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Apple Inventory - Not Accurate or Not Truthful

S

SPeditor

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jun 12, 2008
100
0
I check out the Apple availability list each night after 9pm from the following site:

http://www.apple.com/retail/iphone/

Most of you know about this already. So I send my wife to pick up the phone at an Apple store in Los Angeles, while I'm at work, which shows they have the 16gb black in stock. Well when she gets there in the morning before the store opens, the guy from the store tells her that they don't have any 16gb blacks.

How can this happen? Was the Apple availability list wrong or did the guy lie?
 
anything on your C drive is from a local part of your hard drive... that isn't the published data from apple. That's just sitting on your computer.
 
SPeditor said:
I check out the Apple availability list each night after 9pm from the following site:

C:\Documents and Settings\206054341\Desktop\Apple Retail Store - iPhone availability at the Apple Store.htm

Most of you know about this already. So I send my wife to pick up the phone at an Apple store in Los Angeles, while I'm at work, which shows they have the 16gb black in stock. Well when she gets there in the morning before the store opens, the guy from the store tells her that they don't have any 16gb blacks.

How can this happen? Was the Apple availability list wrong or did the guy lie?
Click to expand...

Who knows? I checked a store last night online and it said none available for today. I just happened to go to the mall today at lunch where that same store is and the had a line of about 20 - 30. They had 8GB and 16GB black.
 
So one thing I've noticed is that update sometimes gets updated again later in the night.

So for example, last night at 11pm or so they showed 16GB white at two stores near here. But this morning at 6 when I checked again, it was only one store. And that was accurate, in that I went to that store and they had 16GB white.

Only problem is they had just closed the line at 8am, so I failed again. :(
 
Same here, my sister went to the Apple store to drop of an iMac for an Apple Care repair and saw iPhones being sold. The night before, the Apple Retail site said that there were no phones for sale in the entire state, yet they were clearly selling them and had a huge line.
 
First, make sure you're not running the cached version of that webpage from your desktop. Your path clearly shows it's running from there. Maybe that's just the location of the shortcut.

Second, I am sure the inventory isn't meant to "lie". If you go to Lowe's website and you look for say a fan, you will see they will show a list of stores that have such item in stock. It is very easy to see one or two in stock and get there and they're out. I bring up Lowe's as this has happened to me so often there that I now only go to one store if I see 5+ in stock.

Typically speaking a live inventory feed on a website depends on a number of factors. One of those being the assumption that no one person has one in hand at the time your wife shows up. Also, their inventory may not be off but the feed to said inventory list may be off by a couple of units.

In all honesty, unless they're showing a half dozen on hand I wouldn't make the trip. Alternatively, you could wait a couple of weeks and then try.
 
Yeah I know for a fact that you can't place too much faith in the apple website for iPhone 3G availability. One of my local Apple stores in NJ told me they got a shipment this morning around 10:15 a.m. when I called at 10:30 a.m. even though last night the website said no inventory for today. However, that was around 10 p.m. last night so, if the site does get updated throughout the night, then maybe the status changed sometime after 10 p.m..

In any case, best bet is to call the store when they open and say "I know you probably get a million of these questions, but do you have any iPhone 3Gs in stock or expect a shipment today?" :D
 
eddietr said:
So one thing I've noticed is that update sometimes gets updated again later in the night.

So for example, last night at 11pm or so they showed 16GB white at two stores near here. But this morning at 6 when I checked again, it was only one store. And that was accurate, in that I went to that store and they had 16GB white.

Only problem is they had just closed the line at 8am, so I failed again. :(
Click to expand...

Does anyone know the latest you can check the website for the next day? It seems like eddietr was able to check at 6 a.m. but at some point they must cut it off and put up the message:

Return after 9:00 p.m. to check iPhone 3G availability at your local Apple Retail Store.
 
It looks like the website updates based on inventory levels at closing time. The phone was supposed to be out of stock for the last two days at the Apple Store at Perimeter Mall in ATL. However, the store received a shipment at approximately 11am each day and began selling them right away.
 
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