BHPhotovideo is price gouging, and denying that they are.

[Ferengi94]

So a few days ago BHPhotovideo had the RTX 3070 Gaming OC relisted a few times in a single day. The card is priced at $750 on there website, about $200 over MSRP for that card. They offered price matching, so I figured why not and got an order in. I went ahead and contacted support after getting a order in and asked to price match. They told me that they cannot price match this item. Found it very annoying and disheartening that they'd stoop so low to mark up the card and not price match. Making this post just as a heads up if you see any of there cards over MSRP and try to snag one, that you might not get it price matched. (And yes I contacted them multiple times to make sure it wasn't just a bad CS agent) 

 

URL to the card listing:

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1598689-REG/gigabyte_gv_n3070gaming_oc_8gd_geforce_rtx_3070_gaming.html

[minibois]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't see Gigabyte showing off their MSRP on their website. Of course there is an MSRP on the FE card, but a store can see that as a different product.

Plus, even if the MSRP on this specific card was $499, that's still only a suggested price, not something they have to be held to.

[Stahlmann]

Problem is, they can price them as high as they want because people will still buy them up. That's what such extreme over-demand does to ANY product in a free market. MSRP is only the MINIMUM suggested price from NVidia. Welcome to capitalism.

 

The only reason they refused your price match inquiry is because they know the can lose you as a buyer but not lose the revenue, because someone else will buy it instead. Right now every RTX 3000 card in stock is a guaranteed sale for these people.

[minibois]

2 minutes ago, Stahlmann said:

MSRP is only the MINIMUM suggested price from NVidia.

MSRP = Manufacturer suggested retail price.

The store can differ from the pricing in any way they want, the pricing is only a suggestion.

 

Of course a lot of store do not buy directly from Nvidia/MSI/ASUS/EVGA/etc., they go through a vendor, which means these middle-men can decide pricing for the store, just by the merit of charging the store more money.

[RTX 3090]

It is a Gigabyte card, maybe they're charging extra for cooler design or other costs

You need to find Gigabytes MSRP, not Nvidias as there MSRP is for the FE cards that they make

Anyways even that is just a guideline, they can go higher if they want. Nothing to stop them and people will still buy it

[Donut417]

Its called supply and demand. Remember when coin mining was a big deal? All the retailers were upping the prices, making boatloads of cash. Thats how it works in a free market. When the supply dwindles but the demand is high the price WILL go up. So you either will pay the price or you will not. How badly do you want this card? 

[DavidKalinowski]

I've never got the whole price matching on websites, if I find it cheaper from another reputable site, I'm just going to buy it cheaper right then an there and not have to go through the hassle of hoping to get a price match.

[Spotty]

If Newegg had it for $200 cheaper then why didn't you buy from Newegg? Why did you order it from another store and then expect them to price match? Why didn't you contact support asking if they can price match before placing your order?

[artuc]

1 hour ago, Spotty said:

If Newegg had it for $200 cheaper then why didn't you buy from Newegg? Why did you order it from another store and then expect them to price match?

Can be a convenience thing. There was an aircon at a good price at a store that is a 3 hr round trip away, a store 5 minutes away would price match. It was a big enough difference to think about the drive.

 

Could have vouchers or a credit that will work at certain stores, may have some perks like loyalty or rewards program, better service, shipping or returns policy, certain payment methods or an account.

[Velcade]

3 hours ago, DavidKalinowski said:

I've never got the whole price matching on websites, if I find it cheaper from another reputable site, I'm just going to buy it cheaper right then an there and not have to go through the hassle of hoping to get a price match.

Only time I've used it is if I need it immediately. Best Buy will price match Amazon

[LogicalDrm]

5 minutes ago, artuc said:

Can be a convenience thing. There was an aircon at a good price at a store that is a 3 hr round trip away, a store 5 minutes away would price match. It was a big enough difference to think about the drive.

Both of these are online retailers, so that reasoning isn't valid.

 

5 minutes ago, artuc said:

Could have vouchers or a credit that will work at certain stores, may have some perks like loyalty or rewards program, better service, shipping or returns policy, certain payment methods or an account.

