VOUCHER CODE DEALS CONCEPT PLAN!

[Gibbo]

HI there


Today/Tomorrow I hope to start trialling voucher code idea that is exclusive to forum members only.
This is a concept idea and will be rolled out slowly and as such our first step will be to test it to a more limited audience, we shall do this by ONLY posting the deal in members market, which only members above with more than 1000 post and six months membership can view.

Our reasoning for this is because their are several forum members and guest who leak out when we do heads up, so the last thing we want or need is a voucher code leaking out to then spoil it for all here.

So to begin with the first deal or two will be posted in members market.

The way it shall work:
- Card listed on website at a truly crazy price, like £5,000 - £20,000
- A voucher code will then be made to get the card down to a very fair price, as close to MSRP as possible though this is impossible in some cases as we pay above MSRP.
- The voucher will be time and quantity limited to help prevent over sale.
- The deal/voucher code will only be posted in members market, so only the longer term members can view it.
- Anyone caught spamming the forum's to increase post count will be dealt with and have their access removed to MM
- The deal SKU is 1pc per customers and limited to UK only customers.
- If OcUK identifies someone selling a voucher code deal at a scalp price on Ebay or any other platform you will also be banned.


If this goes well and the voucher code is not abused and we see steady sales, we shall then also make some SKU's available at a lower price with the use of a voucher in this public forum that all members will get a chance to buy, but rest assured if people decide to leak the voucher code and we see BOT's attempting to buy, the simple fact is this concept idea will then get pulled and won't be repeated.

We are doing this to try and help you guys out, by getting cards to you at very fair prices, the simple fact is as you all know we can sell the cards at similar prices to other shops and sell out within seconds, what we plan to do is offer you cards cheaper than anywhere else with a voucher code system, but if it gets abused it shall be pulled and we won't be repeating it, which in end spoils it for all.

Our plan/concept it not up for debate or ideas, it is something that has been worked on behind the scenes between myself, @ScottiB and marketing to try and get something functioning with the website/tools we have.

I do hope to have a card/deal live later today / tomorrow, so when you see a card online at around £10,000 you will know that is the card that we have a voucher code live on and that code will be posted in members market.#

Like I say if this works well, I shall do some deals here in this public forum and will continue to do so on the basis it works well, otherwise it will get pulled back to the more private members market which is also invisible to google/bots and if that is abused it will be pulled completely.

So in short!

DO NOT SHARE VOUCHER CODES EVEN ON THIS FORUM LET ALONE ANYWHERE ELSE!

Anyone actually seen sharing a voucher code on this forum or who we can ID from this forum sharing elsewhere will be permanently banned from the OcUK forum.

 

[Gibbo]

watch the forum crash due to everyone and their dog posting to get that post count up

props to you guys though at least your trying to work something out to get cards into actual gamers hands.

The DON's have been informed of this plan, they will be enforcing the rules strictly and are all informed to ban anyone share a voucher code on the spot.

 

[Gibbo]

@Gibbo

Are these codes going to apply for all 6000/3000 series cards from now on - i.e from the 3060 through to the 3090 and 6700XT upto the 6900XT?

It shall be one deal/SKU at a time.

If we roll out a blanket code system and it gets abused we'd sell 1000's of cards we don't have before we know it.

I am planning the first card to be a 3060 as I know so many people are looking for a card at a more friendly price.

 

[Gibbo]

How will it work with back orders - assume you are going to prioritise your backorders before releasing new stock on a voucher scheme? Or will there be some parallel sales - 10 come in, 5 go to fulfil preorders, then 5 go to voucher sales?

We are doing this on lines with no back orders and we have no plans on over selling and as such taking back orders.

 

[Gibbo]

Good idea!

What have you got in place to stop people who meet this criteria/regular forum members from buying GPUs and then scalping/selling on ebay? As there are quite a few on here who have been caught out....

How can we tell what your gonna do with the card when you buy it? The simple answer is we cannot! Which is the issue, it is impossible to know!

 

[Gibbo]

You are only using one of SKU, so unless you literally have hundreds in stock I can't see it being a full time job.

Also maybe if you just add £5 to every card you sell them you could in fact hire a contact based employee to do the job at zero cost to OCUK, until you sort out a better automated code system.

We have 1000's in stock across various different SKU's, the problem is we have 50-300 cards in stock typically per SKU, we don't have the man power or the time and were not gonna employ additional people to issue codes manually, we will work with the systems we have present and the tools we have to do what we can.

What were doing here is something we can do with the systems and staff we have, were not gonna go employing new people or ask staff who are busy to do something additional, as good as some of the ideas are we simply have to do what we can with the staff and tools at hand, this is the outcome.

If it works well more cards shall be made available on the MM, for example we are sat on around 1000 units of 6700 XT so there is a huge amount of stock potentially up for grabs if this works well on stuff like 6700 XT, 6800 XT, 3060, 3060Ti, 3070 etc. Those hoping for a 3080 forget it, any stock we get is used to upgrade the orders for those who have waited months.

 

[Gibbo]

Sounds like a good idea.

I'm assuming this will be posted in the PC Hardware section of MM?

Yes.

 

[Gibbo]

At this rate by the end of the year @Gibbo is gonna have an entire warehouse crammed full of 3000-series cards

Based on how fast the 3070 drops sold yesterday and over sold, in order to list a product online at a fair price we would need around 10,000 units of a single SKU to stay available for more than 24hr's and then if it was an Asus SKU it would probably still only last minutes in such volume.

That is why we are looking at way to get cards to our forum members but also in a way that still allows the sale of 100's and potentially 1000's of cards to forum members.

