Resellers Using Checkout Bots Are Driving the Nintendo Switch Shortage (vice.com) 77
During the global coronavirus pandemic, demand for the Nintendo Switch console has skyrocketed and retailers have repeatedly run out of stock. Seizing that opportunity, some price gougers on Amazon and eBay are selling Switches for hundreds of dollars over the recommended retail price. From a report: Like lots of money-making opportunities in online-shopping, many of these resellers aren't just stumbling upon their in-demand product of choice. Instead, developers are creating dedicated tools to automatically buy Switches from stores when they come back in stock, and before others get a chance to. Motherboard has traced some of the bulk Switch buying to a community revolving around a new, particular bot. Hundreds of people looking to jump on the gold rush or who are just desperate to get their hands on a Switch for themselves have joined a Discord group where users share tips on how to effectively use the tool.
"I decided to make it as a joke, but I quickly realized just how powerful it could be," Nate, the creator of Bird Bot, the open source tool for quickly purchasing Switches, told Motherboard in an online chat. Right now it is open season for profit-seekers. Some resellers on eBay are asking for over $500 for a Switch, with some vendors successfully getting around $750 for the Animal Crossing themed bundle of the branded console and the game within the last week. The typical retail price for those products are $300 and $360 respectively.
"I decided to make it as a joke, but I quickly realized just how powerful it could be," Nate, the creator of Bird Bot, the open source tool for quickly purchasing Switches, told Motherboard in an online chat. Right now it is open season for profit-seekers. Some resellers on eBay are asking for over $500 for a Switch, with some vendors successfully getting around $750 for the Animal Crossing themed bundle of the branded console and the game within the last week. The typical retail price for those products are $300 and $360 respectively.
Had to order from military site (Score:3, Funny)
The only way we found a Switch Lite was on a store normally reserved for military personnel.
We feel like such frauds now :)
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The only way we found a Switch Lite was on a store normally reserved for military personnel.
We feel like such frauds now :)
Hah. better watch out! [wikipedia.org]
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The Switch Lite was the only console still available locally. The normal Switch was the first to sell out and I watched someone take the last PS4 from our local electronics store week 2 of the lockdown.
Just build one (Score:2)
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And... all the important parts are already out of stock online.
Good business until the gouging is shut down (Score:4, Interesting)
Early adopters will, of course, make a killing.
Then, Amazon and eBay will start getting bad press and put a halt to the price gouging. Suddenly the late entrants and the very greedy will find they have a garage full of Nintendo Switch's. Then Nintendo will increase production, Animal Crossing will be outdated and they won't even be able to sell them for the old list price.
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The only question is whether Nintendo will be able to ramp up production amidst the pandemic.
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Love it! A week ago Costco had already put up a special notice of no refunds on TP, sanitizer, rice, water, bleach wipes...
The only question is whether Nintendo will be able to ramp up production amidst the pandemic.
OTOH, if you could return stuff, stores would then have it, and people could buy it. Normalcy would return sooner.
So I guess weigh the warm fuzzy feeling of punishing the profiteers against that ...
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I wish, I still can't get any in the stores around here.
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Yeah, but it's more fun to see profiteers in big debts for being greedy.
To summarize the scale of the hoarding, stores ran through a year's worth of supply in about a month. That's what the store normally sells through in a year, they sold through in a month. For hand sanitizer, it was slightly longer as in 2 mon
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One theory is that there's a real shortage of toilet paper. The problem is that if people are working at home or not working at all, they're using their home toilets and not their work toilets. And toilet paper for businesses is not really the same product as toilet paper for individuals; it's sold in bulk, may be a different paper quality, may come in rolls two feet wide, etc. So all of a sudden the demand for home toilet paper goes up and the demand for business toilet paper goes down.
And people spend
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The problem is you reduce the risk for the speculators. They either make bank on buying up all the supply and then gouging people, or at worst they return it for what they paid for it. By letting them return it, you're effectively bailing them out and there's little reason for them to not do it all over again for the next crisis. If instead you let them go bust then maybe they won't do that again.
Besides, they may still sell off their stock at a loss to try to recover at least some of their investment, a
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You mean like this guy left with a $10,000 stockpile of toilet paper [indy100.com]?
