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This seems like a huge failure to correctly price products if there are actual shortages and people standing in line (except maybe on launch day, that might be

This seems like a huge failure to correctly price products if there are actual shortages and people standing in line (except maybe on launch day, that might be good publicity). The gaming market seems very elastic on the demand side, few people actually _need_ a new rig urgently, so an increase in price could effectively limit the initial demand and get them to people who need/want them most while increasing margins for manufacturers or sellers. As it is now private middlemen take that profit, presumably by standing in said lines wasting a lot of time. And buyers now have to trust some rando on ebay to actually ship a 2k$ graphics card. That is not an optimal outcome.

pradn 6y ago
Companies take a big brand hit if they increase prices to match their low output. Adidas, too, can sell Yeezys for $1000 a pop, but chooses not to. It also helps keep the hype for the products up.
fomine3 6y ago
In Japan, a notorious and No1 import agency called "ASK" does this operation for video cards. They sets higher prices at launch (3060Ti/3070 is 30%-40% expensive than US' MSRP) and finally decreases the prices. As a result, now we can easily buy any 3060Ti/3070, and 3080 if you don't choose brand, but expensive. What's interesting here is that sold price in Japan is sometimes far cheaper than scalper's price in US.
- TMWNN 6y ago
  What you're describing is called a Dutch auction. Microsoft and Sony should have offered their new consoles using this method. Start at a very high price like $10,000, decrease the price until people start buying, resume decreasing the price when demand is satisfied, and repeat as needed.
mr_toad 6y ago
> This seems like a huge failure to correctly price products if there are actual shortages and people standing in line Apple can’t afford the optics of launching a product at one price and then halving it a few weeks later. There’d be angry op-EDs in Forbes, and the HN threads would be longer than the queues.

pradn 6y ago

Companies take a big brand hit if they increase prices to match their low output. Adidas, too, can sell Yeezys for $1000 a pop, but chooses not to. It also helps keep the hype for the products up.

fomine3 6y ago

In Japan, a notorious and No1 import agency called "ASK" does this operation for video cards. They sets higher prices at launch (3060Ti/3070 is 30%-40% expensive than US' MSRP) and finally decreases the prices. As a result, now we can easily buy any 3060Ti/3070, and 3080 if you don't choose brand, but expensive. What's interesting here is that sold price in Japan is sometimes far cheaper than scalper's price in US.

TMWNN 6y ago
What you're describing is called a Dutch auction. Microsoft and Sony should have offered their new consoles using this method. Start at a very high price like $10,000, decrease the price until people start buying, resume decreasing the price when demand is satisfied, and repeat as needed.

mr_toad 6y ago

> This seems like a huge failure to correctly price products if there are actual shortages and people standing in line Apple can’t afford the optics of launching a product at one price and then halving it a few weeks later. There’d be angry op-EDs in Forbes, and the HN threads would be longer than the queues.