02/20/2004, 4:50pm, EST
Friday, February 20th
Apple strictly controls iPod Mini distribution
Rich from Chicago, Illinois writes:
"Last week, my roommate asked someone at the Apple Store on Michigan Avenue in Chicago about getting an iPod mini today. He really wants one.
They told him he had to have his name put on a list. So he did. He received a call 2 days ago confirming that he had requested a Silver Apple iPod mini from the Michigan Avenue store.
He was then told that he would have to call an 800# today (Friday) at 10am Central time to confirm that they had received an iPod mini for him. If confirmed, he would then have to go to the store between 6pm and 8pm tonight to purchase his mini. (He's in New York on business, so they let him add my name to his 'reservation' so I can pick it up.
He was told that they likely won't have enough iPod mini's to fill the demand for the ones on hold... let alone for any walk in customers.
The whole thing seemed like a LOT of hoops to jump through to get a mini. Unfortunatley, I'm the one that will be standing in line tonight to pick up his mini for him...."
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Why can't Apple ever seem to make enough of their good products, while they're invariably swimming in the stinkers (like Cubes)?
good product = high demand = short supply
bad product = low demand = overstock
you'll buy it now if you cannot hold it. you'll buy it later when you have thought about it for a while and the price dropped a little, and you've seen your friends' and you like them. and by then, they will be available at your 7-Eleven.
The point is that Apple's supply problems should be solved by now. Actually a long time before now. The signup sheets and waiting lists don't signal cachet, but instead lack of professionalism.
Clearer?
Oh, and as for the cube, i think that its only a stinker in your mind. It may not have sold well, overall, but the people who have them love them. And despite what you think, they dont have 'warehouses of them sitting around'.
> (nearly as rhetorical as the last), why are they so poor at predicting
> the winners? They're invariably bitten in the ass by their own
> success, and they do lose sales and reputation for it.
You do realize that all companies suffer from this, right? Your very question is flawed at its base:
If Apple were able to predict the winners always, why would they ever sell any other product? Nobody wants to sell a loser..
They thought the cube would be a success, it wasn't.
They thought the iPod mini would be a success, it is.
Still, it's better to ramp up production and air on the lower side than to end up with too many products. Overproduction hurts a company more than underproduction -- but I'm sure they've been working hard over the last 2 months to ramp up production on the iPod mini... it's just hard to do. It's easy to stand on the outside looking in.
No hoops, no lists, no BS. Neat toy.
Steve