Not the people doing the scalping, that makes perfect sense. You have a high demand good that isn't priced appropriately, so intrepid entrepreneurs with low ping and good webpage-refresh skills step in to fulfill a market need.
No, what I don't understand is why businesses allow this shit to exist in the first place. I get if it's something like a concert. You want to be able to brag that your show is "sold out" even though only half the seats are full. But for electronics (and especially graphics cards), these companies are just leaving money on the table. If these consoomers are willing to pay 3x MSRP to someone they despise just to play their gaymes in slightly higher definition, imagine what they would pay to the actual company making the card?
TL;DR: Nvidia needs to have a dynamic pricing model that changes based on their stock
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No electronics company wants to be the first to sell their latest products by auction/priority pricing, but as soon as a major one finds the right combination of words to message it properly they’ll open the floodgates and everyone will do it.
Disney successfully created a class system in their theme parks with the invention of Fastpass and the careful messaging around it, later monetising it. If you can convince poorcels to accept wealthchads literally walking past them to the front of the line in a theme park, there’s gotta be a way to convince poor consoomers that priority pricing is fair and acceptable in the consumer electronics space.
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The priority pass is one of man's greatest inventions. You get to mog poorcels and their families for a relatively low price, without having to be gauche about it.
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I think the stealthy approach Disney took is the way to go about it. Fastpass was a free service at first, but they later monetised it in lots of near-inexplicable ways.
Say you’re Sony or Microsoft or whoever. First of all you start offering priority for free to your “most loyal players” which you can easily identify using their previous console account data (starting from the online eras). You let longtime fans reserve your new console or join a priority waiting list for free. Call it “PlayStation Priority” or whatever. It’s a great free service and the most hardcore and vocal fans love it, shilling for it online. That’s step one.
Next you introduce an adjacent priority pass that will let folks BUY access to that same waiting list, even if they don’t have a deep history with the console. Be all: “We realised PlayStation Priority was a great way to reward fans who have been with us since PS3, but we saw it could exclude some of our younger fans… and that’s why we’re proud to offer PlayStation Priority Plus for just $39.99!” That’s step two.
Then you begin offering different and higher-priced tiers of PlayStation Priority Plus which advance you to the front of the line or offer additional perks. “Get a GUARANTEED launch day PS6 by joining PlayStation Priority Ultimate for just $299.99!” “Limited edition rose gold PS6 available only to Priority Ultimate customers!” Etc. That’s step three.
Step four: phase out the free tier. Your work here is done.
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That is horrifyingly beautiful. Are you a marketingcel?
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no dox plz
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No dox, just wanted to say that if you aren't one it's a darn waste of talent
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This is good but I think you do actually need the "free" option in the final market state. The threat of having to wait several months like the poors is what gets people to pony up for the immediate gratification. No suffering, no incentive.
Additionally if you wrap the Priority plus line slot stuff into every console, then you effectively raise the sticker price, leading to sticker shock, high price jokes/memes, and reduced sales volume. That's fine if you're supply-constrained like right now but if you have addtl inventory you would rather sell them at a good markup than have them go unsold at a steep markup.
Console scalping is typically around launch and relatively time-constrained, so you need a system in place that adjusts to the secondary market price with the console release cycle instead of only ratcheting the price up.
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I was looking at PS5's as a potential Christmas gift, and the only ones available locally seem to be $1,000 bundles.
It seems like that's the best way to achieve it... just have increasingly expensive bundles with superfluous shit like special edition headphones, etc. until you get to a usually-in-stock price point, while people have to wait or engage in the weird online drop process for the cheaper packages.
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Sorry ma'am, looks like his delusions have gotten worse. We'll have to admit him,
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Sony literally tried that. They had a list of approved buys for PS5s for a while. Everyone hated it
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They hired college graduates with MBAs in marketing, instead of superior dramacel marketers. This is the only reason they failed.
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That’s because they didn’t have me managing it, clearly.
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Nah I think even with your version people would be outraged as soon as you monetize it. The trick is just to not care about the outrage and still push it through, because people will buy no matter if they are mad or not.
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You are right. Just gotta keep pushing. People hated Oblivion’s $2.50 Horse Armour back in 2006, but now they eat up cosmetic bullshit by the frickload for $20 a go.
Consoomers will conform eventually. Eat the bugs.
Edit: lmao i responded to the wrong post
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Yikes, who hurt you sweaty?