 

[Gibbo]

What happens if you price a GPU at 20,000 pound and someone actually buys it at that price?

More fool them!

They keep it or get a full refund but it won’t be a way for all to get a card at the special price, they will be told keep it or send back for a full refund. Might teach some of those of their using bots to order irrelevant of the price, but that would be a really dumb thing to do.

 

[Gibbo]

Those who are sour should real my post in graphics forum, I made it clear if it’s a success we will try it in the general forum.

If all goes to plan tomorrow we will do a 6700 XT in the MM tomorrow and if that goes smooth then next week we will make a 6700 XT with a large volume of stock available to the general forum and if that goes well great but if the code leaks out then we will keep it to MM only until that fails.

 

[Gibbo]

The RRP is $329 on these and you put them up at £359.99 - I personally think that's a great deal? What do people expect?

The cards at £359.99 we made £5 a card on, they cost us £284 excluding VAT but shipping and logistics cost on top and then factor in today most cards sold at voucher price had free shipping so now you see why MRSP is not possible.

All 3060’s now cost us more than the MRSP and these are cards we’re buying directly from the manufacturer out of HK and TW so no middle man distributor adding margin and the MRSP is still below our cost. As with most MRSP these days it just a launch day thing for a limited quantity on a none OC product that never happens again after launch unless something dramatic happens.

As such these MRSP’s are very misleading as if anyone can find a 3060 at £299 or a 6700 XT at £419.99 and you will find it impossible.

 

[Gibbo]

WARNING TO ALL MEMBERS!

So @ScottiB discovered a forum member selling a Zotac 3060 he got at £359.99 on Ebay for over £500 on a bidding auction.

Between myself and the Dons we tracked down his forum account.

The actions we have taken:
- Cancelled his order so he won’t be getting the card!
- Banned his forum account for one month!
- Removed his MM access permamently!


We’re trying to help you guys out by offering you cards at extremely cheap prices compared to the rest of the market because you all keep telling us how you can’t get cards and want to upgrade to play games. We want to try and help you out to game and not have to pay over the odds to do so and we have found a system which seems to work.

So these deals are for gamers to game on, not to scalp or mine.

Let this be a warning, the cards are clearly for gamers so only buy if you’re intent is to game. Otherwise don’t buy and give others the opportunity as you scalpers I’m sure your not declaring your profits as income to the tax man.

So be warned if we catch you then you can expect the above!

 

[Gibbo]

So when we do a more public deal on the forum just be warned guys we will be watching and anyone found will be banned from forums and potentially shop too.

 

[Gibbo]

Also to warn you guys the moment a voucher code gets leaked, this all ends, which makes us very worried about a more public deal, so you all really need to understand you see the code it’s for your eyes only. If you share it the deal will be pulled and the deals likely won’t happen again so you spoil it for yourselves and everyone else as we’re offering large volumes at prices hundreds of pounds cheaper than elsewhere so by all means buy but use and keep the card for yourself and if in three months time you want to upgrade and sell it on that’s fine but selling something before you have even taken delivery shows your intentions to scalp and we will look upon anyone doing this very poorly and also including those who try to sell on within a few weeks.

Just remember the reasoning behind doing this guys, it’s to help you gamers out, we’re going to a lot of effort to make this work.

 

[Gibbo]

Well, decide which card you guys are going to sell next, don't say anything, check ebay for listings.
Put the new card for sale, check all new listings after you sell it

That is what we did with Zotac, several staff members monitor Ebay and other sale mediums and when we spot it we cancel orders even when not doing forum deals but as this is a forum deal it needed mentioning.

 

[Gibbo]

@Gibbo any heads up what time the MM code drop might be today in order to save us refreshing ever 10mins? I ordered a 3060 yesterday but my card got declined. Why I don't know, there's more than enough in the account to cover it.

Looking at HUBs 3060 review made me very glad I might be getting a 6700 XT instead (fingers crossed)

Inwill make the thread and post so just set an alert up that follows me and I promise to not post in motors all morning.

 

[Gibbo]

How hard would be to release codes in batches? and only for people that reply on the MM, so they get the code via PM.
Let say you release the code for 20 cards, people post in the MM, you send the code via PM... sell 20 cards, change the code.. rinse and repeat.
So if a code gets leaked, you will know that was one of the 20 people

Unfortunately I’ve got my day job to get on with too though it might seem it I can’t be none stop active on the forum otherwise the warehouse would empty.

Also setting up codes takes two people and they are very time consuming, we can literally only do one code a day.

 

[Gibbo]

well...look at it this way we waited five hours for the code to be properly set up for the test yesterday.
Managing this could quickly turn into a full time job

For two people it’s simply not possible hence why it’s one deal a day or every couple of days.

We’re really going out of way to do this for you guys it’s not a simple few minutes job, it takes a long time and requires two people to interact and of course we’re all working from home......

 

[Gibbo]

True, but wouldnt OCUK like to have the reputation of being there for its loyal customers and actively fighting the scalpers and bots?

Id say we already do, don’t see anyone else doing what we’re doing.

 

[Gibbo]

Think the chaps really need that new back end system - but ,as said above , with no actual stock to sell, profit (and income) will be down, whereas outgoings remain the same.

We have the stock but its spread thin across many SKU's and if we put it online if sells in seconds which we do from time to time because we can't sit on stock forever. We tried cards in 3D printer section, that did work for a while but cat out the bag and the bots seem to improve to be able to spot any card anywhere on the site, even a new setup card within an instant.

So now were using very labour intensive voucher codes, there is a reason we rarely do voucher codes on the store in general because they are hard work, but it seems doing them via the MM does work and future codes won't be so easy to guess.