That might be a thing. Still, its $200 difference and OP was expecting them to price match and lose by doing it.

 

Reading this https://firstquarterfinance.com/does-bh-price-match/, this thread becomes just another pointless crying/whining over one's own mistake. The fact that I can't see price matching listed on their site directly already tells that one should never expect anything. That article is 2 years old, and back at that time you would need to request price match before purchase and have ad to exact same model. Newegg is blocked EU users, so can't look there. Best buy has it for that ~$200 lower, but sold out. And since BHPhotoVideo has taken their listing down, I can't check that either.

 

So overall. You are probably paying for the fact that its available now. Want to wait for month or two and save? Thats an option too.

[DavidKalinowski]

3 minutes ago, Velcade said:

Only time I've used it is if I need it immediately. Best Buy will price match Amazon

I can understand that. If you are like 5-10 minutes away from a retail store that will price match online competitors thats one thing. I've done that with walmart. (closest bestbuy to me is nearly an hour 1 way.)

[BlueChinchillaEatingDorito]

10 hours ago, Ferengi94 said:

So a few days ago BHPhotovideo had the RTX 3070 Gaming OC relisted a few times in a single day. The card is priced at $750 on there website, about $200 over MSRP for that card. They offered price matching, so I figured why not and got an order in. I went ahead and contacted support after getting a order in and asked to price match. They told me that they cannot price match this item. Found it very annoying and disheartening that they'd stoop so low to mark up the card and not price match. Making this post just as a heads up if you see any of there cards over MSRP and try to snag one, that you might not get it price matched. (And yes I contacted them multiple times to make sure it wasn't just a bad CS agent) 

 

URL to the card listing:

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1598689-REG/gigabyte_gv_n3070gaming_oc_8gd_geforce_rtx_3070_gaming.html

The moment you accuse them of price gouging or scamming in your conversation, you're not going to get what you want. Also, why did you not sensor out the reps name as well? I sense some malicious intent here. If I've learned something when dealing with clients in IT, if the client comes off aggressive immediately, things will not go in their favour.

[Ferengi94]

1 hour ago, BlueChinchillaEatingDorito said:

The moment you accuse them of price gouging or scamming in your conversation, you're not going to get what you want. Also, why did you not sensor out the reps name as well? I sense some malicious intent here. If I've learned something when dealing with clients in IT, if the client comes off aggressive immediately, things will not go in their favour.

The conversation was longer than that, but yeah was pretty heated toward the end in it but wasn't trying to have malicious intent, just annoyed since they did price match the RTX 3080's they had upcharged but wouldn't for the RTX 3070's. And didn't think I'd need to censor the reps name. They tend to use fake names anyway, as they're almost always Indian tech support companies that use American names when talking to American customers. 

[Ferengi94]

6 hours ago, Spotty said:

If Newegg had it for $200 cheaper then why didn't you buy from Newegg? Why did you order it from another store and then expect them to price match? Why didn't you contact support asking if they can price match before placing your order?

Are RTX 30 series cards readily available in Australia? Because listings last 1-2 seconds max here in the US. So I don't think you'd have time to Price match beforehand. Also they price matched RTX 3080 cards before, because they had a upcharge on those as well. But they're refusing to do so for the 3070 cards. Which is why many people including me bought the cards because we expected they'd fix the price after words

[Ferengi94]

4 hours ago, LogicalDrm said:

Both of these are online retailers, so that reasoning isn't valid.

 

That might be a thing. Still, its $200 difference and OP was expecting them to price match and lose by doing it.

 

Reading this https://firstquarterfinance.com/does-bh-price-match/, this thread becomes just another pointless crying/whining over one's own mistake. The fact that I can't see price matching listed on their site directly already tells that one should never expect anything. That article is 2 years old, and back at that time you would need to request price match before purchase and have ad to exact same model. Newegg is blocked EU users, so can't look there. Best buy has it for that ~$200 lower, but sold out. And since BHPhotoVideo has taken their listing down, I can't check that either.