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sorry bby i was responding to the wrong dramatard. i did an edit 4 u
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People hated $2.50 Oblivion Horse Armour too, and now in-game cosmetics are frickin’ everywhere and they cost twenty bucks. Just gotta keep pushing and grind everyone down.
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I think the key is to brazenly parade the paypigs in front of the poorcels so that all of their negative emotions are channeled into envy. Same shit airlines do with first class.
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Yeah for sure - you wanna give priority pass customers stuff they can show off online. In my other post I suggested limited edition console colours available only to priority users and stuff like that - things wealthchads can post on Instagram with their iPhone 13 Pro Max and show off.
Shit, you could just emboss the console’s logo, or print a gold serial number on it. “I got number 2,766 of the first 10,000 PS5’s off the production line! #blessed”
And of course, only top celebs and influencers get access to the first ones off the line. “THE ROCK SAYS THIS: I just got the #0001 PS5 and I’m giving it away to one of my Instagram followers!”
Honestly, this is such a good idea I can’t believe it’s not already happening.
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No, if Nvidia scaled prices to stock, they'd gain a reputation of being overpriced and people would switch to a competitor, even if the competitor is inferior.
When a 3rd party is doing the price gouging, people don't think any less of the company.
What they really need to do is sell their own product on FB marketplace for scalp prices without actually disclosing that they're the Nvidia company. That way any negative association towards the brand is prevented and they still get the scalper cut.
Or another alternative, sell a portion of their products in 50-count bundles, at 20% more than what 50 individual items would be. Effectively charging scalpers for the convenience of being able to buy 50 at once.
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This is brilliant if you can find an effective way to stop scalpers from botting 50 individual purchases.
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I doubt you'd need to stop them from scalping the individual products. Don't drops sell out almost immediately anyways?
If you devote 25% of your stock to the bundles, individual packs will run out faster, and scalpers will be forced to pay an extra 20% for the bundles. Honestly with the profits scalpers make, a guaranteed haul of at least 50 is worth the markup.
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They presumably signed contracts binding them to sell the first X units at specific speculative prices. I can promise you Big Corporation #21934 isn't leaving frickloads of money on the table without a reason.
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Contracts with who? Aren't a lot of those sales direct-to-consumer?
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Suppliers, bulk purchasers, partner companies. Ordering computer hardware for my research is a Byzantine nightmare of paperwork, but we get good prices.
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You're just paying in time and stress lol
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I'm not paying for it in any way
The American taxpayer is
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Thank God I tax evade.
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People here seem to be talking about GPU's in particular. Nvidia mainly sells their GPU's to AIB partners (MSI, EVGA, Zotac ETC) who sell them through retail partners.
Those board partners have recommended MSRP's from Nvidia and they sell those to storefronts (B&H, Amazon, ETC).
There are pre-existing agreements for what each party is selling their parts for, recommended MSRP's too. There are clauses that address scaling that MSRP for things like shipping, but there's not a huge margin of wiggle room there.
They seem to be circumventing that issue by creating new SKU's of fully enabled dies that are priced more in line with actual market rate of the GPU's already using very slightly cut down versions of those dies.
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Nvidia already charges an outrageous amount of money for most of their shit and has a history of nasty business practices, allowing them to change prices depending on stock would just make them artificially lower stocks to sell at a markup every day of the year.
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People sperged out about the Turing cards on Reddit, but they were likely making less profit versus Pascal cards when you consider the insane die size. The 2080 ti was nearly at the reticle limit for TSMC 12NM.
R&D costs money, GeForce GPU's are subsidized by the Quadro cards, and server grade equipment Nvidia sells. Nvidia seems to have invested heavily in the software stack for the last few gens of product lines, and the dedicated hardware acceleration (tensor cores) further adds to the cost.
When you look at the raw rasterization performance of GeForce vs AMD cards from Maxwell to Turing Nvidia really should have charged more than they did. All of the AMD GCN derived GPU's were amazing for ML workloads though.
Nothing makes me happier than seeing quasi communist Redditors not being able to get their gaming GPU's.
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Yeah GPU R&D costs an obscene amount of money and a company like NVidia that's playing on so many different fields can't afford to stop innovating. Doesn't always pay out though (lol Tegra)
Still they've done their best to shaft customers in the past and they'll do so again at any opportunity, no need to give them the incentive.
Poorcels will always bat for AMD lol even though they haven't made anything interesting in the GPU area since Pitcairn 🤮
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True, but we already tolerate that for gasoline, and it doesn't look like the inputs for graphics cards will get less volatile in the short to medium-term future.
