Friday Morning Quarterbacking - AKA What Could Apple Have Done Differently?

[TallManNY]

Sell the watch with default black/white band, less SKUS to manage, and easy to mass produce, with an option for BTO as well, incase someone doesn't want to throw away the default band.

So customer get the whole watch experience since they are being shipped with a default band. That way, you can walk into the store and buy one immediately. Right now, everything is BTO. Ofcourse, BTO will be delayed, and expectation will be set.

That way apple can just produce more bands as per the demand in color/style etc without holding the whole shipment.

Horrible strategy. One of the Apple Watches biggest challenges is that if it is as ubiquitous as the iPhone is in certain social circles (I'm in the U.S. and I cannot think of a single friend who does not have an iPhone) then we are going to look like uniform robots wearing the same device. Since many people would just buy the default band (especially for the sport model) then we would look even more alike in our fashion choice. Forcing folks to choose their bands upfront is going to result in greater diversity during the initial launch days. I think that is really important for the success of the Watch.

FYI, I ordered SS with black sport band because I couldn't decide what my dress band would be after looking at them. But my co-worker ordered SS with blue loop band. So at least we won't have exactly the same watch on at work when we get our shipments.