There has to be a better way to order a new GPU but how?

[mnc fear]

Businesses can't put things like that in place as although people are part of the forums or not it's money and everyone's money is the same.

Also post count allowances or member markets sales are irrelevant. So I read forums or don't post a lot of mince to get my post count up means I lose out?

OCUK relies on new Business and new people constantly. That why marketing the Borg cube etc is such a powerful way to bring traffic

If you are here, able to withstand the refresh & fast enough you get a card. If you aren't then that is tough

They did the best they could today. They were transparent about stock , pricing & when they would stagger drops. No other place I know of did that.

Some people might not want to even join the forums but spend thousands and recommend to others who do the same

 

[D1craig]

Second release in a few weeks that has crashed the site and people left with little hope of getting what they want. Maybe a pre registration on the forums for established users would stop the crashes or at least give those loyal customers a better chance? OCUK has all the info so shouldn't be that difficult to do ?

Any other ideas?

Easiest way is - dont buy on release day... FOMO will only disappoint you.

 

[danlightbulb]

There's a lot I don't understand about how websites such as this one work, but I really don't understand how bots are able to do what they do and why they can't be stopped.

Last night at around 10.14 Gibbo released a batch of 300 MSRP cards at the same time as announcing on the forum. From looking at the posts, these were gone in less than 2 minutes before any normal person could even go through the payment process.

How is it even possible for a bot to identify the stock is there without any prior knowledge that a drop is coming at an obscure time, and check it out so fast when anyone else has to authorize their bank account etc?

Why can't this be stopped? We have queuing systems implemented yesterday which didn't seem to make any difference. We have captur systems like picking traffic lights etc that could be used. Even just a simple wordy question that a bot couldn't automatically answer could work ("what is two minus one, enter your answer as digit") etc.

Other methods are having the product link rotate and then posting the right link here or in a hidden part of the forum, or just setting up in advance a priority users list who get first dibs. There is so much that could be done just for a little planning up front, and none of it is against the law or anything.

I appreciate ocuk might make the same money regardless but surely goodwill is worth something in the long term. Launch after launch the available number of cards could be sold twice over just through forum members alone and certainly without needing bots to come in and grab them all within 10 seconds that no human can match. Why not just plan ahead a little and set something up properly.

 

[gupsterg]

They were transparent about stock , pricing & when they would stagger drops. No other place I know of did that.

+1.

Didn't need a card, was just observing, and no one else had pricing up before hand.

 

[HRL]

This x1000.
Let people preorder and then randomise the allocation. Everyone gets the same chance of getting one then.

It would certainly deter scalpers and bots too.

 

[HRL]

This is true wisdom. Buying on day 1 is always an expensive disaster and has been for years. Yet people keep trying to do it and get frustrated.

Unfortunately in the current climate it’s the only time you stand a chance at MSRP.

It’ll likely be more expensive from now on unless AMD offer more rebates to retailers.

 

[Murphy]

How is it even possible for a bot to identify the stock is there without any prior knowledge that a drop is coming at an obscure time, and check it out so fast when anyone else has to authorize their bank account etc?

It's pretty basic scripting. Getting a script to check things like time since last page update and other changes is pretty simple, from there it's simply a matter of getting the information from the web server, parsing it, and sending back a response.

Interacting with a website via the terminal/console is way, way, faster than doing it through a browser as all you're essentially doing is processing relatively small chunks of text.

Even with my basic knowledge of powershell I've managed to write code that checks with various websites to see if the drivers and software i incorporate into my customised Windows install image are the latest versions, for each of those checks the code is little more than a few lines and takes roughly 1-3 seconds to query the web server.

 

[danlightbulb]

It's pretty basic scripting. Getting a script to check things like time since last page update and other changes is pretty simple, from there it's simply a matter of getting the information from the web server, parsing it, and sending back a response.

Interacting with a website via the terminal/console is way, way, faster than doing it through a browser as all you're essentially doing is processing relatively small chunks of text.

Even with my basic knowledge of powershell I've managed to write code that checks with various websites to see if the drivers and software i incorporate into my customised Windows install image are the latest versions, for each of those checks the code is little more than a few lines and takes roughly 1-3 seconds to query the web server.

Also easily avoidable though too isn't it? Change the link for example, install some sort of anti bot captur system. And even if checking a site is easy, surely automating payment completion is not. How do you automatically add all your payment details and go through bank fingerprint checks with a bot?

All that being said, it still doesn't preclude more manual one off processes at launch, for example taking a preorder list, reserving a few hundred units for offline sale, etc.

 

[233]

sat for several hours trying to get a card yesterday until Mrs 233 forced me to go leave the house and attend a family dinner, logged on to overclockers on the phone in the car and managed to get one in basket, ordered and checked out with so much excitement the good lady nearly pulled over and punched me.

que my utter dissapointment when i realised in my excitement i had added a powercolour 9070 not a 9070xt to my basket and ordered. in fairness didnt have my glasses on phone call to ocuk when they open shortly asking for that order to be cancelled. lovely card i'm sure but not what i'm after

 

[Murphy]

It would certainly deter scalpers and bots too.

