Apple Responds to Concerns About Apple Watch Launch: Deliveries Could Arrive Sooner Than Estimated

[stanhope]

I feel like someone shouldn't be able to walk into the store and purchase an apple watch that someone else has already pre-ordered online and has to wait months for! that would be ridiculous, and the opposite of the customer experience Apple is trying to achieve. They should just put all resources into shipping to pre-order people first, and only start stocking the stores once the people that pre-odered on 4/10 have their watches.

I can't imagine any other solution making sense. The original scheme was misguided but now they are in the vortex. The only thing they can do now and keep any sort of goodwill would be to do as you say and marshall all of their resources towards fulfilling the pre-orders early and then "re-launch" in store after the pre-orders are done. Once the April 10 pre-orders are satisfied then take ORDERS in store until the inventory can catch up with the demand.

 

[Chrjy]

My watch arrived in May and she is just going to be stewing until she gets hers.

Whoa...you mean it's already arrived?!

 

[lewisd25]

My wife's watch has an expected delivery of July. I really do hope Timmy and Jony find a way to speed that up. My watch arrived in May and she is just going to be stewing until she gets hers.

Come on Tim, this is a man in need!

 

[pixelss]

I ordered at 3AM EST(12:00PST). When I submitted the order for my Space Gray Sport with black band, it said April 24th delivery. My confirmation email was time stamped at 3:05am and now the date says May 13-27 (4-6 weeks).
I'm sorry, I'm pretty sure they didn't sell out in 1 minute. Worst 'launch' ever.

Same happen to me and received my confirmation e-mail exactly at the same time. I juts hope we are just above the April 24th bracket and get our stuff by April 30th.

 

[2457282]

Whoa...you mean it's already arrived?!

I guess I am over excited. LOL

Thanks for the catch, it is now fixed.

 

[WilliamLondon]

I always go one step further:

Why can't people just WAIT until there is plenty of supply, online and in the stores without waiting. I wouldn't even bother to get a try on appointment.

I'll look at the watch when they have plenty, plus I can read some feedback from our fellow pioneers of beta testing.

Until then, let's all not forget:

We have lived without the Apple watch our entire lives, so a few months or days of waiting is not going to kill you!

In the meantime you iPhone will still do the job

That's exactly the tack I'm taking, and usually do with new Apple products, difficult as it can be sometimes to force myself to wait. I hate queues, I hate rushes, I hate the intensity of the "must have this today" attitudes that dominate attention in the stores, so I let them have their day, wait till the crowds die down a bit and supply has caught up with demand, wait till the earlier purchasers quote and comment on their new devices (reading their posts with relish!) and then I make my final decision and buy, no queues, no waits. It doesn't take that long, he said hopefully.

 

[diegogaja]

Yes....I'm sure there was ABSOLUTELY no forethought...

They should have installed the in-store displays before the pre-order. As it is, people (myself included) were ordering blind. I was in the store the other day on a try-on appt, and probably would have bought another model than the one I bought. As it is, I cancelled the extra band.

Live and learn for Apple, I guess. To be fair, nobody really has done this before, but still...a little forethought would have helped the process a bit.

 

[ScottHammet]

Could this launch get any weirder?

If you're that Burberry babe, you gotta be sweating this a bit. Even if this whole launch plan isn't her exclusive idea, it will be painted as such. And after all, selling iAnything has to be ridiculously more challenging than selling rubber boots and raincoats.

Hey...whatshisface's gig at that department store went bust...maybe he's free now. That non-compete clause has to be expiring soon.

[Edit] Grammar.

 

[Weaselboy]

[Mod Note]

Several off topic posts have been removed Please keep the discussion on the thread topic.

 

[HenryDJP]

I understand quite a few people may be skeptical, but I don't see how it would benefit anyone to make this up.

Not that I am skeptical about the email, but to address your post, think about the many hackers out there sending worms into computers. They never see the victims, so how does it benefit them? Some people like to shake up news.

 

[Iconoclysm]

But should have sold 4 or 5 times what they did.

They sold ALL of their stock. Pretty sure that is all they SHOULD have sold.

 

[GOAT4521]

So basically a 04/24/15-05/08/15 ship date means i probably won't get it on the the 24th? Did anyone actually get a 04/24/15 ship dats?

 

[LeslieM825]

For the life of me, I can't figure out why Apple didn't sell the watch and the bands separate. Trying to decide what to have in stock with so many options is nearly impossible. Store supply, once they sell it in stores, is going to a nightmare.

and I think that is why some waited ...to see it in the store first...they should of displayed them 2 weeks ago so people could choose ahead of time THEN when pre-sales came they KNEW what they wanted...ONCE you waited to see it first shipping dates were June July August UGH i ordered the Milanese loop ASAP cause it covered size ranges better

 

[Steve686]

On one hand shipping times may be sooner. Of course.

But, if Apple decides to have watches at retail locations on the 24th, there won't be sooner than expected shipping for preorders.

 

[26139]

HUh?

How can people possibly be upset about shipping delays for a product that didn't exist before last week?

Surely their lives will be okay having to wait a while.

Not sure why the bitching, this isn't a surprise.

 

[mrcobra92]

Though did he mention if 24-5/8 would actually be delivered on the 24th?

 

[Soccertess]

I have been critical of apple in the past but this isn't a time to whine.

