Only a few Dozen iPhones in UK's O2 and Carphone Warehouse Locations

[MacRumors]

Macenstein republishes an email written from Stephen Shurrock, O2's Sales Director, apologizing to a customer about the poor experience with O2's iPhone launch. He explains the massive traffic that the site received:

We run one of the busiest and most robust web stores in the UK. I appreciate that it is little comfort to you given your experience, but we had invested heavily to add a huge amount of additional capacity, 250 times its normal rate, and back-up systems. We tested this carefully in advance. The massive simultaneous crush, partly created by our open and honest communications approach with the registered community, exceeded even our worst case assumptions. Demand was at 13,000 orders per second. Frankly, we have to admit we just weren’t prepared for this unprecedented level of demand. No website is.

Shurrock also notes that the next opportunity to get an iPhone 3G in the U.K. will be on launch day at O2 and Carphone Warehouse locations. Apple will also have supply but will only be accepting new customer contracts.

Most concerning is that he describes that there will only be "on average a few dozen iPhones in each O2 or CPW store."

So, if you are an existing O2 customer and wish to upgrade to the iPhone 3G, you better get in line now.

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[FreeState]

"Demand was at 13,000 orders per second."

Wow. Thats just amazing.

[friekunater]

Originally Posted by FreeState

"Demand was at 13,000 orders per second."

Wow. Thats just amazing.

yeah, holy crap!!!

[stevearm]

Originally Posted by FreeState

"Demand was at 13,000 orders per second."

Wow. Thats just amazing.

That is complete and utter BOLLOCKS.

There is no way that that figure is accurate. Absolutely no way. You really think they sold a million iPhones in the UK in a minute and a half?

[captain kaos]

Originally Posted by stevearm

That is complete and utter BOLLOCKS.

There is no way that that figure is accurate. Absolutely no way. You really think they sold a million iPhones in the UK in a minute and a half?

Exactly!

It is CBS. The worrying thing is the rest of the world will read O2's bollocks of "oh we are so great we advertised the iphone so well we were selling 13,000 per second!" Not the real story of how O2 cocked it all up!

[captain kaos]

Yeah, here you go, either O2's is just saying this to whip up excitement for friday, or the numbers are true and both Apple (with stocking the UK) or O2 have really ballsed this up royaly. Why is it we're getting f**ed about with this released. Im buying a 1st gen, sod O2 and Apple.

[friekunater]

I hope people down on Wall Street are reading this -- 13000 orders per second!! AAPL is going to skyrocket!

[Bevz]

Ok, 13,000 per second is a lot; fair play. BUT, they MUST have known that if they text 100,000 customers at 8am, a load of them are gonna go straight onto their computers and try and order an iphone... I think they're even bigger idiots now as they've said they didn't have any idea they would get that response... Why? Why didn't they think they'd get that response, did they think the 100,000 people who signed up to get a text message were just kidding??!

If they wanted to protect their servers and limit the number of simultaneous orders they could have a) staggered the text messages randomly throughout the day or b) did a soft launch and simply relied on word of mouth to spread the news that you could order online... At least that way the phones would have gone to the "faithful"

As for O2 stores only having a few dozen iphone's on launch day; the cynical side of me thinks "yeah right, just another way to whip everyone up into a frenzy", but the pessimistic side of me thinks "oh great; we're getter short-changed / shafted yet again...."

I honestly don't know what to think now... I'm tempted to just hang onto my gen 1 for a while and order the 3g model in a few weeks online, and in the meantime just have fun with the app store until my phone arrives.

I'm afraid the whole 6 hours of O2 online crap i went through has taken the edge off my excitement about this launch.... This is all just starting to smell of corporate BS....

I don't think O2 are being honest with their customers in ANY way whatsoever. I just wish i could just order straight from Apple, i trust them (rightly or wrongly)...

[captain kaos]

Originally Posted by friekunater

I hope people down on Wall Street are reading this -- 13000 orders per second!! AAPL is going to skyrocket!

Well lets just hope Wall Street also reads the various news papers and sites concerning the way O2 handled yesterdays so called "pre registration" day!

[MarkW19]

Guys, 13,000 iPhones ordered a second, is just plain wrong, or a lie at best.

780,000 iphones ORDERED/sold in ONE minute?

No. Lol.

O2 are a bunch of idiots!

[Trebuchet]

I'm reliably informed O2 sold 200,000 online and will initially have 250,000 to sell in stores.

[bluebomberman]

Clearly, O2 should have tried a lottery system instead.

[johnnyjibbs]

I think the 13,000 was server requests or peak load. Or most of us clicking refresh 2000 times since none of us could get through!

