For those of you who participated in the iWatch release debacle with all sales done on line, I think Apple was wise to go back to complementing online sales with the ability to purchase in the stores on release day. I think they must have reflected on all of the negative feedback they received. Maybe they have not gotten too big and successful to listen, which is a good thing.
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Glad Apple has gone back to store purchases after iWatch debacle
- Thread starter dysert
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There was nothing wrong with how the Apple Watch was launched. They had to start that way because there are dozens of choices and initially it would have been impossible for the supply chain to accommodate that.
I agree. There was nothing wrong with the Apple Watch launch. They had to do it that way due to the number of configurations and supply shortage. With the iPhone there are fewer variations and supply is not as big an issue.
I disagree, New product roll out, with lots of excitement yet they were turning people away. I understand they have finite resources but still imo retailers who turn away customers, turn away sales.
Heck, many retailers use loss leaders to get people into the store, and apple was doing the opposite driving people away.
How were they turning people away? You can order online right there in the store. So many combinations of sizes and materials and bands, no way that was going to go well trying to decide how many of each combination to stock in each store. What they did was anticipate a negative situation, and avoided it. I had no issues at all getting my Apple Watch through an online order.
Perhaps they should not turned people away and let them see the watches. Better yet roll out the watches in the apple store when they had stock to sell them.
You missed my point however. Its never a good idea for a retailers to stop consumers from coming in or making it difficult for them, which in both cases apple did. People may disagree with me, and that's ok, but I've worked in retail before and its all about foot traffic.
They shouldn't have launched it if they didn't have enough available to stock their retail store at launch. People are used to every new Apple Product being available in-store on day 1. Apple changed the norm and didn't really advertise that. People showed up and were disappointed. It's never good to have people excited about your new product line-up at your store and then be disappointed. Although I'm sure many iPhone customers are disappointed every year, at least that is an established business. It's really weird to do that with something that has no assurance of success that is trying to gain market traction.
I remember Angela Ahrendts said they were going to do an online-only launch for the apple watch but would still do in-store launches for other products.
But they did roll out the watches when they had enough stock, in June. I didn't miss your point, I just think the argument you're making doesn't make sense. People were allowed to see the watches and try them on; I know because I did so. Yeah, it's not "good" for customers to leave disappointed but it isn't better to screw the 1M+ preorder customers to make the rest feel better.
Why would it be better to hold back pre-orders from those us that ordered early? Just out of spite?
Yeah, it would have been better if they had the stock to appease all customers but they didn't. I honestly don't understand complaining about the stock when there was nothing that could be done to improve it. With limited stock, it's better to sell from one location to limit spreading your resources too thin. Avoiding returns is also a high priority with limited stock. Online was the best way to avoid these problems.
The real test has yet to come, which is whether or not they'll stock white box replacements for the new iPhone 6s/6s+. The AW is the first iDevice for which Apple has chosen not to stock white box replacements across the board. They've yet to do this and I think it makes for a poor customer experience.
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The stock was limited because of faulty taptic engine components. They should have waited until they had enough production capacity to fill both demands. June would have been a good time frame.
Well, as someone who received his watch in April; I throughly disagree. Saying Apple should have held my (and millions of others') watch[es] is like advocating for others to receive a pay cut instead of advocating for yourself to receive a raise. It just makes for more disappointed customers and doesn't actually improve anything for anyone.
That's like saying that Apple should have come out with the iPhone 6S in July but only for a fraction of the people who actually want to get one. The ill will it builds with customers who have to wait months because there isn't enough stock just isn't worth it. Did you know that the iPhone 6S started being assembled earlier this summer? So Apple should just start shipping a product the moment it first rolls off the assembly line because they are supposedly holding people's devices back? The only reason this happened is because it was a new product. Don't expect it to happen again with the Watch. The way product launches work is you build up enough inventory ahead of time. Apple attempted to do this but failed because of the faulty component so they launched it anyway. Lots of people on the forums were pretty irritated. I preordered but didn't get mine until June. I could have just about walked into a store to buy one by the time I waited 45 days.
Right, because they announced a release date and then found they wouldn't have enough units to meet demand. But the solution isn't to postpone the launch, it's to release as planned with whatever methods can be used to limit returns/maximize sales.
People would have been irritated regardless. Postponing the release date wouldn't help with that. Nothing you or anyone else has proposed would have mitigated the criticism.
If anything they turned a potential bad situation into one that was far better. If they had introduced the watch in retail as well there would be a lot more disappointed people. At least they gave people to try them out in store so they weren't just buying blindly. As for holding off the launch until they had more stock that makes no sense what so ever. I got my watch at launch. Why should I be penalised just because there wasn't enough stock to go around. Apple did the right thing by making it online only for the first couple of months.