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«Damn graphics cards, I’ve just about had it.»

31/5/2021

Translation: Patrik Stainbrook

Graphics cards are a rare commodity. The whole sorry story began last September with the release of Nvidia’s RTX-30 series. I spoke to Yannick Cejka, Junior Category Business Manager at digitec/Galaxus, about the causes, his predictions and his opinion on it all.

Yannick has been working at digitec/Galaxus for around five years. First in retail, then as an assistant with PC components. Meanwhile, he does everything from purchasing to selling components. Including rare graphics cards.

Hello Yannick, thank you very much for taking the time for an interview. The last few months have been a rollercoaster ride for graphics cards. How do you feel?
Yannick Cejka: A bit drained and tense, in terms of the graphic cards. Otherwise, I feel very good. It was and is an intense and stressful time. On top of that, I’m a graphics card fan myself. The situation is anything but satisfactory at the moment. I’m also still waiting for my 3080.

What was the most difficult for you professionally?
Getting graphics cards at reasonable prices, and being allocated any at all. The popular graphics cards in our country are usually also popular in the whole EU. Allocation is based on market size, and because Switzerland is small, allocation is ridiculous. No matter how well I position digitec/Galaxus, it is and remains a business that is driven by market size. So I can’t make a big impact on better allocations.

Our community can be very harsh and doesn’t shy away from criticism. How do you handle it?
I have a hard time with personal, vindictive comments. But the way I see it is this: what doesn’t kill me makes me stronger. I can handle it better now than I did before. But I’m also glad that sometimes there are gratifying, supportive comments. It’s not all bad. But we can also learn a lot from the community, and even uncover errors in processes and the system. I am doing my best given the current situation. And I’m aware that I cannot please everyone.

Positive comments like these German ones help Yannick through the day.

Based on community feedback, you’ve tried a few things – including random draws. Currently, you’re implementing purchasing windows announcing when in-stock cards will go on sale. How do you feel when faced with such a window?
Five minutes before any sale, my pulse skyrockets. I always work on them with my colleagues. We have to do a lot of manual intervention. It’s frustrating, most of the time. Both for customers and us, delays and breakdowns are constant.

Do you still enjoy working like this?
Due to the situation surrounding graphics cards, there are a lot of manual tasks to do. I only enjoy them to a limited extent. I’d rather spend my time honing the quality of product descriptions and specifications.

Have you ever thought to yourself: I can’t do this any more?
Yes, definitely following the most recent sales window. I sat in front of my screen, pressed F5, as all customers do, and nothing worked. Then I thought to myself, «This can’t be it. Damn graphics cards, I’ve just about had it. I’m taking the afternoon off and won’t be back for two weeks.»

That was on May 12. What exactly went wrong there?
That was a mistake on our part. We prepared for an onslaught based on false data. Due to this information, we didn’t have the slightest idea of the actual traffic to be expected.

Did you expect such a situation in August 2020 – a month before the launch of the RTX-30 series?
No, never. I have been in the components business for some time, but something like this is new to me, too. We have never had such a shortage in the GPU sector. No one saw the full extent of this coming.

When did you realise that something special was about to happen?
I got an initial premonition five minutes before launch. I had noticed that certain pages were taking longer to load. Then, five minutes after launch, when certain sales were still not registered and the homepage was effectively unusable, I knew: something is seriously wrong.

So the launch was already a failure?
The launch itself went well despite the huge rush. Some customers did have problems during checkout, but that’s nothing out of the ordinary when traffic is high. Our fatal mistake was that we ordered graphics cards in large quantities from manufacturers, yet still hadn’t received any.

**But the next few sales… **
… proceeded quite differently. By then it was already clear: there are very few cards, for a vast number of customers. That’s when the onslaught really got uncontrollable. In the meantime, we have about twice as much traffic on sites with sales windows as we did at launch. Customers have noticed: wow, the situation hasn’t eased at all even half a year after the launch. However, I now want and need a new graphics card. The rush hasn’t slowed down. It’s got bigger.

In the meantime, several months have passed. I’m certain several thousand graphics cards have crossed the digital counter. Are there really that many gamers in Switzerland?
I’m just as amazed as you. But I suspect that there are a great many people who want to make a profit from the cards. Cryptocurrency miners or resellers and their ilk. Both are huge problems.

Is there any way to take action against resellers, or scalpers as they’re more commonly known?
In simple terms, we want to be as fair as possible and sell graphics cards to people who actually need them – gamers. But that’s difficult. In Switzerland, anyone is allowed to resell their purchased goods. Legally, there’s nothing we can do. We can only specify in our T&Cs that we don’t sell to scalpers. Now we even know most of the resellers by name. But they always find new ways to order under a different name. We can’t possibly win.

Customer service and you manually go through orders after sales windows to cancel multiple purchases or other anomalies. That’s a lot of effort.
Yes, and I’m beginning to wonder if it’s even worth it. From a customer’s perspective, I understand the frustration: you take part in three sales windows and come away empty-handed every time. Meanwhile, some scalpers snatch up several cards using their scummy tactics. The effort exerted in this Robin Hood game is enormous. Which makes us all the happier when we catch one. In customer service, we have some real talented detectives. This really helps, and I’m extremely grateful for their assistance.

What factors have led to the graphics card shortage?
On the one hand, resources are scarce. There are simply not enough semiconductors at present to satisfy the high demand. The demand is so great because the performance increase of graphics cards compared to previous generations is enormous. But the Covid pandemic, with its high demand for IT equipment surrounding home offices, has also contributed to this. At the moment, however, the biggest driver is probably the mining boom. Ethereum mining, specifically.

Graphics cards are niche products compared to smartphones. There’s not really much of a shortage there yet. Why?
It’s certainly also a question of power. The market for smartphones is much larger and therefore has more control over production. I consider graphics cards to be indicative of other tech areas. There’s probably a lot worse to come.

How do you assess the current situation from a market economy perspective?
The non-binding retail price of graphics cards is utopian. Even the purchase price is significantly higher. The situation is difficult, and I’m even more pessimistic than half a year ago. For top models, we don’t get more cards, but fewer. In general, I have the feeling that we’re allocated even fewer GPUs than last year.

So you don’t expect improvements any time soon?
If this continues, the situation probably won’t recover until mid-2022. But maybe I’m wrong and everything will be available again at the end of the year. I’d be overjoyed – and could finally game with my new card.

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Kevin Hofer

Senior Editor

kevin.hofer@digitecgalaxus.ch

From big data to big brother, Cyborgs to Sci-Fi. All aspects of technology and society fascinate me.

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