General Discussions

In what can only be seen as a good move to most, AMD is being more preemptive in asking retailers to keep things fair so that more GPUs can fall in end users hands without going through scalpers.

AMD sent a private letter out to its resellers outlining its request on how to handle sales.

This was reported by RedGamingTech and VideoCardz.

5 Replies

Maybe to prevent what XFX did by selling all of its stock of series 5xxx to Miners.

This will make the Retailers aware not to sell most of what is in stock to one Customer at one time.

I don't know how effective that letter is without some sort of consequences from AMD, but from my view point, if a Customer wants to purchase 10 Series 6xxx GPU cards from a Retailer, the Retailer will jump hoops to accommodate the Customer. In the end Profits will decide if a Retailer will follow AMD's suggestion.

The Nivida cards sold out in literally seconds due to bots controlled by scalpers gobbling up the small amount of cards available on launch. Team Green has caught a lot of flak over this. I am sure that AMD is just trying to keep things as level a playing field as they can from their end. It would be awesome if most day one purchasers have a card available to them if they want one.

I agree it is a good idea. This prevents potential AMD customers getting upset the GPU is not in stock or ran out only days after going public and deciding to purchase an Nvidia or less expensive AMD GPU card that is in stock.

But unless AMD has some muscle behind that letter, Retailers will go what is most profitable for them. Retailers are not particularly partial to AMD or Nvidia or a particular product or their customers unless the Retailer is owned by AMD or Nvidia.

As you mentioned it isn't fair to the average Customer if a "Scalper' or Miner goes and drains all the GPUs from a Retailer's stock. But to the Retailer, in my opinion, are seeing Dollar signs in front of them.

As an example, if AMD says if you sell all your GPUs to one or two Customers, we will put you temporarily down at the bottom of the list to be replenished in the future. That is what I mean by adding some muscle to the letter.

All true. I get that a retailer may think it is a good idea to let a person buy more than one.

I would argue that selling only one to a customer makes better sense at least at launch.

Whether online or at local retail one per customer means that one customer and so many more customers total are looking at not just that item but potentially buying other stuff too.

A bot is only looking to buy one thing.

So instead of so many customers leaving mad that they didn't get what they wanted they might leave happy having bought other stuff too.

Okay so WCCFTECH has more detailed info on this:

AMD Preps For Radeon RX 6000 GPU & Ryzen 5000 CPU Launch, Issues Guidelines To Retailers To Tackle Bots, Scalpers and Ensure Customer Satisfaction

To ensure that gamers, enthusiasts, and creators can easily purchase a next-generation Radeon RX 6000 series graphics card and the Ryzen 5000 series processors, AMD has sent out guidelines to its partners and retailers which were obtained by RedGamingTech. The guidelines heavily emphasize that retailers take precautionary measures to avoid bots and scalpers. A list of security & standard preventive measures have been listed which include:

Bot Detection and Management: Use real-time bot detection mechanisms and tools to scan and filter site traffic and identify/block known malicious bots.

CAPTCHA Implementation: Use challenge-response tests to determine if the user is human during the checkout process. (e.g.. "I am not a robot" check box, simple math problem, picture/confident or alpha-numeric identification or honeypot)
Purchase Limits: Limit purchases at launch to 1 per end-user_ Reject subsequent orders containing the same information, such as name, email address, or billing/shipping address.
Reservations: Use a queue-based notification system that allows customers to reserve their place in line to purchase as stock becomes available in the future. If a product is shown 'out of stock', customers have the option to be notified by email once the product is available. • Manual Order Processing: At launch, switch to manual order processing to properly validate orders with minimal delays.
Limit Reseller Sales (B2B): During the 3 weeks after (AMD Ryzen 5000 / Radeon RX 6000) launch, limit the number of sales made to commercial resellers.
Inventory-toe-Cart Allocation: Allocate inventory only when a customer submits an order or set a time limit on how long a customer can hold our product in their cart. Inform customers that purchases are not guaranteed until the order is submitted.

Following is the full guidelines document that AMD has reportedly sent out to retailers

AMD is taking cues from the bogus NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 launch which was severely affected by scalpers and their bots rushing in to obtain the cards right at launch only to list them for inflated prices in the secondary market. Aside from that, the large influx of users and higher demand for next-generation graphics card made almost all retail sites remain crashed and unresponsive for hours. Since the stock was depleted so early and scalpers are still in action even after the initial launch, the GeForce RTX 30 series remains mostly out of stock with NVIDIA's CEO, Jensen, normalization of stock around 2021.

The AMD Ryzen 5000 Desktop CPU and Radeon RX 6000 Desktop GPU families are two of the most important launches for AMD in 2020. It will be in AMD's best interest that they don't go the way of the GeForce RTX 30 series in terms of customer inconveniences as many users have been waiting for long now to finally purchase a new CPU and GPU for their gaming PCs. The AMD Radeon RX 6000 series GPUs will be unveiled on the 28th of October with a launch planned around November while AMD Ryzen 5000 CPUs will be officially available on the 5th of November.