 

So overall. You are probably paying for the fact that its available now. Want to wait for month or two and save? Thats an option too.

They price matched the RTX 3080 cards before, they had them with inflated pricing as well. But thanks so much for belittling me and saying me and many others are "crying/whining" because we expected a company to be above scalping  It's actually cheaper to buy a scalped RTX 3070 then it would've been to buy from BHPhotovideo. 

[Ferengi94]

12 hours ago, RTX 3090 said:

It is a Gigabyte card, maybe they're charging extra for cooler design or other costs

You need to find Gigabytes MSRP, not Nvidias as there MSRP is for the FE cards that they make

Anyways even that is just a guideline, they can go higher if they want. Nothing to stop them and people will still buy it

The MSRP for the Gaming OC is $569.99, I wasn't saying MSRP of the FE. 

[BuckGup]

11 hours ago, Donut417 said:

Remember when coin mining was a big deal? 

That's a big reason why this problem is occurring lol. The price of BTC is skyrocketing again

[Grabhanem]

There are two options for an item that's not being produced enough to meet demand:

- it's more expensive than MSRP

- it's not in stock

 

That's how the market works. If there's not enough of something, prices are going to go up. I don't see anyone complaining about ebay scalpers on Atari Air Raid when those are selling well above MSRP...

[artuc]

3 hours ago, Grabhanem said:

There are two options for an item that's not being produced enough to meet demand:

- it's more expensive than MSRP

- it's not in stock

 

That's how the market works. If there's not enough of something, prices are going to go up. I don't see anyone complaining about ebay scalpers on Atari Air Raid when those are selling well above MSRP...

 

Well maybe the market sucks ?

 

There are some options like registering, queuing or lottery as to who gets the limited stock. Doesn't have to default to "I'm screwing you because I can, yay capitalism!".

 

Limiting buy quantities and verifying identity are others.

 

A safety store here did that during the PPE shortage, rather than jack up prices and screw everyone they only sold to verified industry companies at their usual RRP.

[Donut417]

1 hour ago, artuc said:

A safety store here did that during the PPE shortage, rather than jack up prices and screw everyone they only sold to verified industry companies at their usual RRP.

There is a difference between Life Saving PPE and GPU's. GPU's are a luxury item. 

 

1 hour ago, artuc said:

Well maybe the market sucks ?

Well thats how things are. Supply and Demand some times suck. The fact is there are no regulations that say stores have to sell GPU's at MSRP. Nvidia is probably not going to increase production as this demand is likely temporary and happens when ever a new GPU is launched. The OP and others just need to be patient, something the tech community and Michigan drivers dont seem to have! 

 

Eventually the prices will stabilized to a lower price. It just takes a bit of time. 

[Grabhanem]

1 hour ago, artuc said:

 

Well maybe the market sucks ?

 

There are some options like registering, queuing or lottery as to who gets the limited stock. Doesn't have to default to "I'm screwing you because I can, yay capitalism!".

 

Limiting buy quantities and verifying identity are others.

 

A safety store here did that during the PPE shortage, rather than jack up prices and screw everyone they only sold to verified industry companies at their usual RRP.

It's an open market, though. If I'm one of the lucky few to get a card, I have no incentive to hold onto it when I can sell it for 3x the price. The stores can try to be as ethical and consumer friendly as they want, and I'm all for that, but they're always going to get screwed over by someone who isn't.

 

Preventing bots and spam attacks is definitely a good start, but it's hard to compete with a million people collectively spamming F5. The real problem won't be fixed until the cards are properly in stock.

[Roswell]

Price gouging doesn’t really pertain to consumer electronics, at least as far as legal definitions go.

 

That video card isn’t an item that preserves human life in a state of emergency and therefore increasing its price over MSRP isn’t price gouging.

[dizmo]

They're not price gouging. They're asking a higher amount, definitely, but that's entirely their prerogative. They're free to set their own prices for the product in their store, and they'll tweak it as required. Don't like it? Buy elsewhere. 

[Lord Vile]

Not price gouging. Remember when it was like $200 for 16GB of RAM just due to supply and demand?