones allowing the scalpers to continue profiting the way they are. If Ebay didn't allow the scalpers to sell, at least that would be a start. Sure they'll always find a way but maybe it would slow things down.

From eBay's perspective, why should they step in for something that's non essential? They only did it with stuff like toilet paper, hand sanitizer, etc. earlier this year because of Coronavirus fears and the price gouging on essential items. Items where not being able to acquire them could put yourself and your family at risk.