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CupApprehensive5391 t1_jd90xx1 wrote

What's GB?

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fuzzinator007 OP t1_jd92xy8 wrote

GB = group buy. A group buy is where people pool their money early on for a lower rate than what the product will be sold at after it’s produced. This is most common here in the keyboard hobby for GMK keycaps and keyboards.

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CupApprehensive5391 t1_jd98yj3 wrote

Ah, alright! Thanks for the info.

I've noticed a lot of products that start as a GB never make it to "in stock"... You can either buy it preproduction or not at all. Why is this? I'm the type of person who's wary of scams and I don't want to give someone my money until it's ready to be shipped, so I end up not being able to get most of the stuff I'm really interested in with keyboards.

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fuzzinator007 OP t1_jd99l6v wrote

yeah so that tends to happen bc the company that ran the GB or sole proprietor cannot afford to add any overhead beyond the extras that are ordered in the case they need to replace units. So usually there are very few in stock "extras" or none at all. There are quite a few companies like Novelkeys, cannonkeys, and omnitype that usually order enough to have in stock extras once they deliver.. sometimes that could take up to 2-3 years on the longer end of things. I will say I know for a fact that Novelkeys is a vendor that puts up their money first to get the order submit and any extra they take in from Group buy they double down with so there are that many extras available after the fact.. so in that case it feels like more of a preorder than a group buy.. and there is a difference.

Hopefully im nuancing this enough, and its not hella confusing. Happy to help answer more questions. There is def validity to ur concerns, and others feel the same. You just have to go with trusted vendors and sources.

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