![Why Costco Is Removing RAM from Display PCs: Retail Theft Crisis [2025]](https://tryrunable.com/blog/why-costco-is-removing-ram-from-display-pcs-retail-theft-cri/image-1-1769708229435.jpg)
The Unexpected Target: Why RAM Has Become Retail's Biggest Theft Problem
Walk into almost any Costco these days, and you'll notice something's changed. The display computers sitting on the floor? They're missing their memory modules. It's not a supply chain glitch or a manufacturing defect. It's theft. According to Tom's Hardware, major warehouse retailers and electronics stores across North America have started removing RAM from display units entirely, replacing them with dummy modules that look real but do nothing. Why? Because the actual memory inside has become valuable enough to make stealing it worth the risk.
This isn't just a Costco problem. Best Buy has implemented similar measures. Microcenter has beefed up security around memory aisles. Even online retailers have reported increased theft when shipping display models. The common thread? Expensive RAM sticks disappear faster than retailers can restock them.
What makes this situation fascinating isn't just the theft itself, but what it says about the economics of computer hardware, global supply chains, and how retailers are adapting to unprecedented pressure. Understanding why this is happening requires looking at three interconnected factors: the dramatic spike in RAM prices, the structural reasons those prices exist, and how this shortage has created opportunities for organized retail theft.
The story also reveals something uncomfortable about retail theft in 2025. It's not random shoplifting by desperate individuals. Industry insiders describe organized groups moving between stores, targeting specific components, and moving them through secondary markets. Some estimate that coordinated theft rings are responsible for 30-40% of high-value component disappearances, as noted in Verisk's analysis.
TL; DR
- RAM prices doubled in 2024-2025, making memory modules attractive theft targets in retail environments, according to Marketplace.
- Costco and major retailers are removing RAM from display PCs entirely, replacing them with non-functional dummy modules.
- Organized retail theft rings are targeting high-value components, moving them through secondary markets within hours.
- Supply constraints from major manufacturers (SK Hynix, Samsung, Micron) are driving prices to 5-year highs, as reported by South China Morning Post.
- The crisis has forced retailers to rethink floor displays, moving away from fully functional demo units to security-limited alternatives.
The RAM Price Explosion: How a Commodity Became Currency
To understand why anyone would steal RAM, you first need to understand what happened to its price. In early 2024, a 16GB DDR4 memory module cost roughly
The culprit? Supply tightening from three companies that control roughly 95% of the world's DRAM manufacturing capacity. SK Hynix, Samsung, and Micron all faced manufacturing challenges simultaneously. SK Hynix, which supplies memory to Apple, saw their production hampered by equipment shortages. Samsung faced delays ramping up new process nodes. Micron reported yield issues at their Boise facility.
When you have that level of supply concentration, even small disruptions create massive price swings. Add in recovering demand from AI servers, data centers, and the PC refresh cycle, and you get a perfect storm.
Here's the math that makes theft attractive: A single 32GB DDR5 module retails for
Retailers realized this immediately. When Costco started seeing RAM vanish from display units, they had a choice: either dramatically increase security around memory, or remove the real modules entirely. The dummy module solution was cheaper and faster than hiring additional floor staff or installing expensive RFID tracking.
The price situation has only gotten weirder. During certain weeks in late 2024, some retailers couldn't keep high-capacity RAM in stock longer than 24 hours. Customers reported arriving at Microcenter only to find shelves empty despite online listings showing availability. Some describe it as artificial scarcity created by theft, which then drives prices higher, which attracts more theft. It's a vicious cycle.
Why Display Models Have Always Been Vulnerable
Retail display units have always occupied a weird space in security planning. They need to work well enough that customers can see the actual product in action. You can't sell someone a laptop with dummy components and expect them to trust your store again. But making display models fully functional creates obvious theft vulnerabilities.
Traditionally, retailers managed this with a combination of security measures: security tags on components, floor staff proximity, CCTV coverage, and reasonable trust that most people wouldn't steal expensive hardware in broad daylight. That calculation changed when the value proposition did.
A person stealing a
Retailers started noticing the pattern around mid-2024. Memory became the top targeted component at big-box retailers. Graphics cards had always faced theft, but RAM was different. It was smaller, easier to hide, and in higher demand because everyone building a PC needs RAM and the shortage had made it legitimately hard to find at reasonable prices.
