The cheap "new" graphics card that cross-border e-commerce hot-selling, who has pitted and pinched?

I believe that for many partners who love to build machines, "God U" E5 is no stranger. A large number of Intel Xeon E5 CPUs retired from the server are loved by "garbage guys" and machine builders because their performance is comparable to that of consumer Core i7 or even i9, and the price is only a fraction of i7 and i9.

They only need to spend a few tens of yuan, find a retired Xeon E5 CPU in the "seafood market", and then spend one or two hundred yuan to buy a copycat X79 motherboard, plus a second-hand graphics card, you can assemble a game console that is enough to play 3A masterpieces, and the cost performance is extremely high.

It is reported that due to the huge demand, E5 CPUs that have been retired from old servers in recent years have entered the domestic assembly computer market in large quantities. As the so-called feng shui takes turns, many overseas consumers have also begun to come to the domestic e-commerce platform to Taobao.

Recently, some Haitao users have found that on cross-border e-commerce platforms such as Amazon and AliExpress, there are many cheap game graphics cards suspected of being made of mining card cleaning and refurbishing, shell renewal, and sales are not low.

So, behind these "new mining cards" that have crossed the ocean, what unknown industry secrets are hidden, and whose handwriting is it from?

「 01 」

Buy a "brand new" gaming graphics card for half price?

Although the global digital currency market has experienced a series of "mining disasters", the price of mainstream graphics cards has fallen to a certain extent, but some industry insiders still point out that the current price of mainstream graphics cards has not yet bottomed out. 7000 series, 40 series graphics cards, etc. still have room for price reduction.

Statistics from MindFactory, a large German electronics retailer, show that the average selling price of mainstream brand graphics cards has doubled compared to three years ago. Through Hardware's statistics on the average selling price of graphics cards in the European market in February this year, it is not difficult to find that although it has decreased compared with January, the decline is very small.

In addition, under the background of high inflation in Europe and the United States in the past year, many overseas players have downgraded their consumption and begun to buy previous generations of low-end game graphics cards, intending to temporarily transition to use, which has also made the global market demand for low-end game graphics cards greatly increased.

According to the clues provided by a Haitao user, set the shipping address of Amazon and AliExpress to the United States or Canada, search for the word graphics card, and sort and select "price: from low to high" to see a large number of cheap graphics card information.

Taking the AMD RX580 graphics card popular with low-end PC users as an example, similar cheap graphics cards, the brand is not the common domestic sapphire, Asus, Gigabyte, etc., but from unknown graphics card manufacturers, some of them do not even have a brand.

As for the price of these "brand new graphics cards", it is usually between 110 US dollars ~ 140 US dollars, equivalent to about 757 yuan ~ 963 yuan. At first glance, the price does not seem to be advantageous. So, what is the price of the same level of graphics cards of mainstream brands?

On Amazon, it is already difficult to find new products of mainstream brands RX580, even if the performance is only slightly improved compared to RX580, but the 6500XT graphics card with only 4G of video memory, the price of second-tier brands is more than $160.

As for the used (certified refurbished) Asus 1060 graphics card with similar performance to the RX580, the price is still a whopping $204. In other words, consumers only need to spend half the price of second-hand graphics cards of the same performance to buy so-called "new" products from unknown brands, and the temptation is really not small.

Among them, a cheap RX580 graphics card even has nearly 250 customer reviews on Amazon. The RX550 and 10 series graphics cards under the same brand, which are also low-priced, have been evaluated by more than 300 buyers. It can be seen that the sales of cheap graphics cards are quite hot.

Interestingly, similar cheap graphics cards are marked from domestic sources.

Randomly click on several business information that sells cheap graphics cards, and the registered addresses of the companies displayed are all in China. Some are Guangzhou's Baiyun District, some are Chengdu's Jinniu District, but the most is Shenzhen (accounting for nearly half). It can be seen that most of these cheap mid-to-high-end game graphics cards are from the hands of domestic sellers.

So, where exactly are these cheap gaming graphics cards coming from? And why is the price half of a new used graphics card? What is the trick of a large number of cheap game graphics cards "across the ocean"?

「 02 」

Refurbished mining card "domestic sales to export"?

Similar cheap game graphics cards, are they also sold in China?

Search for related products on several mainstream e-commerce platforms in China, and the results are unexpected. Not to mention whether there are products on sale, some can't even find the brand manufacturer information, which can't help but make people suspect the source of such cheap game graphics cards.

"The RX580 is rarely brand new now, and it feels like it is most likely a disassembled mining card. ”

After carefully reviewing the model introduction of cheap graphics cards on cross-border e-commerce platforms, Tian Ge (pseudonym), who used to engage in the machine building business in Shenzhen Huaqiangbei, believes that the so-called "new" graphics card is most likely a second-hand dismantled mining card that has been cleaned and refurbished.

After all, AMD's RX580 graphics card has been on the market for 6 years since 2017, and even if there is a new inventory on the market, there will not be too many of them. As for the more best-selling 10 series graphics cards, even second-hand goods with better condition are difficult to find, so they are brand new and unopened.