He didn't think it through. The TP shortage was obviously driven by a temporary increase in stockpiling, not by a long term increase in ass-wiping.
So the surge in demand was obviously going to be followed by a drop in demand as people draw down their TP hoard.
All of the shops in my area now have plenty of TP and a few over-ordered and are stacking it in the aisles.
The Great Toilet Paper Crisis of 2020 is officially over.
The Nintendo Switch Crisis shall also pass.
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Still empty shelves here in the PNW.
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What/Where is PNW?
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What/Where is PNW?
Pacific Northwest. It is the area north of California between the Pacific Ocean and the Continental Divide. So Washington, Oregon, and Idaho.
Re:Good business until the gouging is shut down (Score:4, Informative)
So the toilet-paper situation is actually a little bit more subtle than you'd think.
It's true that toilet paper usage per-person hasn't changed as a result of quarantine. But the _places_ where TP is used have changed.
Instead of spending half your day outside the house (where you're using work TP, restaurant TP, coffee-shop, etc), you're doing all your pooping at home. And chances are you don't buy TP though the same supply-chain as your local restaurant or office complex.
Supplier agreements/logistics don't change overnight. A TP manufacturer typically makes many different kinds of TP, packaged in different ways. And the distribution channels are completely different.
So what we wind up with is a huge surplus in the business-to-business TP supply line, and a huge shortage on consumer TP.
Eventually these can (and will) equalize out. But it takes time - and the consumer shortage isn't purely caused by hoarding.
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They can spool up and make more...
I see what you did there.
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The vast majority of it is though. The effect you note is somewhat limited by the strong preference many have for doing their business at home where the bathroom smells better, offers TP that doesn't resemble left over water resistant tissue paper, and doesn't feature the guy one stall over who sounds like he's trying to give birth.
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Instead of spending half your day outside the house (where you're using work TP, restaurant TP, coffee-shop, etc), you're doing all your pooping at home.
Yeah that's why a household of two rushes out and buys 3x 48 packs. Those extra 10 sheets a day are going to be the end of us! /sarcasm
You're technically right, but it doesn't even remotely account for the situation at hand hell even if you assume a person uses the entire bloody roll to wipe that day it doesn't account for it. The situation is very much the result of completely irrational hording.
Also reminds me of a poem: "CEO gets a dollar, I get a dime. That's why I poop on company time."
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Then, Amazon and eBay will start getting bad press and put a halt to the price gouging.
No they won't. There's no basis for doing so and this has been standard practice for years. The only thing Amazon seems to have banned at all is face masks, hand sanitiser and "cures".
How much of it is attributable to Animal Crossing? (Score:2)
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Animal Crossing? I can probably dig up an old GameCube with it. Why are people paying for a new console?
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1) Most people don't like seeing sub 480i content on their HD and 4K TVs.
2) When a new console comes out, most people retire the old one from their living room (or maybe keep 1 generation back, but the gamecube is now 3 generations old.
3) There is a world of difference between the first game and the latest. Same basic premise, yes, but there is so much more you can do now. This latest version is much more about personalizing your entire island.
4) A lot of people are using this for online virtual interaction
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#3 is probably the biggest reason, so much more content.
But really, I never got into the game so I think I'll pass.
As for the Switch, already bought one for my son last year and Zelda BOTW. If they can get BOTW 2 out now I know what we will be doing for the next few months.
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I think guruevi's point is that Animal Crossing (2002) is an imperfect yet acceptable temporary substitute for Animal Crossing: New Horizons (2020).
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I think guruevi's point is that Animal Crossing (2002) is an imperfect yet acceptable temporary substitute for Animal Crossing: New Horizons (2020).
Depends on your definition of "acceptable". The original on the Game Cube has no network option as well as many, many other features from what I remember. That's like saying Call of Duty (2003) is an acceptable substitute for any of the more recent Call of Duty games. Like team play in the original Call of Duty is equal to the current versions . . . oh wait. No it isn't.
I hope they choke on them (Score:3)
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I was actually considering purchasing a Switch soon, and sort of regret not pulling the trigger a few months ago. Well, c'est la vie. But no way I'd ever consider paying one of these scalpers a dime. I'll wait until they're back down to suggested retail prices. Sadly, I suspect plenty of people with more cash than consideration will pay the ransom fees and thus reward such behavior.