Then came the realization that customers didn't actually need the display computers to have real RAM installed. They needed to see RAM in a display computer. A module that looks identical but doesn't function serves that purpose perfectly. Enter the dummy module industry.
Several companies started manufacturing fake memory modules specifically for this purpose. They're physically identical to real modules but contain no functional components. Retailers ordered them in bulk, and suddenly Costco and other stores started swapping out real RAM for non-functional replacements on display units.
This created a new problem: customer confusion. Some people actually tried to buy the display computers and were confused when they discovered the RAM was non-functional. Others couldn't understand why retailers would put fake parts in machines. A few even thought it was a scam.
The Economics of Organized Retail Theft in Hardware
What started as petty shoplifting evolved into something more coordinated. Retail loss prevention professionals describe organized retail theft (ORT) networks targeting high-value components as a serious problem by late 2024. These aren't solo thieves grabbing something on impulse. These are groups with transportation, communication, and distribution networks.
The typical pattern goes like this: A person enters a store during busy hours (weekends, evenings after 5 PM when floor staff is minimal). They identify memory modules in stock, carefully remove them from packaging to avoid triggering security sensors, and leave with the components in pockets or bags. The item gets moved to a central location where it's either sold directly to customers who know they're buying stolen goods, or listed on secondary marketplaces under vague descriptions.
Retailers have shared data suggesting that the same individuals hit multiple stores in the same region within days. A person might steal from a Costco in suburban Phoenix, then move to a Microcenter in Scottsdale, then hit a Best Buy in Tempe. Law enforcement has been largely unable to intervene because each individual theft is relatively small, and the perpetrators operate in organized rings that share risk.
The secondary market for stolen RAM is surprisingly sophisticated. Specialized channels on Discord communities, private Reddit subreddits, and even dedicated Telegram groups facilitate quick sales. Buyers know they're purchasing potentially stolen goods (the transactions are entirely cash, no documentation), but they don't care because they're getting what they perceive as discounted memory during a shortage.
Here's where the economics get interesting: A person stealing
Retailers initially tried to fight back with security tags and RFID monitoring, but those measures proved imperfect. Security tags can be removed. RFID can be spoofed. The sheer volume of people moving through stores made constant monitoring impossible. Removing the functional components from display units was the nuclear option, but it worked.
Supply Chain Dynamics: Why Manufacturers Can't Keep Up
Understanding the price crisis requires zooming out to the chip manufacturing level. DRAM production is brutally capital-intensive and concentrated. Building a new chip fab costs $10-15 billion and takes 3-5 years to reach full production capacity. You can't just spin up new production capacity when demand spikes.
The three major manufacturers (SK Hynix, Samsung, Micron) have been caught in a difficult position. They need to balance serving data center customers (who have long-term contracts and pay premium prices) against retail customers (who have shorter-term visibility and tighter margins). When demand increases, data center customers get priority. Retail supply tightens. Prices rise. Retail theft increases.
Micron's manufacturing facility in Boise reported yield issues with their latest generation DDR5 modules. Yields are the percentage of functional chips that come off the production line. A yield of 85% is good in chip manufacturing. When it drops to 75%, you're losing 25% of your output. These small changes in yield create enormous supply shortages because the absolute volumes are so large.
Samsung's approach has been more focused on data center DRAM because the margins are better. They're investing heavily in HBM (High-Bandwidth Memory) for AI chips, which is more profitable than standard consumer DDR5. This strategic shift away from consumer memory has reduced retail supply.
SK Hynix, which supplies large volumes to Apple for their MacBooks and iPhones, has prioritized those contracts. Their consumer memory allocation has shrunk even as prices have risen. This creates a mismatch: prices rise to allocate scarce supply, but retail customers who can't pay premium prices don't get product either.
The timeline matters here. These companies forecast demand 9-12 months in advance. They locked in manufacturing plans for early 2025 back in mid-2024, before the full extent of the shortage was clear. By the time they realized they should increase production, their fab schedules were already committed to other products.
The Secondary Market: Where Stolen RAM Actually Goes
The secondary market for RAM is surprisingly complex and somewhat hidden from casual observers. If you know where to look, you can find incredible deals on memory that might or might not have come from legitimate sources.
