I think back to the last time when I bought a card, (a 1080) and it went like this:
1) Tried to order on release day on OcUK, website kept crashing
2) Eventually somehow managed to place an order later in the day
3) Lots of people posting on the forums asking when they would get their cards
4) Very few people posting pictures of their cards, lots of people grumbling there's no stock anywhere
5) People started trying to figure out what position they were in the queue
6) 3-4 weeks in, and people started getting really angry about it
7) Some competitor websites started to get stock in, but it's anywhere from £50-150 higher than the OcUK price
8) 5-6 weeks in, loads of people start giving up and placing a new order somewhere else
9) 3-6 months in, everything starts to settle down across all retailers
I think we're on step 5 currently.