Amazon has launched a new feature in an attempt to combat scalpers and rush scripts. Due to the hot sale of the latest Sony PS5 and Microsoft Xbox Series X consoles, many scalpers often go to e-commerce platforms to grab goods from users. After this, they eventually sell the consoles at a higher price. This results in a high number of ordinary players being unable to buy their favorite consoles. As a result, Amazon has introduced an “invitation-based” ordering method for products that are “in high demand and low in supply,”. The e-commerce giant hopes that this will help legitimate users as much as possible to get those items.
In the US, you need to go through an invite mechanism when you buy a Sony PS5. This feature will also support items such as the Xbox Series X in the coming days. Additionally, the company told TechCrunch that it plans to go live with the system in more products and in more countries. Requesting an “invitation” doesn’t cost anything, nor does it require a Prime membership. When you try to buy a Sony PS5 on Amazon, there’s a “Request an Invitation” button.
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Amazon will assess whether your account is genuine by looking at information such as account creation date and purchase history. If it thinks you are indeed a regular user, it will pass your invitation. Amazon will then send you an email with instructions on how to purchase the product. This new method is more acceptable than the lottery mechanism on some platforms.
Invitation may not solve the problem completely but will help
If you pass the “invitation”, you can buy your favorite products for a certain period of time. However, whatever invitation you get will have an expiry date. Once the valid period is over, you will have to request another invitation to make purchases for hot items.
For now, while the “invitation” mechanism doesn’t guarantee that all users will be able to buy a Sony PS5 or Microsoft Xbox Series X from Amazon, it’s clearly going to help. More importantly, having this function means that users do not need to snap up on time, they only need to buy after approval. In addition, Amazon will fight scalpers in other ways, such as limiting the pricing of products for Marketplace sellers.
Attempting to purchase a “hot” product can be really frustrating. You may lose sleep waiting for the sales button to go active, place your order within a minute, and not still get the product. This is because scalpers ge all the units and resell them at higher prices.