We are talking about a country with less than 6 million people. And a major retailer in their country decided to take pre orders.
So I'm pretty sure people in neighboring countries also ordered from them. A safe bet with a pre order from a reputable company. At normal retail price.
Now they are suprised they can not get all the cards they pre sold???
OEM, Boutique System builders and much larger retail chains will get the bulk of available cards.
Us upgraders will have to keep trying.
I will be upgrading this generation, but I make myself wait 6 months or so before amajor upgrade.
I'm slightly behind everyone else( who cares) but early adopters have found all the bugs and drivers have matured.
When you buy a new piece of equipment, and put it close to 100% load from day one, stability is top priority.
They didn't allow pre-orders. You could order from them only when the release was official. Their site had stability issues and apparently saw traffic in excess of last year's black friday (because black friday is now a global thing). Then, as per normal, you can order the card and be put in back-order and get it when new stock arrives.
Proshop, which is also a Boutique System Builder, has international presence in Scandinavia, but the neighbouring countries all have their own reputable sellers.
I don't see how the issue is turned in to a "surprise" by you, though. They are facing delivery issues from their manufacturers and people are very angry and spamming trustpilot and similar sites with poor reviews. Being transparent is certainly a better way to handle things, than letting the big corporate overlords go "oh it's just a phenomenon" while the little guys take the flack.