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Gaming graphics cards are small potatoes in the grand scheme of things. Reddit's favorite company AMD doesn't even prioritize gaming GPU's (for good reason). RDNA2 cards were a paper launch.
Most of AMD's TSMC wafer allocation has gone to their CPU's and semicustom SoC's for Sony and Microsoft.
People will be able to readily get their gaming GPU's in 2 years, and maybe another year for prices to return to pre COVID norms. Nvidia has been able to offer far more GPU's for AIB partners and OEM system integrators' laptops by opting for Samsung 8nm.
Their microarchitectural lead has been far enough ahead that they haven't had to tape out on a bleeding edge node for years. There's a lot of state funded foundry expansion going on (takes years though, and bleeding edge nodes aren't where the vast majority of money is look at Global Foundries for instance) we'll have a huge influx of foundry growth over the next 5-7 years.
It'll be interesting to see if there ends up being too many foundries say in a decade if demand decreases. IBM infamously had to pay Global Foundries to take their derelict fabs.
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Mommy is soooo proud of you, sweaty. Let's put this sperg out up on the fridge with all your other failures.
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Frick you snappy, I'm doing God's work by making g*mers cry.
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If only you wouldnt sound like a fricking nerd whilst doing it
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Ethereum mining is being phased out real soon. I expect a frickton of cheap used mining GPUs in 2022 and new stock to follow.
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What I don't understand even more is why people buy those shit. Unless we actually have that many people who absolutely need a new computer.
If you got yourself a decent computer in the past 5 years, you have no real urgency to get a new computer, other than to play the latest AAA trash out there. Same thing with consoles. Spending a grand on underpowered console is just sad.
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Even for AAA trash you dont need the newest Nvidia gtxSpecial 5000ti, its just consoomer culture
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People are genuinely very dumb and overestimate what is needed for high end performance for most things they'll be doing.
The myth of "future proofing" is also probably a strong driver. I've had more than a few people claim they need a 3080 or 3090 to "future proof" themselves.
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It is unironically the poors. Poors traditionally have terrible impulse control
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Real answer: in the Blessed Burgerland, if you charge a certain % "above normal" for the "same or similar" good, you get hit with anti-price "gouging" laws. Yes, it is r-slurred because it encourages shortages by discouraging people from reallocating resources to more higher valued uses. It's mainly why shortages in potty paper, hand sanitizer, masks, and other PPE persisted for so much longer than they had to.
Reselling (used) goods may have different rules, but since it's GPUs not as many people care.
Why price your items based on your own supply? Why ignore demand?
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In the U.S. price gouging only applies to essentials, not g*ming GPUs. Also GTX Titan Z klmao.
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Varies by State.
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Don't you circumvent that if you declare dynamic pricing from the outset?
And regarding the potty paper shortage, do those price gouging laws still apply if you only increase the price for multiples of an item in a single transaction?
And I didn't mean to base the price exclusively on their supply, just that not taking it into account is pants-on-head
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I'm only talking about reselling retail goods or changing their price at the store. Uber and Lyft "get away" with it because the good is a service, I presume.
That's an interesting idea, and something that could have eased the problem, but regulators would catch on because that's still "price gouging." One way stores half-butt the solution is by limiting quantity since government, and dumb people, prevent rationing by 'larger' changes in price.
I'd imagine projecting the price for a new product that's sold world wide is pretty hard. I'd guess there's some agreement on future price between the producers and the intermediaries, so that would make the price less flexible.
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Congrats, you understand supply and demand and asked a very reasonable question. Imagine the replies if you posted this at reddit (shudder).
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Without capitalism we would all have 3080ti
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Big companies don't care. Their product gets sold at markup value whether the transaction is a legit customer or some AI trawler thats buying out everyone's stock as soon as its available.
The part you mention where consumers are willing to pay 3x markup is unfortunately intended. The MSRP can be placed by the retailer, but at the end of the day if the scalpers are buying everything out and terraforming the market to their desired value then nothing can really stop the snowball from happening especially if g*mers dont want to have the patience to just wait and not get pegged.
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...drama?
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Let's say you've been a bad girl. Let's say, hypothetically, you've been a naughty girl even. Ok, and if you were a naughty girl, you would be my dirty little slut right? Then hypothetically speaking, you would be my little cumslut. Now, let's say you're also daddy's girl.
Now that we have established that you are both a bad girl and daddy's girl, I believe you'd agree with me when I say that you deserve a spanking. Am I not correct? A bad girl deserves a spanking, and as I am daddy, you are my girl, so I am the one who must provide punishment.
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