u/egudegi

context: I built a price comparison tool for PC hardware as a solo project. Scraping 15 EU retailers across 9 countries every 6 hours since March.

the traction was actually good:

• 50,000 real monthly visitors (analytics undercounts due to adblockers)
• viral posts on Reddit (1m+ views)
• an AI chatbot started recommending it as a top resource in its category
• 41,000 affiliate clicks in June alone

revenue from all that traffic and clicks: €7

not €7k. seven euros. as in, less than a sandwich lmao.

I spent weeks thinking the problem was tracking, adblockers, cookie windows, all the usual affiliate marketing horror stories. I implemented better tracking infrastructure, looked into server-to-server solutions, read way too many AI research reports trying to figure out what was wrong.

then I actually checked where the clicks were going.

40,000 of my 41,000 clicks were going to one retailer in a single country. that retailer's affiliate terms explicitly state: no commission on cross-border orders. since my whole value proposition is "find the cheapest price across different countries," the vast majority of my traffic was from other countries clicking through to that one store, and every single one of those purchases (if they happened) generated €0 for me.

I had built a tool that was actively encouraging people to make purchases that earned me nothing, for three months, without realizing it.

fixed it today with geo-routing, now showing users stores that actually ship and pay commission for their country. we'll see if it changes anything.

moral of the story: check where your clicks are actually converting before you spend weeks debugging tracking infrastructure. sometimes the bug is just... really, really dumb.

context: I built a price comparison tool for PC hardware as a solo project. Scraping 15 EU retailers across 9 countries every 6 hours since March.

the traction was actually good:

• 50,000 real monthly visitors (analytics undercounts due to adblockers)
• viral posts on Reddit (600k+ views)
• an AI chatbot started recommending it as a top resource in its category
• 41,000 affiliate clicks in June alone

revenue from all that traffic and clicks: €7

not €7k. seven euros. as in, less than a sandwich.

I spent weeks thinking the problem was tracking. adblockers, cookie windows, all the usual affiliate marketing horror stories. I implemented better tracking infrastructure, looked into server-to-server solutions, read way too many AI research reports trying to figure out what was wrong.

then I actually checked where the clicks were going.

40,000 of my 41,000 clicks were going to one retailer in a single country. that retailer's affiliate terms explicitly state: no commission on cross-border orders. since my whole value proposition is "find the cheapest price across different countries," the vast majority of my traffic was from other countries clicking through to that one store, and every single one of those purchases (if they happened) generated €0 for me.

I had built a tool that was actively encouraging people to make purchases that earned me nothing, for three months, without realizing it lmao.

fixed it today with geo-routing, now showing users stores that actually ship and pay commission for their country. we'll see if it changes anything.

moral of the story: check where your clicks are actually converting before you spend weeks debugging tracking infrastructure. sometimes the bug is just... really, really dumb.

been running a price tracker for EU GPU retailers since early march, scraping ~15 stores every 6 hours. 126,000 price readings across 9 countries. here's the actionable stuff.

buy on thursday, not sunday

about €15 cheaper on average across all in-stock EU offers. small but consistent across the full dataset.

thu   €813.52  ← cheapest
wed   €816.91
tue   €819.42
sat   €822.97
mon   €825.74
fri   €827.74
sun   €828.19  ← most expensive

buy from germany or netherlands

germany was cheapest 48.9% of the time, netherlands 42.8%. together that's 91.7% of all product-days. if you're buying a GPU in europe and not ordering from DE or NL you're almost certainly overpaying.

DE    48.9%
NL    42.8%
FR     3.8%
FI     2.3%
ES     1.7%
IT     0.4%
BE     0.1%

biggest drops right now

• ASUS Prime RTX 5070 Ti: €1,259 → €964 (-23.4%)
• ASUS TUF RTX 5060 Ti: €770 → €608 (-21%)
• mid-range AMD cards down 7-9% across the board

the one exception - RTX 5090

everything is falling except the 5090 which is up +3% since launch. AI/workstation demand absorbing supply fast enough to prevent the usual post-launch normalization. if you're waiting for 5090 prices to drop the data doesn't support it.

wild finding - notebooksbilliger.de recorded 45 distinct prices on a single GPU over 15 days

3 price changes per day, all within a €0.99 range. pure algorithmic repricing responding to competitor signals in real time.

methodology

15 EU stores, EUR prices only, models tracked from week 1. sample per tier is small (4-9 GPUs) so directional story is solid but don't over-index on exact percentages.

source: pricesquirrel.com - EU GPU price tracker, updates every 6 hours

been tracking EU GPU prices since early march across 15 stores, 6-hour scrape cadence, ~126k readings. the 5090 finding is what stood out most.

