With the launch of AMD’s Radeon RX 6000 Series GPUs and Ryzen 5000 CPUs fast approaching, the red team has allegedly issued a list of guidelines for retailers to follow to avoid any inconvenience that could affect customers who have been waiting to purchase a new graphics card and processor.
AMD Preps For Radeon RX 6000 GPU & Ryzen 5000 CPU Launch, Issues Guidelines To Retailers To Tackle Bots, Scalpers and Ensure Customer Satisfaction
To ensure that gamers, enthusiasts, and creators can easily purchase a next-generation Radeon RX 6000 series graphics card and the Ryzen 5000 series processors, AMD has sent out guidelines to its partners and retailers which were obtained by RedGamingTech. The guidelines heavily emphasize that retailers take precautionary measures to avoid bots and scalpers. A list of security & standard preventive measures have been listed which include:
- Bot Detection and Management: Use real-time bot detection mechanisms and tools to scan and filter site traffic and identify/block known malicious bots.
- CAPTCHA Implementation: Use challenge-response tests to determine if the user is human during the checkout process. (e.g.. “I am not a robot” check box, simple math problem, picture/confident or alpha-numeric identification or honeypot)
- Purchase Limits: Limit purchases at launch to 1 per end-user_ Reject subsequent orders containing the same information, such as name, email address, or billing/shipping address.
- Reservations: Use a queue-based notification system that allows customers to reserve their place in line to purchase as stock becomes available in the future. If a product is shown ‘out of stock’, customers have the option to be notified by email once the product is available. • Manual Order Processing: At launch, switch to manual order processing to properly validate orders with minimal delays.
- Limit Reseller Sales (B2B): During the 3 weeks after (AMD Ryzen 5000 / Radeon RX 6000) launch, limit the number of sales made to commercial resellers.
- Inventory-toe-Cart Allocation: Allocate inventory only when a customer submits an order or set a time limit on how long a customer can hold our product in their cart. Inform customers that purchases are not guaranteed until the order is submitted.
Following is the full guidelines document that AMD has reportedly sent out to retailers (Source: Red Gaming Tech):
AMD is taking cues from the bogus NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 launch which was severely affected by scalpers and their bots rushing in to obtain the cards right at launch only to list them for inflated prices in the secondary market. Aside from that, the large influx of users and higher demand for next-generation graphics card made almost all retail sites remain crashed and unresponsive for hours. Since the stock was depleted so early and scalpers are still in action even after the initial launch, the GeForce RTX 30 series remains mostly out of stock with NVIDIA’s CEO, Jensen, ensuring normalization of stock around 2021.
The AMD Ryzen 5000 Desktop CPU and Radeon RX 6000 Desktop GPU families are two of the most important launches for AMD in 2020. It will be in AMD’s best interest that they don’t go the way of the GeForce RTX 30 series in terms of customer inconveniences as many users have been waiting for long now to finally purchase a new CPU and GPU for their gaming PCs. The AMD Radeon RX 6000 series GPUs will be unveiled on the 28th of October with a launch planned around November while AMD Ryzen 5000 CPUs will be officially available on the 5th of November.