The problem with resellers

[noisyturtle]

Time was you could simply walk into a store and purchase the product you wanted, but these days that has become increasingly difficult even for basic everyday items. Sure the scalper market has always been there, you'd hear about a hot toy that holiday season or some new electronic everyone wants, but the past 2 years this has extended to every consumer market. TCG's, GPU's, really any computer part, shoes, concert tickets, electronics, board games, clothing, toys, household cleaners, toilet paper, food, even the very homes we live in are being bought and scalped. Not just every consumer product, but even the basic things humans need to live are being bought by soulless opportunistic scumbags and flipped at the expense of everyone else.

This is a huge problem that needs addressing immediately. The longer these jackals prosper the worse it will get. How can the current rampage of scalpers and resellers be stopped before they destroy the retail market completely out of selfish greed?

Working around video game sales my company has strict preordering and rules for limited stuff. Even TCGs we limit to 1 large item or 3 boosters per household. What I don't approve of is the 'First Come First Serve' way of doing business. There may be some Series X or PS5s going online, but even limited to one per purchase bots still ensure they are gone within 10 seconds of being posted.

Every customer I have spoken to doesn't have the time to stal;k a website all day long every day of the week, they have lives to live. Who do you think is getting these products then? Yup. Resellers. Solves absolutly nothing. I always approved the que system. Customers regularly tell me they would happily wait an entire year if they could simply set it and forget it, getting in a line and ensuring they will receive what they want eventually. No botting, no stalking, no bull**** games.

But in the meantime we need our lawmakers who are hopelessly out of touch with the situation to create laws and regulations preventing these vultures from being able to prosper by doing nothing.

[suicidal_orange]

What law(s) do you think could work and how can they be enforced?  I think the only way to stop bots online would be to have the fields for checkout arranged differently every time with random names and labels and no validation to 'help' identify them, but who would be brave enough to implement such a system what would the 'equalities' activists make of it (bots are essentially screen readers)

Would be much easier if people did walk into shops rather than looking online but if there's one thing Covid has taught us it's that shops are unnecessary so we're screwed

[noisyturtle]

What law(s) do you think could work and how can they be enforced?  I think the only way to stop bots online would be to have the fields for checkout arranged differently every time with random names and labels and no validation to 'help' identify them, but who would be brave enough to implement such a system what would the 'equalities' activists make of it (bots are essentially screen readers)

Would be much easier if people did walk into shops rather than looking online but if there's one thing Covid has taught us it's that shops are unnecessary so we're screwed

A simple pictorial CAPTCHA at checkout works for 90% of botting cases. Things as easy as adding a condition for multiple orders when cross checking the customer's credit info and address. Restricting number of purchases per customer. Creating a que system that holds orders in the sequence they were validated so when more stock arrives the next customer has their order ensured and paid for. Very simple stuff, it doesn't take a marketing genius or website designer to think of these obvious solutions that when enacted en mass creates a harder wall for scalpers to climb while also making the retail environment more customer friendly. The law comes in to force retailers to adopt these measures no longer as an option, but a requirement.

The hype drives sales and demand, but the retailers are not making anything off product they do not have to sell.

[Leslieann]

The scalpers are just taking advantage of a situation, vendors are caught in the middle, it's Covid, people and manufacturers who are the problem. Stop acting like you NEED a 3080, companies need to make more, and covid needs to clear up, which also goes back to people.

And no simple captcha doesn't stop the bots, not even close, at this point the bots are often BETTER at it than people. I've even seen a few lately that were wrong and that's probably because the bots over-ruled the correct answer. Something people don't realize is that captcha isn't verified, no one looks at the picture and decides the correct answer before it gets used, ever see one, make the right choice and still fail? That may not have been the real captcha, that is how they determine the right answer, it's group sourced by feeding you test samples before making you answer one that has been "verified", so if enough people pick wrong answer the wrong answer will be the right answer to pass it when that picture is actually used. The other issue is there's only so many pictures in rotation and the bots learn them fast.

It was a great idea and it did push machine learning forward, unfortunately it pushed machine learning on both sides and in some cases it learned the wrong thing, which is an issue with machine learning.

[blondie]

I like the idea of having a queue, and I can "take a number" and wait until mine is called. But the scalpers will just grab up all the numbers, get the products anyway, or they'll resell the queue number.

What I don't understand is how the bots can work. If you say "one per household" then that should greatly restrict reselling, right? I guess everyone can buy one, then sell it off and be done with it, but I thought most of the problems were with individuals or small groups buying many multiples. If you restrict to one per household, and online sales require to be shipped somewhere, you can enforce that. Or, if you pick it up in store, you can require proof of residence.

What's nice about this (assuming it can work) is that it requires no governmental oversight. In addition, I think the general consumer would find this to be a positive, and actively want to support businesses which operate in this manner, meaning other businesses would follow suite.

[Darthbaggins]

There is a problem with the One per Household mentality, Say I want to buy 3 of a current GPU and 1 is for each member of the family.  Or say I purchase one then later that year I need to get another for my son or for a workstation in the house other than my own rig.  Same falls in line for a small business building multiple machines and are willing to pay retail for said machines or parts.
I'm for bringing down the scalpers from the height they've amassed to, but right now is a perfect storm for this to happen.  If the world wasn't in its current state we wouldn't be having these issues.

[blondie]

I don't mean exactly one. I mean a limited number. It depends on the product and the market. Regardless of what that exact number is, a limitation of this kind can reduce scalping.

I don't know the solution for businesses, but that may just be the wrench in this idea. Even if you limit to one for retail, I can see where scalpers will incorporate to pretend to be a business which needs high quantities, and then sell them off. But it could still work for consumer-only products like consoles.

