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Best Buy Delays iPhone 5 Pre-Orders Up to 28 Days, Walmart and Sam's Club Also Seeing Delays

PDXoPDX said:
Methinks this isn't an Apple issue. I'm sure Apple notified vendors of exact stock quantities ahead of time, or at least told them when they would know an exact number. It's on the vendor if they ignore this information or get antsy and take preorders without doing their homework. Way to go BB!
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I disagree. I know a manager who works at Verizon. I don't believe he knew how many phones they were getting. It doesn't do best buy any good to have angry customers. There had to be problems with the shipping/distribution. Maybe apple wants there stores to appear better to the consumer.
 
crisss1205 said:
I had to activate the iPhone 5 with the number of the upgrade, so make sure your wife is with you as she will be pissed since her old phone gets disconnected. Then AT&T gave both lines a new SIM, a new nano sim with my number, and a new micro sim for the upgraded number.

The sales rep was telling me that it is going to take a really long time to do it because their computers were very slow. (I knew that was bulls*** because the activation went smoothly and I think he works on commission and rather sell an iPhone than help me transfer my number). Yet the entire process took no more than 10-15 minutes.
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Ok thanks exactly what I thought so. I just hope my wife loves waiting in line.
 
I’m getting screwed by Rogers. Their Reservation system is *************!
They say I have to give them 14 days from release date. That includes weekends. If it doesn’t show by then they credit me $50. Which is nothing since I give them almost $500 every month for my two cells, my Internet and my Cable. Todays my Birthday and no present for me. :(
 
With regard to the pre-order unavailability, I own a boutique retail shop that sells allocated items (in other words new release items that are in limited supply so distributors allocate them to vendors based on various factors such as volume and account upkeep), and what I am seeing here is similar to what I see in my shop. I just figured Apple could do it so much better. Often, we plan to order say 400-450 qty of an item and we figure our allocation may only end up being half of that, so we ask our distributors for 500 total in hopes of getting 250-450 of them, and we will cut off pre-orders at 150 and plan to keep the other 100 for store stock to put out piecemeal every day until the second wave of shipments, since customers understand a preorder sellout but aren't happy about bare shelves a week after release. But we won't get our final allocation numbers on the orders until sometimes only a week or two until release, and there have been times when we barely fulfilled pre-orders because we were cut tighter than expected. Other times we got all we asked for and had to make sure we scrambled to sell through enough of it to meet our net terms (though with allocated items it's rare that you wouldn't succeed at that because if there weren't tight demand there wouldn't be an allocation). It's just how things work where there is a high degree of manufacturer control over a high-demand item. The best strategies for coping with allocated items are to pre-order as early as you can stand to, and if your pre-order doesn't make it on time for the first wave of shipments, prepare to hunt for it at retail instead.
 
So I heard from my walmart that the Sprint iphone 5's have arrived but the at&t ones have not. Aren't they the same? or are htey trying to pull one on me
 
god damnit best buy I just want a freaking iPhone!

Why do you suck so much!?

AT&T 64GB........


I called my local AT&T store and they said they had none........


I live 3 hours from an Apple store....

:(:(:(
 
Got email at 11:45 last nite from bb telling me the same thing. Went to local AT&T store @1 ups just left store and got a black 32gb. Lucked up feel like hitting a casino tonite. Hector said he just delivered 3 black 32gb and got mine.
 
everyone need to not pre order anymore i didnt and walked out with my iphone 5 within an hour of me getting in line. they did sell out of all the black models only had white 16 gb left but thats the one i wanted so it was fine with me!
 
Considering this has happened at previous iphone releases, it surprises me when someone orders from a store like walmart. This store and its ilk is where you don't go for release day iphone. These stores are of the suck.
When will people learn?:rolleyes:
 
I work at Sam's Club and we have them except the AT&T ones and for all we know we could have them anytime. Yesterday we only had sprint and then at 8:30 this morning ups dropped off more sprint and Verizon. So I think we will have them by the end of the weekend. I'm in Michigan
 
i walked right into my local best buy at 8am.. there were about 3 people there picking up. my rep said they had about 150 for preorders and another 50 or walk ins...

needless to say i was in and out in about an hour!:)
 
I guess I lucked out. On Monday I pre-ordered a black 32gb AT&T from my local Best Buy here in Brooklyn, and they sent me an email yesterday afternoon saying they would have it for me today. Also called to set up an appointment time for me to pick it up, although I still had to wait like an hour while they dealt with the influx.

Might be that being in a major city, with several Apple stores nearby, and going for the 32 instead of 16, kept me safe. They did sell out of a number of models by the afternoon, though, as I heard people walking in trying to buy and being turned away or informed that they'd have to pick a different color or size for their carrier.
 
1 of the 2 preordered arrived so my wife went in to pick it up. I had another ATT one reserved but wanted to switch to Verizon and they just happened to have a 32GB in Black. On hold for me until I get off from work.

You'll hear no complaints about BB from me today. :)
 
That's why I have never preordered an iPhone but have gotten every version on release day. I get my butt up at the crack of midnight and get in line at my local AT&T store. It's stupid, I know, but its one thing I treat myself to every year and its a good time out there with everyone!
 
Quahog said:
So I can confirm, it will be a while before Best Buy and other retailers get caught up on pre-orders. Earlier in the year Best Buy had a promotion where, if you signed up (without obligation) to upgrade before the end of 2012 you get a $50 gift card. I think that is probably driving a lot of demand to Best Buy.
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The gift card(s) are why I pre-ordered from Best Buy. They are easy to save over time. My wife and I get them from credit card promotions.

We pre-ordered two iPhone 5s and they are not in. We got the wait for 28 days e-mail. Frustrating but we are not going to cancel because of the gift cards.
 
Same thing happened to me with the 4s at Sam's Club. Was one of the first to pre-order but then had to wait several weeks to get it - the only good thing was that they gave me a $25 gift card because of the delay. I definitely won't ever be pre-ordering from them again.
 
in fairness to BB, they've been always been very good about fulfilling their orders until today. I live in Mass and I go to the Fenway store. I am one of the many casualties and I did not even receive an email. I preordered 2 and my partner received a confirmation phone call this morning. When we got there, they cannot find my partner's phone and phone call this morning was apparently store's error.:mad:

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TonyC28 said:
This totally sucks and it's the first time I've had a problem with a preorder from Best Buy. (They should call it a reservation and not a preorder, by the way). But I can't really blame Best Buy. It seems just about every place I've talked to in my area received fewer phones from Apple than they were expecting.
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I think apple intentionally kept most of the iphones to themselves so they can fulfill their own orders.
 
Quahog said:
Earlier in the year Best Buy had a promotion where, if you signed up (without obligation) to upgrade before the end of 2012 you get a $50 gift card. I think that is probably driving a lot of demand to Best Buy.
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That's why I was willing to give them a chance. They really dropped the ball. And then to tell me that they refuse to credit my card back? They can go to hell.
 
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