Also, as much as it annoys me, hoarding TP and hand sanitizer is a lot worse than hoarding and reselling gaming consoles, w
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This is bullshit, it's bad enough people tried to make money hording toilet paper to resell, now they are doing that with gaming consoles.
Welcome to the world of supply and demand. The only thing which has changed, is the demand curve. You can happily expect the suppliers to price accordingly. This is how the free market works.
No I'm serious. In economic theory the free market is fixed by price only due to imperfect information. The ultimate goal is for a seller to extract the maximum amount of money a buyer is willing to part with. This is what drives discounts at supermarkets for products that are about to hit their use by date. It's what d
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"The ultimate goal is for a seller to extract the maximum amount of money a buyer is willing to part with."
The ultimate goal of the *seller* is for the seller to extract the maximum amount of money a buyer is willing to part with. But the seller is not the ponly participant in the market. The ultimate goal of the buyer is to give up the minimum amount of money a seller is willing to accept. The goal of the *market* to to efficently allocate resources by balancing these two goals.
"the free market is fixed by
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> jackup the price a few percentages
When you say a few percentages, you mean like 40 - 60% ? As that's what the markups for resellers are currently.
> Seems like there might be a sustainability problem there somewhere.
You do know these opportunistic resellers will just move on to something else that is scarce when the Switch supply bottleneck opens, right? And with a new tool in their belt to boot.
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You do know these opportunistic resellers will just move on to something else that is scarce when the Switch supply bottleneck opens, right? And with a new tool in their belt to boot
Of course they will. So long as their actions are rewarded, they will continue making rewarding actions.
The only two ways that will change are if their actions are punished instead of rewarded, where they will then stop to avoid punishment,
or to be stopped by force, be it from the law or from amazon/ebay actively preventing them.
Since the people getting charged double price are rewarding the behavior, that isn't going to stop it.
Currently the law doesn't have much recourse either, as the few laws on the su
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Well...it's really ONLY a problem for those idiots out there that are willing to SPEND too much money on one of these systems, eh?
The problem of "got to have it NOW".....in time, they will again become plentiful, and prices will go back to reasonable.
People have GOT to wean themselves off this instant gratification kick they've been mainlining the pas
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The issue is it's not an "instant" gratification kick. The shortage of consoles from retailers and online sites has been going on for 2 months. I've been looking to get one. I'm not paying the markup, but I can certainly see how some would just give in and buy one after weeks of fruitless searching. How much is your time worth? Is $100 extra worth more to you than potentially spending several hours over the next several weeks looking for a console in a search that still may turn up nothing?
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I supposed I'd j
If they wanted to stop it they would have already (Score:5, Interesting)
It's not that difficult to write an algorithm to restrict the quantity of items that can be ordered per account or credit count to X every Y days, where X and Y depend on supply (stock levels) and demand (pending orders).
Velocity control is a solved problem.
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Re:If they wanted to stop it they would have alrea (Score:4, Insightful)
"Do the stores really care? If 10 people buy 1 Switch each or 1 person buys 10 Switches they sell the same amount."
Stores care if customers get angry. Angry customers find somewhere else to shop.
Customers get angry when there is a guy standing outside the store selling the items that normally would be inside the store for inflated prices.
They blame the guy doing it. And they blame the store for not preventing it.
" Switch is how many years old now, so who would even expect a run on them?"
Yeah, I was surprised too. The increase in people playing games is not unexpected as the shutdowns took hold, but the majority of extra people buying are all laid off and most are spending less on nonessentials. Nevermind feeling rich enough to put up with getting ripped off to get it right now from a price-gouger.
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"Why would I get angry at a store for running out?"
Everyone is different, so i won't speak for "you". But basic psychology explains why lots of normal people would be angry at the store.
Also the store didn't "run out"; it allowed itself to get "cleaned out" by people they knew weren't buying them for their own use and were instead buying just to resell in transactions that violate a social norm or social contract.
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Stores care if customers get angry. Angry customers find somewhere else to shop.