Specialized communities have emerged where people confidently transact in what they suspect is stolen merchandise. A Discord server dedicated to "computer hardware deals" with 15,000 members might have a private channel where people post memory modules for sale. The sellers have reputation scores. Buyers leave reviews. The whole infrastructure mimics legitimate marketplaces, except everyone understands the goods are likely stolen or heavily discounted in questionable ways.
What's interesting is the pricing structure. A 32GB DDR5 module selling for
For organized theft operations, the math still works. They steal the module (zero cost), sell it for $85, pocket the difference. Move enough volume and it's a viable business. The risk is legal consequences if caught, which retail loss prevention teams are increasingly focused on.
What's changed recently is that retailers have started sharing loss data with each other and with law enforcement. A theft ring that might have operated across 10-15 stores without detection now faces better coordination from retail security teams. Some retail groups have hired specialized investigators focused specifically on component theft.
The secondary market has also become more transparent to retailers. They monitor Discord servers and specialized communities, observing patterns of new memory modules being sold in suspicious volume. In some cases, they've coordinated with law enforcement to identify and prosecute theft rings. Several high-profile arrests in 2024 involved organized retail theft of computer components.
How Retailers Are Adapting: The Dummy Module Solution and Beyond
When retailers realized that removing real RAM from display units was necessary, they faced a practical problem: dummy modules didn't exist in high volume. The solution came from manufacturers who saw a market opportunity.
Companies like Simul Ram and several generic Asian manufacturers started producing non-functional memory modules that looked identical to the real thing. These modules have the proper physical dimensions, the correct slot type (DIMM for DDR4, SO-DIMM for laptops), correct color, and even printed labels that say "32GB DDR5" or whatever the spec should be. What they don't have is functional silicon.
Retailers ordering these modules in bulk get them for roughly
But the dummy module approach created new challenges. First, there's the customer experience problem. People shopping at Costco might assume the display computer actually works as configured. When they learn the RAM is non-functional, it creates confusion and frustration.
Second, there's the technical support issue. Store staff sometimes don't understand why the display isn't working optimally. They might blame the processor or the SSD, missing that the display isn't configured to demonstrate the actual system specs. This creates a customer service problem when people ask questions about the displayed configuration.
Third, retailers lost the ability to use display units as true product demonstrations. A fully functional display computer shows performance realistically. A machine with dummy RAM might perform unexpectedly, creating a poor customer impression.
Some retailers have taken different approaches. Best Buy moved their premium display computers to locked cases, keeping them secured but still visible. They use real components but add RFID tags and electronic locks. Microcenter redesigned their memory section with better lighting and staff visibility. Costco's solution with dummy modules has been the most extreme but also the most effective at eliminating theft.
The broader implication is that the retail environment has become more constrained. The openness and accessibility that made physical retail appealing is being reduced by security concerns. Display units that used to be freely touched and examined are now locked down or non-functional.
The Data Center Angle: Why Corporate Buyers Aren't Stealing
Interestingly, organized retail theft of memory primarily targets consumer-level components. Data centers, which buy memory in volume, don't experience the same theft issues. Why?
First, data center memory operates through supply contracts with manufacturers. Companies like AWS, Google Cloud, and Azure order DRAM years in advance with locked-in pricing. They don't buy retail. They have direct relationships with manufacturers and distributors.
Second, data center memory has different specifications. Enterprise DDR4/DDR5 modules have ECC (Error Correcting Code) and often come in different form factors than consumer memory. There's a smaller secondary market for them because fewer people can use them.
Third, data centers have procurement processes and documentation requirements. You can't walk into a data center and steal a memory module because there's inventory tracking at a component level. It's not like retail where you can grab something off a shelf.
The irony is that data centers face worse memory shortages than retail because they have less flexibility to switch between suppliers. When SK Hynix can't deliver contracted volumes, data centers have limited options to substitute from other sources. Retail customers at least have the option to wait, buy different models, or switch to competitors.
Some data center operators have reported paying significant premiums to get guaranteed memory allocations. A company needing 10,000 modules of enterprise DDR5 might pay
Geographic Hotspots: Where Retail Theft Is Worst
Retail theft of components isn't geographically uniform. Certain regions have experienced significantly worse problems than others.
