Today’s pre-order sales for the Nintendo Switch OLED model didn’t just attract gamers. Scalpers were also quick to buy up the product too.
On eBay, you can now find over 600 listings for confirmed pre-orders for the Nintendo Switch OLED model. And many of them are going for around $600, or about 70 percent more than the standard $349 price.
The scalping won’t surprise anyone. But the eBay listings were posted within an hour after the pre-orders began to go live at 12pm PST.
We were among the customers trying to secure a pre-order from various retailers on Thursday. But we failed due to the high demand. Both Best Buy and Walmart ran out of inventory before we could finish the checkout process.
Meanwhile, numerous scalpers began reselling the Nintendo Switch model on eBay, even though they have no product in hand. Instead, they’re promising they’ll ship out the console once they receive it from retailers. To prove the resale is legit, some scalpers are including screenshots of Best Buy or Target confirming the pre-order.
eBay initially only turned up 223 listings when we searched for "Nintendo Switch OLED" at 1pm PST. But by 1:40pm, the listings had ballooned to 614.
The scalpers were likely able to snatch up the supplies with the help of bots, which can automatically complete the checkout process over an e-commerce site in a few seconds. Some bot makers also claim they’ve found "bypasses" at online retailers, enabling them to place orders for an in-demand product ahead of normal consumers.
The good news is that the Nintendo Switch OLED model doesn’t officially launch until Oct. 8th. So you can expect more chances in the coming weeks and months to place a pre-order. But the scalping doesn’t bode well for consumers hoping to buy the product. The PlayStation 5 and the Xbox Series X have also been major targets for scalping.