"You know, RX580, 10 series graphics cards, were once popular mining cards, and take the mining card to clean and refurbish, as a second-hand boutique, and even put a brand to charge new sales, is also the previous domestic machine market to play the remaining routine, what fourth-line brands, in fact, are workshop refurbished goods." ”

Tim Ge said frankly that after several virtual currency "mining disasters", a large number of mining cards appeared in the second-hand graphics card market. Many PC players have also tried to spend money on second-hand graphics cards, buy dismantled mining cards, and fall for bad merchants, and under word of mouth, no one dares to buy second-hand game graphics cards of previous generations.

In order to dispel buyers' doubts, some merchants have branded the refurbished mining card and turned it into a brand new unopened "four-line" product. And similar routines, there are also many consumers who are eager to get a transition graphics card.

"Now in China, no one buys the previous generations of graphics cards, whether second-hand or fourth-tier brands." Tim Ge stressed that at present, domestic consumers would rather buy a 6500XT with only 4GB of video memory, rather than risk buying a miscellaneous but possibly "exercised" RX580 graphics card.

As for the cheap game graphics cards sold on the cross-border e-commerce platform, it is nothing more than the routine of domestic refurbished graphics cards to overseas markets, but after seeing the price of cheap graphics cards sold on Amazon, Brother Tim sighed even more, Chinese do not cheat Chinese.

"The current price of the second-hand RX580 will not exceed 300 yuan, and it is still a second-tier brand such as Dylan, Xunjing and Rainbow. If you disassemble the mining card, the price is cheaper, about 100. ”

In other words, on the cross-border e-commerce platform, the so-called "brand-new" graphics card that is often sold for 7800 yuan, the seller "tearfully" earns at least half of the overseas buyers, and the profit is several times that of the merchant selling the new regular graphics card, which is quite profitable.

However, what is curious is that overseas users who buy cheap game graphics cards on cross-border e-commerce platforms know that what they are buying is just a proper piece of "foreign garbage"?

How long can this routine of refurbishing mining cards "domestic sales to export" last?

「 03 」

Bluff "domestic sales to export"

"There are also dismantling mining cards for sale abroad, but there are not many players who buy them."

Talking about the topic of domestic cheap miscellaneous graphics cards "going to sea", Xu Zhen (pseudonym), who is engaged in 3C digital cross-border e-commerce, said that since some domestic users believe in the so-called "fourth-line" brand, overseas consumers will inevitably only think of unfamiliar foreign graphics card brands as "fourth-line" manufacturers.

There are not many domestic users accustomed to well-known graphics card brands such as Asus, Sapphire, and MSI, and when they see the EVGA brand graphics card, they will be considered to be miscellaneous products that are not in the flow at first, but the fact is that EVGA is the largest high-end board company in the United States.

"When you see an unfamiliar graphics card brand, the first impression will not be fake, but a small manufacturer in other countries." Coupled with the fact that the price is cheaper than mainstream brands, consumers will naturally buy it. Xu Zhen said frankly that in the eyes of overseas users, Amazon's reputation is still relatively high.

In the customer evaluation of some cheap graphics cards, some consumers said that the products they bought can be lit up smoothly and work normally. Of course, there are also a small number of players who find that the graphics card does not work and breaks after a few weeks, and even question that the graphics card is Fake, and advise other consumers not to buy it.

"Don't talk about foreign players, domestic consumers buy second-hand graphics cards, refurbished graphics cards, although there is bad luck, buy a few days, a few weeks to break down, there are also good luck, use a year or two is no problem, buy previous generations of graphics cards, are all gambling, the same at home and abroad." ”

However, due to the poor information in the domestic and foreign markets, most foreign players may not necessarily know the mining card renovation and OEM sales routines that domestic consumers are already familiar with. Therefore, Xu Zhen also said that similar cheap "foreign garbage" graphics cards should still be sold on cross-border e-commerce platforms for a while.

When there are enough "victims" overseas, similar cheap graphics cards will naturally run out of sales. But what worries him the most is that the cross-border "clearance" of mining cards by merchants is bound to discredit other regular domestic products.

"Because of the flow of counterfeit goods, in the past year, Amazon and other cross-border e-commerce platforms have cracked down on counterfeit goods. Last year, there were news reports that Amazon and China's relevant departments seized more than 200,000 counterfeit goods, and it is not easy to establish a good reputation, but now there are still merchants engaged in refurbished mining cards, isn't this a blockage for peers. ”

Some institutions have estimated through computing power statistics that more than 26 million graphics cards around the world are used for mining. In other words, after several rounds of "mining disasters", tens of millions of mining cards will flow into the second-hand market. As a former "big computing power country", the scale of domestic dismantling mining cards should not be underestimated.

【Conclusion】

On the one hand, there are second-hand merchants who are eager to get rid of the pressure of mining card inventory; On the other hand, consumers who are familiar with the refurbishment routine, sit and wait for the price of the new generation of graphics cards to be reduced, and continue to hold the currency and wait and see. Buyers and sellers have been deadlocked, which has become a major problem in the domestic graphics card market.

However, some of the contradictions and pressures seem to have been transferred to overseas players through cross-border e-commerce platforms.