The demand for PS5 consoles is still high over half a year after release, while the supply of the consoles has unfortunately remained consistently low at most retailers. However, Walmart's online storefront appears to have started letting PS5 scalpers start reselling the console on the company's website at some ridiculously high prices.
Scalpers have taken a large brunt of the blame for the limited access to PS5 consoles since launch, due to the way that every new restock of systems sell out within minutes of online retailers refreshing. This has caused many potential buyers to either have to wait out specific times to hopefully be able to purchase the console when it becomes available or pay out insane prices to these scalpers.
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As buyers grow more and more desperate to finally find new consoles, some scalpers are finding ways to get their resold systems listed on Walmart's website. Some of these are selling for as much as $1299, almost three times the original price that the console sells for by the Sony, the actual hardware developer for the system. This means that whenever any desperate shoppers go for these pricier options, the scalpers make huge profits off of reselling the product, now through an official storefront that holds credibility among the general public.
Several of these scalpers seem to be using some tricks in order to get their consoles on the Walmart website, such as using the number "0" instead of the letter "O" in the world "Console" to trick any automated system to detract resellers. Still, many fans either looking for a new PS5, annoyed from having to follow tip trackers in order to get their own console, are quickly showing their distaste for these resellers being hosted on Walmart's storefront. Considering the recent way that Walmart has struggled with scalpers, both for tech like the PS5 and other collectables, it could be in the company's best interest to address these resellers.
The notoriety of scalpers has recently led to a lot of retaliation both from the general public, as well as legal action by Governments across the globe. At the moment, these supply issues caused by scalpers using bots and loopholes to hoard products and resell at ridiculous prices have extended beyond just the PS5, and has also made purchasing the Xbox Series X/S and Nvidia's newest graphics cards difficult. So, being available on a storefront like Walmart gives an impression of credibility for those that abuse the systems to force excessive prices out of regular shoppers.
The PS5 is available now.
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Source: Walmart