From a purely business perspective I'd question if that's something you'd even want to do. Don't get me wrong because as a customer and someone who's been waiting 4-5 years to replace what was meant to be a temporary RX 470 4GB I'd love nothing more than to see scalpers and bots get their comeuppance.

However from a business perspective i can see why you may not want to stop them, think of it this way; As a retailer i may get a rebate for every card i sell, right. Now i get that rebate if i sell it to a scalper or a genuine customer, only with a scalper if they return the card to me because they've been unable to sell it i can now put that card back in stock at the non-rebated price. I've just earned myself a rebate, i can prove to the company offering the rebate that i sold a card and so they need to compensate me but because the scalper sent the card back unsold i can now put it back on shelves at the non-rebated price.

There's that and scalper/bot protections are not cheap. Having said that there's also the reputational damage that can be done from being seen as not doing enough so from a business perspective it's a balancing act.

Also easily avoidable though too isn't it?

I wouldn't say easy but it is doable, however see my above post where i question from a business perspective if you'd want to do that.

 

[danlightbulb]

From a purely business perspective I'd question if that's something you'd even want to do. Don't get me wrong because as a customer and someone who's been waiting 4-5 years to replace what was meant to be a temporary RX 470 4GB I'd love nothing more than to see scalpers and bots get their comeuppance.

However from a business perspective i can see why you may not want to stop them, think of it this way; As a retailer i may get a rebate for every card i sell, right. Now i get that rebate if i sell it to a scalper or a genuine customer, only with a scalper if they return the card to me because they've been unable to sell it i can now put that card back in stock at the non-rebated price. I've just earned myself a rebate, i can prove to the company offering the rebate that i sold a card and so they need to compensate me but because the scalper sent the card back unsold i can now put it back on shelves at the non-rebated price.

There's that and scalper/bot protections are not cheap. Having said that there's also the reputational damage that can be done from being seen as not doing enough so from a business perspective it's a balancing act.

I wouldn't say easy but it is doable, however see my above post where i question from a business perspective if you'd want to do that.

It's possible that is happening. Maybe retailers are more than happy for bots to purchase stuff so berate them on one hand but don't do anything to stop it on the other. If that's happening it's a real shame.

There is however a middle ground, always, it just takes some effort. For example, ocuk could have offered a 'priority' batch of pulse at +£30 only purchasable with a direct link or if you're on a vetted list in advance. This would have been a modest sum offsetting the rebate issue and retaining goodwill. Think of it like a membership fee for priority access.

There's lots of things that could be done here, with a sliding scale of effort and cost. Outside of launches such as these it's probably not necessary, hence during the quieter times a viable process could be designed and tested so it's ready to go on launch day. We know these launches are coming months in advance, what would be the harm in doing a pre-vetted list a few weeks prior, locking it down a week before launch and then retaining enough units to service that list on launch day. It wouldn't even need to be dispatched on launch day, most going through this system would probably be happy to wait a couple days to receive the item.

Is it laziness that this kind of thing can't be set up? If not, then there must be a business reason for it but I can't think what a justifiable one could be. We're only talking a bit of extra manual effort on big launches.

 

[Murphy]

Oh for sure there's loads that could be done, what i question is if as a business you'd want to do them.

IDK how past launches have gone as the 9070 XT @ roughly £600 is the first card in the last 4-5 years that i personally consider to be of value, but if yesterday was anything to go by I'm glad i never bothered with past launches as personally i don't think OCUK is doing enough to combat bots. If bots can bring down your entire site that's a problem.

 

[HRL]

From a purely business perspective I'd question if that's something you'd even want to do. Don't get me wrong because as a customer and someone who's been waiting 4-5 years to replace what was meant to be a temporary RX 470 4GB I'd love nothing more than to see scalpers and bots get their comeuppance.

However from a business perspective i can see why you may not want to stop them, think of it this way; As a retailer i may get a rebate for every card i sell, right. Now i get that rebate if i sell it to a scalper or a genuine customer, only with a scalper if they return the card to me because they've been unable to sell it i can now put that card back in stock at the non-rebated price. I've just earned myself a rebate, i can prove to the company offering the rebate that i sold a card and so they need to compensate me but because the scalper sent the card back unsold i can now put it back on shelves at the non-rebated price.

There's that and scalper/bot protections are not cheap. Having said that there's also the reputational damage that can be done from being seen as not doing enough so from a business perspective it's a balancing act.

I wouldn't say easy but it is doable, however see my above post where i question from a business perspective if you'd want to do that.

TBH I’m more disappointed that OCUK haven’t improved their shop platform to cope with the traffic volumes during launches like this.

I knew the product was launching at 2pm, I even managed to get one in my basket within 20 mins, and the shop was already wobbling at that point, but even after continuing to try to complete the Checkout for 2 further hours of repeated timeouts and errors, I still couldn’t complete the purchase before it went entirely OOS.

That’s what annoys me more than the demand. In this day and age of scalability there’s simply no excuse other than they couldn’t be bothered. OCUK are not a poor company, they can afford to improve their platform. Appreciate @Gibbo doing his best and he’s not responsible for their IT, but they sure as hell employ someone who is responsible for it.

