Why are retailers charging so much over rrp.

[MurphyBrix]

Quick question guys.

Not really taken much notice of the ongoing prices regarding GPUs over the last couple of years.

I was a PC gamer but switched to PS5 after seeing the price of GPUs (My GPU had given up).

I got a PS5 for rrp from a retailer.

My question with GPUs are why are retailers charging so much over RRP on GPUs. Seems to me there basically no better than people buying up items just to make a profit on.

Completely understand thats how the world works with supply and demand but for big company's to be charging so much over rrp seems abit wrong to me.

I may have got this wrong which please let me know if I have. Are the retailers being charged more than rrp from the producers for the stock? Which then means they have to charge so much over rrp themselves.

Seems to me the popularity of pc gaming has turned into abit of a cash grab.

Can imagine a lot like myself have turned there back on it.

I couldn't see retailers massively charging over rrp on consoles just because they could. There maybe a couple of selling company's who do, but not the main retailers.

 

[heatonpkmassive]

Google is your friend..

 

[StarShock]

The console prices are controlled by Microsoft and Sony.
The GPUs, specially the AIB cards, which are the only ones you can buy from retailers have much looser pricing. The MSRP on the AIB cards are set by the individual manufactures, tend to not be widely published, fluctuate with the market and manufacturing costs, and are not strictly enforced. There also tends to be an additional middle man in the form of distributors who add their own mark ups.
Then you pile on the fact that crypto miners have been able to by whole pallets direct from distribution channels and it all adds up to the current **** show we are living through

 

[Ayahuasca]

It is wrong, but if they discover that people will still pay the inflated prices, then they aren't going to choose morals over profits, they have stakeholders to please and Ferraris to buy . To be fair, Gibbo has done bits and bobs here to help people get cards at more reasonable prices, but there's only so much he can do.

Whilst mining is still creating a large demand for GPUs, it's not going to change. You have no more right as a gamer to own a card than a miner.

I managed to buy a PS5 quite easily at RRP but know people that were still trying over a year after launch. If they were capable of profitable mining, you would have an even bigger ****show.

 

[eddiew]

Seems to me the popularity of pc gaming has turned into abit of a cash grab.

It's not gaming, it's mining.

Wait for the Ethereum algorithm change to PoS in summer, should knock it all on the head and let us get back to normality. Won't be shocked if we start seeing surplus stocks (followed by falling prices) a bit sooner, since there's no point in a miner buying a card that's only needed for 2 months and won't pay it's own value back.

 

[varkanoid]

RRP doesnt exist anymore for GPU's. Its not the Retailers charging so much a card that you see sold for £1499 its probably costing them £1250 to buy. Same card in normal times you would expect to be sold for £800. Retailers are always blamed at the moment as they are the easy target. People forget how that GPU has to get to the retailer. Shipping costs are still sky high.

 

[MCFC_ANDY]

because they can, and folk will pay it, so its both retailer and buyers fault, no buyers=no sales-lower prices. simple economics in reality supply and demand, but no forgetting probs the worse culprits are the manufacturers and the distributers

 

[Twinz]

How many people would accept X pay when there's a long line of employers willing to pay you tripple?

 

[StarShock]

because they can, and folk will pay it, so its both retailer and buyers fault, no buyers=no sales-lower prices. simple economics in reality supply and demand, but no forgetting probs the worse culprits are the manufacturers and the distributers

The problem with this is that the mining market and the gaming market are very different. When a gamer sees a deal on a card and buys one, they take themselves out of the market and frees up space for another gamer.
If a miner sees a deal, they buy it, and then go looking for the next deal. So the demand stays high.

 

[Captain_Bosh]

I doubt the retailers can even buy for RRP. They will buy stock in batches X price per uit which will probably fluxuate for every batch they order. Retailers will them add their markup and sell them.

Its easy to blame retailers but without knowing all the figures its impossible to say who marking up the prices so high. Could be Nvidia, AIB partners or retailers. There is also sky high international shipping prices to consider due to the Covid pandemic and Brexit.

 

[Gibbo]

If the resellers sell the cards at MSRP, they will go bust, the cards cost way beyond the MSRP of the Founders card to buy trade in volumes, for example a 3080 typically cost over £1000 exc. VAT, a 3080Ti over £1200 +VAT and a 3070 over £600-700 exc. VAT.

So to sell at MSRP would lose £100's per card, in no time they'd lose millions and shortly afterwards be bankrupt.

That is why resellers cannot sell board partner cards at FE MSRP's or even remotely close.
It is also why board partners have now started setting their OWN MSRP's to try and stop the confusion that the reference card MSRP's have created.

The problem is not resellers, the problem is manufacturers setting MSRP's which the board partners claim they cannot hit or can only hit for very small limited volumes and as such focus the volumes on the Overclocked versions which have an MSRP much higher than the reference MSRP so to speak.

Plus Covid, Mining which totally disrupted the market and has results in the older MSRP's on products from six months ago been miles out due to exploding shipping cost, semiconductor prices rocketing etc.

Newer MSRP are somewhat closer, but still near impossible for board partners to reach or certainly in any volume.

 

[LeoK]

Not sure if it still a problem but water shortages was an issue last year too: https://www.forbes.com/sites/emanue...-what-is-happening-in-taiwan/?sh=58724af522af

The US has concerns over TSMCs relationship with China. My guess is it means that TMSC may have less incentive to help ease production problems by investing in new fabs etc. https://www.theyoungdiplomats.com/post/when-the-chips-are-down-the-politics-of-the-semiconductor

Just my guesses

 

[C64]

demand is more than supply and will be for years if the rotw keeps up with all their you know what mandates and lockdowns testing etc etc

They will get snapped up by users or traders that will sell for more

 

[C64]

It's not gaming, it's mining.

