Lucky Walmart shoppers getting RTX 50 series GPUs below MSRP

With RTX 50 series GPUs constantly listed way over MSRP at retailers, Walmart shoppers seem to have found a loophole that saves quite a lot of money with GPUs going for much lower than MSRP. A lucky few have posted on Reddit about how they were able to get an RTX 5080 and an RTX 5070 for less than MSRP by visiting their Walmart store, even though the cards are only sold online. 

Before rushing to the nearest Walmart, note that these instances are about a week old and that Walmart may have changed its policies. 

That being said, Reddit user CPrizzy posted on the r/nvidia subreddit about eight days ago that they were able to purchase a PNY RTX 5080 GPU from their local Walmart store for $896 (before tax) even though the MSRP of this card was $1,280 at checkout. Speaking with an employee, the user learnt that this GPU was returned to the store a day before and was put on the shelf with a marked down price. The user also shared pictures showing the brand-new RTX 5080, along with some hardware info and benchmarks. 

Two days later, another user visited their local Walmart in Tampa, Florida, and was able to pick up a PNY RTX 5070 for $515. This GPU was in a sealed box, but was still marked down and sitting on the shelf. During checkout, they found out that since these GPUs are sold online only, returns that happen at the store are then put back on shelves at a discounted price, regardless of whether they have been opened or not. 

Commenters pointed out that some shoppers are using this strategy to get these GPUs for cheaper. They purchase it online, return it at the store, and then wait for them to be put back on the shelves at a discounted price to buy them again. This is being done not just at Walmart but at Micro Center as well.