Best Buy requiring people to sign up for $200 to buy GPUs

[stompah]

Best Buy Locks Nvidia RTX GPUs Behind Obscene $200 Paywall

Best Buy wants a pound of flesh before it hands over a new Nvidia graphics card.

www.tomshardware.com

Probably should have been done at the beginning of the shortage. It would have cut into the profit margin for scalpers (if BB limited the number of cards per account.)

I'm almost thinking of signing up and scalping whatever card I can get for $200 over MSRP just to take advantage of the 1 year of now free to me service.

 

[freakdiablo]

Just saw this over on fark. Agreed, it should (or at least would've) weed out some of the scalpers, especially the smaller ones.

If this card shortage continues with the 4xxx line I'd consider it, but for the opposite reason. I likely won't use any of the added benefits, but $200 over MSRP is better than double MSRP.

 

[BugFreak]

I'd gladly pay a down payment for something in short supply but signing up for a BB program isn't for me. It looks like they are trying for a Prime style program with the free shipping but BB doesn't offer near the selection of Prime. No thank you.

 

[EarthDog]

I'd gladly pay a down payment for something in short supply but signing up for a BB program isn't for me. It looks like they are trying for a Prime style program with the free shipping but BB doesn't offer near the selection of Prime. No thank you.

Agreed. That said, it's worth it for the GPU... but I doubt many will continue the program after. But, the point for most people here is to get a 'deal' on the GPU, not the program. The program isn't the selling point, that's for sure!

Just buy your card, cancel it, and enjoy!

 

[Janus67]

Just saw this over on fark. Agreed, it should (or at least would've) weed out some of the scalpers, especially the smaller ones.

If this card shortage continues with the 4xxx line I'd consider it, but for the opposite reason. I likely won't use any of the added benefits, but $200 over MSRP is better than double MSRP.

I can see that going both ways. It so greatly decreases the number of people that are 'normal' buyers that wouldn't pay the $200, that a scalper person (or a miner, etc) would do it anyway and buy every card they can from a much smaller pool. Saw some posts on reddit showing/displaying exactly this.

 

[DaveB]

Unless you did this yesterday and immediately went and bought your GPU, I'd think it's a waste of money. So many have joined by now that it will be just like the previous BB drops where you could get an item in your cart but it would disappear before you could go to checkout. There will be too many Totaltech members and too few GPUs.

 

[EarthDog]

That's true. I think the article even said as much. Stock was gone a few hours later.

That said, a few hours is better than fighting bots when they drop!

 

[DaveB]

That's true. I think the article even said as much. Stock was gone a few hours later.

That said, a few hours is better than fighting bots when they drop!

That was the first day. I know a guy who got through and bought a 3080 Ti a little after noon yesterday. By the next drop you'll be competing with 10s of thousands of new Totaltech members, many just trying to buy them for resale on eBay. There's still a premium being paid for these non-LHR nVidia branded GPUs, so paying a one-time fee of $200 is nothing to the scalpers.

 

[EarthDog]

That was the first day. I know a guy who got through and bought a 3080 Ti a little after noon yesterday. By the next drop you'll be competing with 10s of thousands of new Totaltech members, many just trying to buy them for resale on eBay. There's still a premium being paid for these non-LHR nVidia branded GPUs, so paying a one-time fee of $200 is nothing to the scalpers.

Still, this prevents competition against bots where you have zero chance. I don't think this is going to suddenly provide a constant source, but it still feels better than nothing.

Hopefully, with BTC 'down' (sort of, lol) and Eth doing w/e it's doing this year to make GPU mining useless, I have a feeling we'll see stock improving sooner than later.

What's really scary is, in the future, there potentially not being an MSRP/SEP...

 

[Janus67]

^^ Or if the MSRP/SEP is still set, but more and more resellers/marketplaces lean into the subscription/premium-model to take the profits off the top.