Wait for the Ethereum algorithm change to PoS in summer, should knock it all on the head and let us get back to normality. Won't be shocked if we start seeing surplus stocks (followed by falling prices) a bit sooner, since there's no point in a miner buying a card that's only needed for 2 months and won't pay it's own value back.

It's also supply chains and lack of workers so don't hold your breath

 

[eddiew]

It's also supply chains and lack of workers so don't hold your breath

Aye, but... at least it will be something in the right direction. It's all been heading in anti-consumer directions for far too long, at this point any change to that is welcome.

 

[Blackjack Davy]

If the resellers sell the cards at MSRP, they will go bust, the cards cost way beyond the MSRP of the Founders card to buy trade in volumes, for example a 3080 typically cost over £1000 exc. VAT, a 3080Ti over £1200 +VAT and a 3070 over £600-700 exc. VAT.

So to sell at MSRP would lose £100's per card, in no time they'd lose millions and shortly afterwards be bankrupt.

That is why resellers cannot sell board partner cards at FE MSRP's or even remotely close.
It is also why board partners have now started setting their OWN MSRP's to try and stop the confusion that the reference card MSRP's have created.

The problem is not resellers, the problem is manufacturers setting MSRP's which the board partners claim they cannot hit or can only hit for very small limited volumes and as such focus the volumes on the Overclocked versions which have an MSRP much higher than the reference MSRP so to speak.

Plus Covid, Mining which totally disrupted the market and has results in the older MSRP's on products from six months ago been miles out due to exploding shipping cost, semiconductor prices rocketing etc.

Newer MSRP are somewhat closer, but still near impossible for board partners to reach or certainly in any volume.

Or to put it another way MSRP is a myth created by nvidia to make their cards look good value and get one over the competition the chances of you actually getting hold of the Wonka's Golden Ticket that is an FE card is very slim and as rare as hen's teeth.

 

[MissChief]

It was shown with the 2080ti launch that people will pay £1k+ for graphics cards. This then was the new 'target' for many retailers. Add to this the huge amount of scalping that happened on ebay and elsewhere and people still were paying those prices gave the manufacturers a huge amount of leeway to increase prices themselves. Witness the massive increase in price of the 3080ti over the 3080 despite being broadly similar. The 3080ti is effectively 'pre-scalped' for your convenience and the manufacturers decided if fools are easily parted with their money on FB and eBay then they want that profit on their books, not in the pocket of the scalpers.

 

[rolypolyman]

demand is more than supply and will be for years if the rotw keeps up with all their you know what mandates and lockdowns testing etc etc

They will get snapped up by users or traders that will sell for more

Well I decided to have a look round several well known retailers including here and was amazed at the amount of stock available:
Amd: 6700xt £785.99 or £854
6800 £999.99
6800xt £1150
6900xt £1573 or £1399

Nvidia: 3060 12Gb £679.99
3070 8Gb £979.99
3070 Ti £1031.29 or £1200
3080 10Gb £1399.99
3080 12Gb £1308.40
3080 TI £1699.99 or £1737 or £1889.99
3090 £2242 or £2400 or £2899.99

So we get the picture, the above prices were taken from several well known UK retailers. I was actually amazed at the stock levels and the wide range of cards available, there were many more I didn't list. Now I'm sorry but at this point I don't see a shortage, I'm sure we all remember when you couldn't get any card at all. As you can see the prices of many of these cards are shocking, well to me they are. I got my Amd 6800 over a year ago for £599 from here. Now it is over £900. So its not supply and demand anymore as far as I can see here(UK) its pure and simply driven by greed. So I wont be buying any more graphics cards unless prices return to some normality. All the more money to spend on holidays, YAY!

 

[MissChief]

Well I decided to have a look round several well known retailers including here and was amazed at the amount of stock available:
Amd: 6700xt £785.99 or £854
6800 £999.99
6800xt £1150
6900xt £1573 or £1399

Nvidia: 3060 12Gb £679.99
3070 8Gb £979.99
3070 Ti £1031.29 or £1200
3080 10Gb £1399.99
3080 12Gb £1308.40
3080 TI £1699.99 or £1737 or £1889.99
3090 £2242 or £2400 or £2899.99

So we get the picture, the above prices were taken from several well known UK retailers. I was actually amazed at the stock levels and the wide range of cards available, there were many more I didn't list. Now I'm sorry but at this point I don't see a shortage, I'm sure we all remember when you couldn't get any card at all. As you can see the prices of many of these cards are shocking, well to me they are. I got my Amd 6800 over a year ago for £599 from here. Now it is over £900. So its not supply and demand anymore as far as I can see here(UK) its pure and simply driven by greed. So I wont be buying any more graphics cards unless prices return to some normality. All the more money to spend on holidays, YAY!

As you've said, there are cards out there but they're so massively overpriced few are buying. You're talking about what should be the base card, or rather was the base card until the 3050 was just released so should be £250, £300 for a basic version, £400 if you're looking at MSI or Asus at most being nearly £700! Even AMD, which used to be the value choice with losing a bit of performance are massively overpriced.

 

[Rroff]

I do have to wonder - unfortunately not something I can take advantage of for personal use but some of my colleagues pointed out a couple of days ago the list price for our supplier at work for a 3060ti is basically half that of the cards at retail (that doesn't include VAT or any retailer markup but still). Or even less for a "white label" type card (I think HP own brand from the picture) - albeit they have bare-bones PCB and poor cooling.

Seeing the fanfare, etc. of the 3050 launch has been depressing - it is like launching a Ford Fiesta with the occasion and price tag of say a Mercedes and even with the inflated car prices currently that would get laughed into the ground.

Sadly even at these prices they are selling enough to keep the prices where they are - then people complain because everything is getting more expensive...