[Olumin]

The scalpers aren’t the problem, they’re only doing it cause it’s a viable business model. The problem are the idiots that, like impatient children the night before Christmas eve, can’t wait a few weeks or months and actually buy from them.

Scalpers hate this one simple trick: You don’t NEED that PS5 RIGHT NOW.

[Darthbaggins]

I know what price I will pay for a GPU - 3080 - and it's around the MSRP mark + tarrifs and local/state taxes.
PS5 - I learned my lesson from the PS4 launch and I will never buy a console the first year they launch.

[tp4tissue]

I know what price I will pay for a GPU - 3080 - and it's around the MSRP mark + tarrifs and local/state taxes.
PS5 - I learned my lesson from the PS4 launch and I will never buy a console the first year they launch.

Launch PS3,  No regrats.

[noisyturtle]

I know what price I will pay for a GPU - 3080 - and it's around the MSRP mark + tarrifs and local/state taxes.
PS5 - I learned my lesson from the PS4 launch and I will never buy a console the first year they launch.

They estimate for two more years there will be a PS5 shortage, it's rediculous. Why even launch it if you know you couldn't meet demand? This will go down as one of the worst console launches in history.

https://www.ign.com/articles/sony-now-expecting-ps5-shortages-to-continue-into-next-year

[Leslieann]

From what I heard today, expect 4 years of chip shortages, minimum.
There will be no catching up and it's going to get worse before it gets better,  the fabs are days away from running out of water and shutting down entirely due to drought and demand has already reached a point they can't catch up before the new fab opens in 4 years.

Everyone wants chips.
In other words, it you may be buying an RTX 5080 before you get one at retail. It will still probably have only 8 gigs though, cheap b*stards.

[ddot]

Normally supply, demand and price will balance themselves out.  Basic economics.  The problem is people are willing to pay more for a scarce commodity than the retailers are trying to charge, so it creates an opportunity for a scalper to step in and make a profit from the arbitrage.  Raising the price to meet the demand would squeeze the scalpers out.  So would increasing supply.  The problem is supply chains are disrupted around the world at the moment and businesses don’t want to be seen as taking advantage of the situation by raising prices.

I've always thought concerts were a great example of this.  A popular artist comes to town, but in attempt to connect with average fans, keeps the prices of tickets lower that what they could be.  This opens the door for scalpers to scoop up the best tickets and resell them to fans who are desperate to go to the sold out concert.  Some sort of reverse auction would probably work.  Garth Brooks solved this by putting on multiple concerts in the same city.  When he came a few years ago, I think he put on 7 concerts.  Every time one sold out, he added another.  Anyone who wanted a ticket at the official price was able to get one.  He basically made it unprofitable for the scalpers to even try.

[noisyturtle]

Normally supply, demand and price will balance themselves out.  Basic economics.  The problem is people are willing to pay more for a scarce commodity than the retailers are trying to charge, so it creates an opportunity for a scalper to step in and make a profit from the arbitrage.  Raising the price to meet the demand would squeeze the scalpers out.  So would increasing supply.  The problem is supply chains are disrupted around the world at the moment and businesses don’t want to be seen as taking advantage of the situation by raising prices.

I've always thought concerts were a great example of this.  A popular artist comes to town, but in attempt to connect with average fans, keeps the prices of tickets lower that what they could be.  This opens the door for scalpers to scoop up the best tickets and resell them to fans who are desperate to go to the sold out concert.  Some sort of reverse auction would probably work.  Garth Brooks solved this by putting on multiple concerts in the same city.  When he came a few years ago, I think he put on 7 concerts.  Every time one sold out, he added another.  Anyone who wanted a ticket at the official price was able to get one.  He basically made it unprofitable for the scalpers to even try.

A local hobby shop that sells Pokemon TCG does a 1 per person limit/per day(because they will be gone the day they are put out,) but if you open the product in the store you can purchase more than 1 product. I like that idea, and you would be shocked how many turn down the offer showing their true reseller intents.

This doesn't solve online issues though

[tp4tissue]

From what I heard today, expect 4 years of chip shortages, minimum.
There will be no catching up and it's going to get worse before it gets better,  the fabs are days away from running out of water and shutting down entirely due to drought and demand has already reached a point they can't catch up before the new fab opens in 4 years.

Everyone wants chips.
In other words, it you may be buying an RTX 5080 before you get one at retail. It will still probably have only 8 gigs though, cheap b*stards.

Quick, Everyone buy a Piano..   

[Indigu]

The scalpers aren’t the problem, they’re only doing it cause it’s a viable business model. The problem are the idiots that, like impatient children the night before Christmas eve, can’t wait a few weeks or months and actually buy from them.

Scalpers hate this one simple trick: You don’t NEED that PS5 RIGHT NOW.

I don't think that this is remotely possible to avoid, scalpers' business models rely on the idea of supply and demand, that's why they work so well; they're obviously the main cause of the issue and there's absolutely no logical way we can just tell people "don't buy ps5 lul xd", so the scalpers themselves have to be stopped.

[Gondolindrim]

I think that bringing lawmakers into this is just inviting more trouble. Look at how crypto is doing; some countries (like Brazil) are starting to revenue tax crypto but of course no one declares having them because at the end of the day the government cannot possibly know. So there already are talks of ramping up normal revenue tax so that people that have cryptocurrencies pay taxes "forcibly", effectively making everyone pay more taxes.

Truth of the matter is, bureaucrats will take time to understand the complexities of supply-constrained markets and use the opportunity to get money. That's my take.