A customer that is angry due to something being out of stock is an irrational customer that you may not actually want. Also if a customer *can* find somewhere else to shop then we wouldn't be in this situation in the first place because the grey market couldn't turned a profit in a difference from RRP.
The customer will very quickly realise the situation is universal and just become generally disillusioned rather than being angry against one shop. Net effect on the store: nothing.
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"A customer that is angry due to something being out of stock is an irrational customer that you may not actually want."
A customer that throws a temper tantrum over being out of stock is an irrational customer. A customer that swiches loyalty from storeA to storeB because storeB handled it better is perfectly rational.
I remember when the original Wii was sold out everywhere. One place accepted my order (major chain), confirmed it, and later cancelled it (a couple weeks later). I've never ordered from them a
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Velocity control is a solved problem.
So is Velocity creation. It's not that difficult to write and algorithm to create and use fake accounts and auto generate one time credit card numbers.
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^^^ This. I say it every time scalpers buy out all the tix to games / events / concerts.
In a choice between helping customers on velocity and passing off their own revenue risks, so many vendors follow the money.
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Ugh! "credit CARD"
We all need them (Score:2)
So like any arms race, we all need these bots. Then at least we'd have an equal chance.
Price gouging vs. retail arbitrage (Score:2)
Could someone explain the difference, please?
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Could someone explain the difference, please?
One is unpopular.
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Think of it like a Venn diagram; all gougers are arbers, but not all arbers are gougers.
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theyre the same thing, but price gouging is when it's done on essential goods. You don't need to buy a Switch, and if you don't the biggest consequence will be boredom or whiny kids. The consequences for not being able to buy food, gas, PPE, etc is usually to the detriment of your health/safety/life.
The only other thing I could think of that blurs the boundary here are concert/event tickets and scalping laws. It's clearly a non-essential "good", but in many states have laws prohibiting it. Not sure how laws
UK guys ended up in jail (Score:3)
A Joke? (Score:2)
A joke? I do not think that means what you think it means. Sounds like a flat out lie to me to cover your ass, kiddo.
Let the idiots pay over the odds! (Score:3)
Screw you if you're stupid enough to pay 3 times the cost 'cos you have to have it now. 6 weeks time the prices will be back down again when the fad dies down a little and we're all back to work. I remember this crap right through the 90s, Beanie Babies and the latest kid's toy over Xmas. Ultimate, pathetic expression of the "I want it now!", consumerist, spoilt-brat culture that people have grown up with. If you must have it, just grow up and find some patience and you'll get one at a sensible price in a few weeks time.
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6 weeks time the prices will be back down again
In 6 weeks time the kids will be back at school, and you'll be divorced due to the household breaking down over the fact that you couldn't entertain your kid and everyone was driven mad.
Okay extreme example, but there's a reason for the demand. People are bored. How bored? This isn't just a Switch issue. You can't buy any consoles right now. You can't buy any new board games. The local toy store is completely out of LEGO, completely out of jigsaw puzzles, the only thing that is still in good supply appears
Just like scalping tickets (Score:4, Informative)
It's similar to, but not the same, as the story the other day from Australia. Some guy down under wanted to return a bunch of toilet paper and other items for a refund. How much? According to the store manager the amount would have been $10,000 [globalnews.ca].
Apparently the guy had enlisted a bunch of people to go out and buy up TP and hand sanitizer when covid-19 took hold. Stores were prohibited from selling more than 2 packs per person which is why this guy had so many people working for him. Unfortunately for him, eBay shut him down and whined to the store he couldn't make any money because of it. The store manager gave him the finger and walked away.
The same should be done here. Give these people the finger and let them lose out on price gouging.
Boo hoo (Score:2)
Why should I care about people that want to reward scalpers
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SubjectIsSubject (Score:3)
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I see people willing to pay twice the price for a product as no different than those willing to queue for hours outside an Apple store.
If you want something so desperately and you have the means to get it, go your hardest.
Unfortunately people really can't wait at the moment. Boredom is a major issue. Without a switch you can .... no you can't, Jigsaw puzzels are just as sold out, as are toys, the local hobby shop is closed so I can't even chose now to start building ships in bottles.
huh? (Score:1)