Large metropolitan areas with high population density and significant shipping infrastructure have seen the worst issues. Los Angeles, Dallas, Atlanta, Chicago, and Phoenix have reported elevated theft rates at electronics retailers. The common factors are population density, access to highways for rapid movement between stores, and large secondary markets where stolen goods can be quickly sold.
Smaller cities and rural areas have experienced less dramatic theft. A person stealing from a Costco in Des Moines has fewer stores to hit and a smaller secondary market to sell into. The logistics are less favorable.
Statewide variations matter too. States with stricter retail theft prosecution have seen somewhat lower rates of organized retail theft, though the relationship isn't as strong as law enforcement might prefer. California, which has relatively lenient theft prosecution, has seen particularly high rates. Texas, with stricter penalties, has had moderate but still significant theft issues.
Retail chains have used this geographic data to make targeted investments. Costco might install more robust security in Phoenix stores while using standard dummy modules elsewhere. Best Buy concentrates loss prevention staff in their highest-theft locations.
The secondary market follows similar geographic patterns. Discord communities tend to cluster around major metropolitan areas. Selling stolen memory to someone in the same city is faster and safer than shipping across the country.
The Impact on PC Building Communities
The memory shortage and related theft have had unexpected ripple effects on PC building enthusiasts and communities.
Builders traditionally followed a pattern: research component compatibility, establish a budget, order from the cheapest source, wait for delivery. The shortage disrupted this. Sources that were cheap sold out instantly. Backordered items appeared random. Price tracking websites that used to help builders find deals became less useful when prices changed weekly and stock was unpredictable.
Communities like r/buildapc and r/pcgaming became forums where people shared frustrations about memory availability. Some builders delayed their builds for months waiting for prices to stabilize. Others paid premium prices and accepted it as the cost of current-year building.
Smaller specialty retailers who traditionally catered to enthusiasts struggled. A local computer shop that relied on keeping moderate inventory of popular memory modules found themselves unable to stock products because retail chains were buying in bulk. The consolidation of retail distribution around large chains accelerated.
Some builders made unusual choices because of the shortage. People substituting DDR5 builds with DDR4 alternatives to save money. Others delaying memory purchases and building systems with fewer modules than originally planned. These adaptive behaviors affected the entire ecosystem's performance characteristics.
The enthusiast community also contributed to the secondary market problem. A builder who ordered two memory modules thinking one wouldn't ship, then found both arrived, might sell the extra on secondary markets. This legitimate selling fueled the secondary market infrastructure that organized theft operations use.
Manufacturing Bottlenecks: When Capacity Can't Adjust
Understanding why prices haven't normalized despite obvious high demand requires examining chip manufacturing limitations.
Chip fabs operate at specific process nodes. A fab might be set up to manufacture 7nm chips, 10nm chips, or 28nm chips. When demand increases, you don't just switch production. You would have to reconfigure the entire fab, which costs millions of dollars and takes months of engineering work.
Memory manufacturing is even more constrained. A fab set up for DRAM production is optimized for that specific product. Switching to produce something else involves complete reconfiguration. The economics only make sense if demand will remain strong for several years.
Micron announced new fab capacity in 2024, but it won't reach meaningful production volumes until 2025-2026 at the earliest. Samsung has similar timelines. SK Hynix is investing in capacity but remains constrained by existing demand from Apple and enterprise customers.
The yield issues Micron reported represent a more immediate problem. If your fab is producing 1 million memory modules per day but yield drops from 90% to 80%, you've suddenly lost 100,000 units of daily output. That 10% yield change costs more than $10 million per day in lost revenue. The company has to debug the manufacturing process, make corrections, and hope it doesn't affect other products in the fab.
These manufacturing realities create price stickiness. Prices can't fall substantially until new capacity comes online and yields return to normal. Prices can't fall because supply is still constrained. This creates a multi-year situation where memory remains more expensive than historical averages.
For retail and consumers, this means adapting to higher prices as the new normal rather than waiting for prices to crash back to 2023 levels.
The Laptop and Ultrabook Impact: Soldered Memory Problem
An interesting side effect of the memory shortage has been the renewed debate over soldered memory in laptops, particularly MacBooks and some premium Windows ultrabooks.
