member since 8 Aug 2026 12:49
Turns out a lot of “competition” is the same company under different names, and it shows up in the price data too.
GPUs: +19.2% in one month
Fixed basket of 176 GPU models, tracked at 3+ retailers daily for 30 days (July 15 - August 14), to rule out the distortion that happens when cheap cards sell out and skew a simple daily average.
Not a single spike, started climbing around July 24-25 and has been steady since. Consistent across markets too: Germany +19.6%, France +18.1%.
RAM: +18.6% over two months
Same fixed-basket approach: 112 DDR5 kits in stock at 2+ retailers on both June 19 and August 18, tracked daily throughout.
This one had a sharper inflection point: flat through most of June, then a sudden +6% overnight jump on July 1 (checked individual SKUs to rule out a data glitch, it’s real, looks like a manufacturer-side price change hitting multiple retailers the same day), followed by continued climbing through mid-July, then a slower steady rise since.
Methodology, for both: price is the average across whichever 2-3+ retailers carried a given product on a given day, not the single cheapest price, and not a blended average across a shifting product list, a fixed set of SKUs, verified daily, same products at the start and end of the period.
Data limitation: RAM figures are consumer DDR5 desktop kits only
Independent corroboration: German tech outlet Heise recently reported a similar ~20% GPU price increase: heise.de/…/Grafikkarten-werden-nochmals-rund-20-P…
Data source: PriceSquirrel, tracking hardware prices across 20+ EU retailers.
fair, and honestly a fair correction on the causal claim, I showed that consolidation exists and that a price gap exists, but I didn’t actually isolate consolidation as THE cause versus other factors (retailer density generally, market size, logistics, etc). Given how many other stores exist like you said, it’s likely one factor among several, not necessarily the main driver. should have been more careful with that framing rather than implying a direct causal link I can’t actually prove with this data. good catch.