RTX 5090 is the only tier going up. everything else is falling.

RTX 5090    +3.0% ▲
RTX 5080    -0.4%
RTX 5070    -1.3%
RTX 5070 Ti -2.1%
RX 9070 XT  -7.5%
RTX 5060 Ti -9.1% ▼

my read: AI/workstation demand is absorbing 5090 supply fast enough to prevent the usual post-launch normalization. if you're waiting for 5090 prices to drop the way everything else has, the data doesn't support it.

biggest drops elsewhere

• ASUS Prime RTX 5070 Ti: €1,259 → €964 (-23.4%)
• ASUS TUF RTX 5060 Ti: €770 → €608 (-21%)

methodology

models tracked from week 1 only, sample per tier is 4-9 GPUs. directional story is solid, don't over-index on exact percentages. EUR prices, EU retailers only.

been running a price tracker for EU GPU retailers since early march, scraping ~15 stores every 6 hours. after ~126,000 price readings across 9 countries here's what stood out.

the tier divergence

RTX 5090-class cards are the only tier going up - avg +3% since launch across the models i've tracked from day 1. everything else is falling. RTX 5060 Ti and RX 9060 XT are both down ~9%, AMD's RX 9070 XT down 7.5%, RTX 5070 Ti down 2%.

my read: AI/workstation demand is absorbing 5090 supply fast enough to prevent the usual post-launch price normalization. the rest of the stack is normalizing as expected.

RTX 5090    +3.0% ▲
RTX 5080    -0.4%
RTX 5060    -1.2%
RTX 5070    -1.3%
RTX 5070 Ti -2.1%
RX 9070     -4.2%
RX 9070 XT  -7.5%
RX 9060 XT  -9.1%
RTX 5060 Ti -9.1% ▼

germany and netherlands basically run the EU GPU market

across all product-days where i could compare prices across countries, germany was cheapest 48.9% of the time, netherlands 42.8%. together that's 91.7%.

DE    48.9%
NL    42.8%
FR     3.8%
FI     2.3%
ES     1.7%
IT     0.4%
BE     0.1%

but the trends are interesting - france has improved a lot, from ~19% premium over the EU floor in the first 25 days down to ~10% now. finland has gotten worse, from ~9% to ~14.5%.

FR  +18.9% → +9.8%  ▼ improving
NL   +3.9% → +5.2%  ▲ slight rise
DE   +3.1% → +3.1%  → flat
FI   +9.3% → +14.5% ▲ worsening

algorithmic pricing

notebooksbilliger.de recorded 45 distinct prices on a single GPU over 15 days - averaging 3 price changes per day - all within a €0.99 range. not hunting for a new price point, just constant micro-adjustments responding to competitor signals.

thursday is cheapest, sunday is most expensive

about €15 difference on average across ~18k readings per day. small but consistent.

thu   €813.52  ← cheapest
wed   €816.91
tue   €819.42
sat   €822.97
mon   €825.74
fri   €827.74
sun   €828.19  ← most expensive

biggest single-model drops

• ASUS Prime RTX 5070 Ti: €1,259 → €964 (-23.4%)
• ASUS TUF RTX 5060 Ti: €770 → €608 (-21%)
• several 5090s fell €200-800 from day-1 prices on dutch retailers early on, but have since stabilized

methodology

tier comparisons only use models tracked from week 1, so sample per tier is small (4-9 GPUs). directional story is solid, don't over-index on exact percentages. country comparisons use matched models across stores with EUR pricing only.

source: pricesquirrel.com — EU GPU price tracker, 15 stores, updates every 6 hours