Most modern laptops, especially premium ones, have memory soldered directly to the motherboard. You can't upgrade it. You can't replace it. The decision about memory size is permanent at purchase.
When memory prices were low, this was a minor inconvenience. You paid $1,200 for a MacBook Pro with 16GB and accepted it. If memory prices had stayed stable, the debate about upgradeable memory would remain a niche concern.
But with 16GB representing the bare minimum for professional work, and 32GB becoming increasingly standard, and with people keeping laptops longer because replacement cycles have extended, the soldered memory issue has become a real problem.
A MacBook Pro with soldered 16GB is now potentially undersized for its lifecycle, but the option to upgrade doesn't exist. People who bought in 2024 expecting their machine to be sufficient for 5 years are realizing that 16GB might be limiting by 2027.
Apple has publicly stated that soldered memory improves thermal performance and power efficiency compared to removable modules. This is technically true. Soldered memory does perform slightly better. But the tradeoff in repairability and longevity is becoming a real issue for consumers.
This dynamic is indirectly affecting the memory shortage. Some people are actually looking to upgrade their existing machines with soldered memory (which is impossible), realizing the limitations, and considering replacement sooner than intended. Others are paying premiums to buy higher-capacity laptops initially, knowing they can't upgrade later.
Manufacturers like Framework have positioned themselves as alternatives specifically because they use replaceable memory. Their marketing emphasizes the ability to upgrade memory years later. Whether consumers will continue to value this enough to pay a premium remains to be seen, but the trend is notable.
When Will Prices Normalize? The Timeline Ahead
Every person buying memory wants to know the same thing: when will prices return to normal?
The honest answer is that prices won't return to 2023 levels because demand has fundamentally changed. The baseline price for memory in 2025 and beyond will probably be 15-30% higher than 2023 prices, even after current supply constraints ease.
What can normalize is the volatility and scarcity. Here's what the timeline probably looks like:
Q1-Q2 2025 remains constrained as new manufacturing capacity hasn't come online yet. Prices stay elevated. Retail theft continues but retailers have adapted with dummy modules. Some improvements as supply slowly increases.
Q3-Q4 2025 sees genuine relief as new capacity from Micron and Samsung ramps toward full production. Prices start declining from peak levels but remain above 2023 baseline. Secondary markets for stolen goods shrink as retail prices become less outrageous.
2026 brings meaningful oversupply as multiple fabs reach full production. Prices crash toward new baseline levels. Retail theft largely disappears because the price premium that motivated it evaporates.
These timelines assume no major supply disruptions (geopolitical events, natural disasters, etc.). If something disrupts manufacturing, the timeline extends another 6-12 months.
For someone buying memory today, the calculation is whether to buy now at elevated prices or wait and hope to buy at lower prices later. If you need memory for immediate use, buying now makes sense. If you can wait 6-12 months, waiting is probably financially optimal unless you're planning a build that you need completed.
Security Measures Going Forward: Learning from the Crisis
Retailers are implementing multiple layers of security to prevent future theft while maintaining reasonable customer access to display products.
Smarter display units represent one approach. Instead of dummy modules, some retailers are implementing systems that detect when components are being physically accessed. An RFID sensor on the memory slot triggers an alert if someone attempts to remove the module. The display still functions normally, but attempted theft becomes obvious immediately.
Staff proximity remains crucial. Retailers that maintained visible floor staff in component sections experienced significantly lower theft than those relying on cameras alone. The human element deters opportunistic theft even if it doesn't stop organized operations.
Video analytics powered by AI are becoming standard in retail environments. Systems that track products moving from shelves to customer baskets or outside the store can identify discrepancies. If a module goes missing without corresponding sales, the system flags it for investigation.
Some retailers are experimenting with blockchain-based authentication. Each memory module comes with a digital certificate of authenticity. When sold at retail, the certificate transfers to the new owner. On secondary markets, buyers can verify whether a module is likely legitimate or stolen. This doesn't stop theft, but it reduces the value of stolen goods by making them harder to resell.
Longer-term solutions involve manufacturing changes. Memory modules with unique identifiers that can be registered to owners would reduce secondary market value. Some manufacturers have resisted this because it adds cost and complexity, but the trend is probably inevitable.
