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Retailers Respond To HDD Squeeze By Limiting Purchases, Raising Prices
SKYMTL writes "With Thailand experiencing its worst flooding in generations, component manufacturers have been especially hard hit. The trickle down effect is having a huge impact upon hard drive manufacturers in particular. Retailers have responded by drastic price increases and even limiting hard drive purchases to 1-2 drives per person."
...since they already bought the drives they are selling now, the price hikes are gouging...
No, they're simply anticipating and spreading out the damage. This is microeconomics 101, supply & demand.
Let's say you're a big retailer who sells 10,000 drives per month, buying them for $70 each and selling for $100 each. You make $300,000 a month selling those drives. That revenue pays the salary and benefits for a couple of dozen employees.
Then the manufacturer tells you that, due to factory damage, they can only supply you with 2000 drives per month for the next few months. If all prices remained the same (which they probably won't; the manufacturer will raise your wholesale price if they can), you would lose $240,000 of your monthly revenue.
Now, your market research tells you that there is sufficient demand to sell 2000 drives/month at $200 each. You will still lose $180,000 of your revenue every month, due to lower volume, but the volume is now constrained by your supplier, not the market. Bumping the price saves you $240,000.
So you mark up the price on all of your existing stock now. And you still lose heaps of revenue until the manufacturer gets back up to speed. Might even have to fire a few employees to cut costs.