A million products at launch and maintaining quality control (albeit yet to proven for quality) is impressive. And if it takes a bit to ramp up demand, so be it. This is a new product that you have never used, I'm sure you can go another month without it.

 

[mccldwll]

From second one, I said that Angela Ahrendts would be to Apple what Ron Johnson was to JC Penney. A Burberry experience is in no way translatable to an Apple one. The head set of the consumer base is drastically different as is that of the staff. As was said in the article, the staff gave wildly different accounts of what was to happen. One such notion, often repeated, was that we could pre-order and pick up our merchandise in any Apple store we selected. I asked this repeatedly of many different Apple sales people as I am headed on vacation and will be away from my primary residence on April 24. Some of the staff indicated that the bands were not interchangeable. I could go with illustrations of misinformation on but suffice it to say that the launch was a retail disaster. The formidable sales have more to do with the product that the "Cartier" style launch. If you think about it for a moment with anything resembling a clear head, what company on Earth would not want the FREE publicity in every national media vehicle and all of the local ones where there is an Apple store in market generated by the lines waiting for the newest Apple thing. The people interviewed in line always say glowing things about Apple and I have never seen one say anything negative. The local reporters ruminate on how Apple employees hand out water to those in line and coffee when it is cold. You'd swap this for what I experienced in the 2 stores I visited on launch day i.e. Skokie and Northbrook? Since the "try ons" were at a communal table, I was able to see the vastly different experiences different clerks gave. Someone at Apple with half a marketing brain and the other half a deep understanding of the Apple core customer needs to intervene and right this insane concept. I completely agree, if there is no product available at the Apple retail stores on April 24 then "launch" was not a mistake, it was a lie. In one day they have turned goodwill into a horror.

It looks like you recently joined with the sole intention of trashing aapl's marketing of the Watch. What's the problem?

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I'd say this had little to do with Cupertino not getting a handle on demand more the switch in retail strategy that simply does not work with the Apple customer nor with it's employees. As a person who has shopped at "carriage trade" stores all of my life, what they tried to do with this launch was laughable and supercilious. The culture of Apple, as Steve Jobs set it, is more democratic and not elitist. The kids that work at Apple, for the most part, don't seem to come from homes where Mom shopped at Bergdorf Goodman and Dad bought cufflinks and watches at Cartier. When those poor kids tried to pull out the display cushions for the watches, it just looked clumsy. Their wiping of the watches in full view was plebian. Tim, please review the comments of your customers and not the new hires from Yves St. Laurent. Those folks don't have a clue.

Again. Trashing the marketing.

 

[dacreativeguy]

They are complaining because the general public sees the  watch commercials showing the 24 April date and expect to be able to walk into a store and buy one.

It s like when the Avengers opens 1 May. You expect the movie to be in the theater, buy a ticket, and watch it. Not place an order for a ticket for a movie that you cannot view, except a trailer, and then get that ticket in a week, a month, two months and then get to see the movie.

You don't understand your own analogy.

The Avengers opens May 1, but there will be incredible demand and the chances are good you will have to stand in long lines at the theater until there is an opening for you to buy a ticket. Most shows will sell out until the demand subsides, so you might not even get in the first day. You can always pre-order online quickly when tickets are put on sale to ensure that you get a seat, but shows can sell out online as well.

How is this scenario any different than the Apple Watch? In both cases, the product arrives on a certain date, but pre-orders can sell it out before that date arrives, so there is nothing for a walk-in on launch day to purchase.

 

[Tejas57]

Same happen to me and received my confirmation e-mail exactly at the same time. I juts hope we are just above the April 24th bracket and get our stuff by April 30th.

i jumped online and ordered a black sports 42mm at 5:01 (i'm in Australia). from the time it took me to order the thing and input my gift card and credit card it slipped to 4 - 6 weeks. i got the email at 5:05

i saw the white was still showing as delivery on 24th so i order one of those with the intent of cancelling the black should this be accurate. turns out it was. i got the email at 5:08 and the store is showing Delivers: 24/4-8/5 by Standard Shipping

 

[Tiltasauras]

So basically a 04/24/15-05/08/15 ship date means i probably won't get it on the the 24th? Did anyone actually get a 04/24/15 ship dats?

That's the standard date for people first in line. There were no 4/24 only dates. I would say you have an excellent chance of getting an Apple Watch on the 24th.

 

[farmkittie]

Come on Tim, this is a man in need!

This is also a man from the future if he got it in May.

 

[Glideslope]

Bah....

This is all planned. Can you imaging the PR if there were large stock in retail locations still on say April 30th? Total CYA. Build each watch per order for a while. This product is by no means an iPad or iPhone 6, Mac.

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So basically a 04/24/15-05/08/15 ship date means i probably won't get it on the the 24th? Did anyone actually get a 04/24/15 ship dats?

I'd agree with that. Considering your AW most likely has not been manufactured yet, 5-08 (roughly 4 weeks) seems in line.

 

[hexcalibur]

Complete mess. Terrible PR for Apple. So many missed opportunities. A success, but not the monster success it should have been.

Monday morning quarterbacking: Not just for football anymore!

They're going to sell a couple of million by the end of May, easy. If they can sell 5 million watches by Christmas '15 it will be far and away the most successful smartwatch ever. But even that won't make it a "monster success" according to all the Laz-E-Boy analysts.

 

[Mansu944]

Is anyone blaming Angela Ahrendts for this?