GPUs were always the dumbest possible products for brick and mortar. Extremely limited customer base, fast tech iteration cycle, and inflexible margins.

CPUs and RAM used to go up and down weekly at least in the grey market "distributor" segment. Fry's and Central, etc, had enough markup they didn't have to worry too much about that. Also, I think Central and other smaller ones were more JIT for low margin products with unstable pricing (they'd have daily deliveries from their grey market distributors).

But surprisingly, GPUs hold their value these days.

True! It's effectively come full circle. Although a ton of that seems like increased "industrial" (mining, render, etc) use of chips + retail segmentation + supply limits.

The RTX cards are going for 2-3x retail on the secondary market, without bundle restrictions they'd be instantly scalped. It's a temporary situation that benefits both CC and normal customers.