If you’ve been struggling to find where to buy the Nvidia RTX 3080 or any other Nvidia GeForce RTX 30 series graphics card, you’ve probably already been beaten by scalpers.
Now, an analysis of the GPU dealer market has revealed the scale of the problem, with almost 50,000 Nvidia Ampere cards sold on just two sites.
Oracle data analyst Michael Driscoll created a script that extracts data from two of the biggest retail locations: eBay and StockX. The analyst found that the money changers made about $ 15 million in total profits.
Meanwhile, ordinary consumers are facing a lasting shortage of the full range of the Nvidia GeForce RTX 30 series, as well as other favorite scalpers like the PS5 and Xbox Series X.
Driscoll’s analysis revealed not only the large quantities in which GPUs are being resold, but also the huge markings that scalpers are charging. The Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 and GeForce RTX 3060 Ti seem to have the worst: on eBay, both GPUs were sold at an average price more than double their respective MSRPs.
Most of the stock ends up on eBay, with 39,064 units resold compared to 10,616 on StockX. The GeForce RTX 3080 is the model most often resold on eBay, where it has changed 14,066 units, while the GeForce RTX 3070 barely outperforms the RTX 3080 at StockX with 3,697 sales to 3,473.
Prices have also risen further as a result of recent new tariffs on PC components imported from China, which, according to Driscoll, increased MSRPs by 7% to 25%. Unsurprisingly, retailers raised their prices in the same way.
It is just another dark reminder of how ineffective retailers have been in ensuring that inventory goes into the hands of regular customers, not the dealer bots.
It is also a sign of how huge the reseller market really is. Many of the GeForce RTX 30 series refills we’ve seen include only double-digit units – imagine how many of those refills were instantly cleaned by scalpers to make almost 50,000 sales. Not to mention the new listings on eBay and StockX that have not yet been sold.
We would like to say that the situation will improve sooner or later. But it doesn’t look like that will be the case, the stock shortage is likely to continue for at least a few more months. But keep checking with Tom’s Guide, as we’ll do our best to bring you all the latest technology stock updates as soon as we hear about them.