If I were that employee’s manager they’d be on a PIP after this fiasco for sure!

 

[danlightbulb]

Oh for sure there's loads that could be done, what i question is if as a business you'd want to do them.

IDK how past launches have gone as the 9070 XT @ roughly £600 is the first card in the last 4-5 years that i personally consider to be of value, but if yesterday was anything to go by I'm glad i never bothered with past launches as personally i don't think OCUK is doing enough to combat bots. If bots can bring down your entire site that's a problem.

I can't comment on this business, but if it was my business and I had a massive customer base of enthusiasts all who participate in a private hosted forum who I could almost guarantee would sign up in advance to buy the product, and possibly pay a modest membership premium for that access, and all I needed to do was a bit of manual effort to design and set up a process for a couple of launches a year, then I can't see why I wouldn't want to do that.

 

[Game]

Just wait till it comes down.

Gibbo says they have loads of stock coming. There isnt infinite demand like there was for the 3xxx series.

At some point people will snap out of it and wonder why they are paying over rrp for these cards (as that makes them no better price/perf wise than we had before).

At some point later this year they will be at MSRP again (unless something unforseen happens economy wise)

there are only so many people running older 6700/3060/20 series card ect a large chunk of people true but demand will be met AMD seem to have good production speeds on these

 

[Murphy]

TBH I’m more disappointed that OCUK haven’t improved their shop platform to cope with the traffic volumes during launches like this.

Yea that's what i found puzzling, it's one thing to not be overly concerned with scalpers because you can claim a rebate and put something back in stock if they return it, it's quiet another for your site to be essentially unusable/unavailable.

I can't comment on this business, but if it was my business and I had a massive customer base of enthusiasts all who participate in a private hosted forum who I could almost guarantee would sign up in advance to buy the product, and possibly pay a modest membership premium for that access, and all I needed to do was a bit of manual effort to design and set up a process for a couple of launches a year, then I can't see why I wouldn't want to do that.

I suspect people would slate them even if it was a modest membership premium, we've seen how things like that have been royally panned over in the US.

It's also not a bit of manual effort to design and set up a process, combatting bots is hard and can cost a lot of money.

Honestly IMO the best, most important, thing OCUK could/should do in order to prevent a similar situation as yesterday is to simply hire a gateway server/firewall to rate limit how many connections they have to the web server so at least their website is still usable. Yes during periods of very high traffic people would be redirect to a page saying as such, maybe they could even be put into a queue. But that's better than 10's of thousands of people, and maybe even more bots, mashing F5 and sending tens of thousands GET requests every second.

e: It would probably also pay for itself what with what i must imagine is the huge amount of extra work being generated from customers who aren't sure if their order went through, if they were charged, etc, etc.

 

[Sparky]

Would a deposit system work in your opinions?

 

[danlightbulb]

It's also not a bit of manual effort to design and set up a process, combatting bots is hard and can cost a lot of money.

I was referring to a one off list type arrangement on this one. There were even forum members maintaining a list on the other section for the 50 release. All the process would be is:
* Gain interest a few weeks in advance
* Create a list
* Lock it down a week prior
* On launch day, hold back this number of units and send a private message to that list with a private buy link either that day or some time later.

It seems to me the amount of effort in doing this is tiny. It's an hour's work to setup, an hour to finalize and maybe a couple hours to administer the checkout process.

Honestly IMO the best, most important, thing OCUK could/should do in order to prevent a similar situation as yesterday is to simply hire a gateway server/firewall to rate limit how many connections they have to the web server so at least their website is still usable. Yes during periods of very high traffic people would be redirect a page saying as such, maybe they could even be put into a queue. But that's better than 10's of thousands of people, and maybe even more bots, mashing F5 and sending tens of thousands GET requests every second

Definitely. Yesterday there was a queuing system activated which had the cloudflare logo on it. Did it even work?

How can it be the case that someone waits in this queue, gets through when it's their turn, yet still can't add product to basket or checkout. Why is the session that's waited in the queue not prioritised in the checkout process. And are these bot scripts able to bypass the queueing system?

 

[Rogueywon]

I'd have thought a pre-order system is the way to go. Open pre-orders a month or two before launch, taking a deposit but not full payment. Then use software tools to identify and eliminate orders that were likely placed by bots (because they went through faster than human reaction times can handle) or where usernames/e-mail addresses etc match up with those that have previously been used for scalping.

 

[Murphy]

Definitely. Yesterday there was a queuing system activated which had the cloudflare logo on it. Did it even work?

It did later in the day as i only saw reports, and experienced it myself, around 3-4pm a good while after the site started experiencing problems. However from what i could tell it served little purpose as even after people reported seeing it the site was still experiencing problems, if i had to guess it may have been simply checking how many different IPs were making requests for the OCUK domain over a period of time.

Basically some type of DNS lookup rate limit rather than a web server rate limit, great if all you want to do is slow down the rate of connections, not so great if you want clients to reduce the number of request they're sending (constant F5'ing, constantly sending GET requests).