Newegg is aware that many of its customers are frustrated by how difficult it is to score some of today’s hottest hardware products, such as NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 30 Series graphics cards and AMD’s Ryzen 5000 Series processors. That’s why the retailer has begun testing a lottery system that should make it easier for mere mortals (i.e., not bots) to purchase the hardware they desire.
“We’re beta testing a new raffle system to get in-demand products to our real customers,” Newegg said in a statement provided to PC Mag. “The purpose of today’s test was to gather and evaluate all feedback so we can improve the overall Newegg Shuffle experience.”
Today’s beta test actually sparked quite a bit of controversy when participants realized that they could only select NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 GPUs and AMD Ryzen 5000 CPUs as part of a combo purchase, which naturally drove pricing up. Newegg has fanned the flames by clarifying that single items will be available in its future lottery process, however.
“The initial test was comprised of combo items with additional combo savings. Based off the feedback, we can assure you that future Newegg Shuffle events will include single items in addition to combo items.”
It isn’t clear when Newegg’s lottery system will officially go live, but the company only began teasing the feature last week. We suspect that the system could be put into play by the end of the month.
For those wanting a way to purchase GPUs, CPUs, and consoles, we have a long term solution coming out shortly for hot items with little supply. More info coming soon.
— Newegg (@Newegg) January 13, 2021
I've been advocating a lottery system for high demand PC parts like the #RTX3080, so it is great to see @Newegg finally implement it. But the combo "deals" need to be ditched. Can't build an AMD+Nvidia computer without buying an Intel motherboard. #fail #AMD #Nvidia #Intel pic.twitter.com/HeQjypjWsR
— Richard (@RyuGTX) January 20, 2021