I've posted somewhere else about my recent experience...
I ordered a HD4870X2 from prophecy for about R5700.
They mailed me that they were out of stock and offered to refund or change the order.
The new prices coming in are all close to R8000. The Asus 4870X2 is now a mere R10400
I phoned loads of retailers and even some suppliers and its clear that the high-end ATI cards suffered price increases of 30% to 40% during last week.
All suppliers are out of stock and all retailers are waiting for ridiculously over-priced new stock to come in.
Prophecy is currently advertising their limited "old stock price" graphics cards on their home page.
I had to phone them to make sure I can at least secure an HD4870__ (note the gap at the end) at "old" prices.
Will have to make do without X2 for now.
(Websites that still list good "old" prices have simply not yet updated their price lists. Phone them and you'll see...)
Which brings me to my conspiracy theory (and back to the "pricewars" thread misnomer)
I just don't buy that all the suppliers suddenly went out of stock when the rand fell. One of my friends running a retailer told me that his supplier supposedly still had more than 200 HD4870X2s in stock, just a week ago. Now, when he ordered, they were reportedly out of stock and waiting for new stock to arrive at new prices.
I think someone in the supply chain is jumping on the Rand-bandwagon and selling old stock at new prices to make an extra buck.
Imagine the margins suplliers can make if they have piles of R8/$ stock which they can now re-price to R12, blaming the Rand...
I think that's exactly what we're seeing right now.
Not that it helps to post all of this but I feel better after bitchin a bit
I have a friend that is a distributor as well as the exclusive importer to certain goods in SA. His prices go up 6 weeks after a major Rand/Euro/Dollar fluctuation... why? Because the goods he pays for today only arrives in 6 weeks time...
Piemans pies at the garages are way better but they cost a few rand more.