Policy changes also matter. Retailers are increasingly coordinating on theft reporting and sharing loss data. This allows them to identify patterns and target enforcement. Some retailers have implemented customer authentication for component purchases, requiring ID and credit card matching to combat organized resale operations.
The Ripple Effects on System Builders and Professionals
The memory shortage has created unexpected challenges for system builders, IT professionals, and anyone assembling computers at scale.
Small system integrators who build custom PCs for clients faced impossible pricing situations. They quoted customers $1,200 for a system with 32GB memory, but by the time they ordered components, memory prices had risen 15%. They had to either absorb the loss or renegotiate prices mid-project.
IT professionals managing corporate refresh cycles found themselves unable to deploy machines on schedule. If your company needs to deploy 500 new workstations but memory is backordered or ridiculously expensive, you delay the refresh, which cascades into other IT project impacts.
Gaming cafes and esports venues that maintain banks of gaming PCs faced elevated operating costs. Replacing memory in aging systems became a significant operating expense when memory prices doubled.
Universities deploying lab computers for students ran into similar challenges. A computer science department planning to refresh 100 lab machines found the budget stretched by the memory shortage. Some institutions delayed upgrades. Others made do with less memory than originally planned.
These ripple effects didn't attract media attention the way consumer frustrations did, but they've been real and significant across institutional computing.
Why This Matters Beyond Just Memory Prices
The retail theft of memory components and the broader supply chain dynamics matter for reasons beyond just the inconvenience of higher prices.
First, it demonstrates how vulnerable highly specialized supply chains are to disruption. Memory manufacturing is concentrated in three countries (South Korea, Taiwan, and the United States). When manufacturing faces constraints, the entire global computing ecosystem feels it. This has prompted policy discussions about the need for more geographically distributed manufacturing.
Second, it shows how organized retail theft has evolved to target high-value commodities with liquid secondary markets. When a component becomes valuable, theft networks adapt quickly. Retailers must then spend money on security measures that wouldn't otherwise be necessary. These costs get passed to consumers.
Third, it illustrates the permanence of supply chain changes. Prices don't just spike and return. They often establish new baseline levels. The memory shortage of 2024-2025 has probably created a permanent shift in how memory is priced and distributed.
Fourth, it highlights the importance of repairability and upgradeable components. If more devices had replaceable memory, the shortage would impact consumers less. The trend toward soldered and non-upgradeable components has made supply disruptions more painful.
Conclusion: The Bigger Picture of Supply Chain Fragility
The memory theft crisis at Costco and other retailers is ultimately a story about supply chain fragility, the economics of scarcity, and how global disruptions create unexpected local consequences.
When you understand that three companies manufacture nearly all the world's memory, and when you understand that building new manufacturing capacity takes years and billions of dollars, you realize how vulnerable the entire computing ecosystem is to disruption. A yield problem at one fab in South Korea cascades into retail theft in the United States because consumers face price shocks that make components valuable targets.
Retailers responded with dummy modules. It's a clever technical solution that prevents theft but also represents a loss: the ability to demonstrate products in fully functional states. That's a permanent change to the retail experience, motivated by temporary supply constraints.
For consumers, the memory shortage of 2024-2025 has probably changed expectations permanently. Memory will likely remain more expensive than 2023 levels indefinitely. Building or upgrading computers will continue to be more expensive than it was a few years ago.
The organized retail theft operations that thrived during this period will probably diminish as supply normalizes and price premiums evaporate. When a memory module becomes
But the underlying dynamics that made this shortage possible haven't changed. Manufacturing is still concentrated. Supply chains are still fragile. Future disruptions are still likely. The memory shortage was a reminder that global computing depends on a remarkably small number of manufacturing facilities operating without major incidents. That's a structural vulnerability worth remembering.
For IT professionals, system builders, and anyone making technology decisions, the lesson is clear: supply chain resilience matters. Components with longer lead times, limited alternatives, and concentrated manufacturing are liabilities. Building systems with upgradeable and replaceable components provides more flexibility when disruptions occur.
The retail memory shortage will eventually be a historical footnote, remembered as that weird time when dummy modules became necessary and RAM was stolen from display computers. But the supply chain lessons from it will probably shape technology decisions for years to come.