I'm worried about Friday. Apple will be selling iPhones to new customers only, so presumably as a non-iPhone but current O2 contract holder I can't use them. There are only a dozen or so Apple Stores in London, most of which are in shopping centres, and I would imagine that if any store has an overnight queue it will be the flagship store on Regents Street. There are many more O2 and Carphone Warehouse stores but I worry that units will be spread far more thinly across these.

I'm taking the gamble of taking the first tube to one of the less central O2 stores and hoping that there won't be too many people there. I could quite easily see people coming out of clubs in the centre, seeing some queues and then thinking they could get a piece of the action.

I'm going to swing by my intended O2 store on Thursday night to confirm that they will be open and expecting units, and to check that a line has not already formed! There are going to be a lot of disappointed people on Friday, not to mention many weeks to come.

[MacTheSpoon]

I'm planning on swinging leisurely by an Apple store this Friday to get my new iPhone 3G, didn't expect there'd be any lines this time around. But now that I think about it, I've heard from several of my friends that they're going to be first-time iPhone buyers... which could indicate a lot more demand out there than I figured.

I hope they don't run out of stock here in the US, too!! I guess at least I've got my iPhone 2.5G to keep using for a while if they do.

[dopeytree]

i put my card details in but nothing loading after so i'm not too sure whats going to happen i probably didn't get through. But I'm not happy as i though as a current iphone user i was garanteed a new iphone reserved thats what my text from o2 says!?

I live in street so i hope the tiny o2 shop gets some iphones and they have some left!

[cnorth3]

Too late to buy online!!!

Check out the Reuters story

[OS X Dude]

at the prices they are, this article should be headlined:

"Only a few dozen people buy 3G iPhones in UK"

[Igantius]

Originally Posted by MacRumors

Most concerning is that he describes that there will only be "on average a few dozen iPhones in each O2 or CPW store."

He’s being disingenuous here – the number of handsets CW and O2 has been supplied means that the average number of units per store is nothing like ‘few dozen’ – and that’s before you take into account the online orders.

[PrinceDraven]

I think that this is being overhyped.
I have just come out of my local O2 and they are pretty calm.
They did confirm that they will not have the white one (not that i would want one anyway).
But they said they would have both 8gig and 16gig models and expect enough stock to meet demand for the whole of Friday at least.

[scootermac]

WOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOO

We're pleased to inform you that your O2 upgrade order has now been dispatched.

Your delivery details are:
Option: STANDARD DELIVERY
Cost: £0.00
Date of Delivery: Next working day (excluding some remote areas e.g. non-UK mainland, where delivery can take between 3-5 working days)

Orders placed on a weekend or bank holiday will require a further day for delivery. For example, an order placed on a Sunday may not be delivered until Tuesday at the earliest.

Should you be unavailable to take delivery the courier will leave a card to let you know they called and this will inform you how to rearrange delivery.


I must admit, I didn't know if my order was taken or not? I was given NO confirmation number and no e-mail to confirm my order until yesterday!

[bigandy]

Originally Posted by scootermac

WOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOO

^-- bastard.

[johnnyjibbs]

Originally Posted by PrinceDraven

I think that this is being overhyped.
I have just come out of my local O2 and they are pretty calm.
They did confirm that they will not have the white one (not that i would want one anyway).
But they said they would have both 8gig and 16gig models and expect enough stock to meet demand for the whole of Friday at least.

Thank you. Which store in London is that?

[PrinceDraven]

Originally Posted by johnnyjibbs

Thank you. Which store in London is that?

The one near Cannon Street.

I want to point out that what I meant by overhyped is that they are using the "lack of stock" to get people to rush out and buy it.
Not sure people need to be getting their tents up outside an O2 store from 6am, just to have the pleasure of giving Apple/O2 your money.
Just my opinion.

[illitrate23]

Originally Posted by PrinceDraven

The one near Cannon Street.

oh really? that's the one i was planning to try first thing on friday on the way to work.
i'll see you there - i'll be the one who goes into MaccyD's for breakfast because there's only 5 people outside the O2 store... and then comes out to find that 120 people have turned up in the mean time!!

[johnnyjibbs]

Originally Posted by PrinceDraven

The one near Cannon Street.

I want to point out that what I meant by overhyped is that they are using the "lack of stock" to get people to rush out and buy it.
Not sure people need to be getting their tents up outside an O2 store from 6am, just to have the pleasure of giving Apple/O2 your money.
Just my opinion.

I'm going to be going to the store on Notting Hill Gate - I think the staff there are already sick of seeing me but I'm going to pop by again tonight and tomorrow night just to confirm. I'm worried that there will be no 16GB versions available. There's no way I'm settling for an 8GB.