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iPad 2 Launch - A Complete CONSUMER Nightmare

Although I do agree with some of the OP's points. It is really beyond me why such hate falls on this forum. How many people got Ipad 2's? Almost 1 million? Does everyone in the world have to get an ipad2 on launch day? Getting this thing is not going to save someones life. Does any doctor really need the ipad to do brain surgery? Although it might be helpful tool.

It is funny to me how many babies there are in this forum. "I didn't get my Ipad2, wah wah!" Anyone who wanted an ipad could have ordered it online from Apple.com early in the morning of 3/11. IF you didn't do that and you had to stand in line, and furthermore didn't get it, you are not going to get much sympathy from me or anyone else. And if you went to 25 different Apple and Best Buy, and AT&T and Verizon stores this weekend, and still didn't get one, not only will you still not get any sympathy from me, but, Perhaps you had better check on your priorities.

I went to a store at 6:30pm on 3/11, I was told there were already too many people inline for the amount of ipads they had, and I went home and ordered it. I will get mine in three to four weeks.
I come on this forum everyday, and I sometimes regret it, because on here you see the most worthless hate filled posts, about how terrible Apple is for doing this, or that. If I hated Apple as much as many of you, I certainly would not buy their product, and there would be no way for you to catch me in their forums.

My only real complaint with the OP's post, is the headline. "A Complete Consumer Nightmare". What drama? 1 million people got Ipad 2's, give or take. That doesn't sound like a consumer nightmare to me. That sounds to me like Apple has a million happy customers. Now could they have had more for launch, sure. But do they owe that to me. Nope.
 
Fellas... fellas...

I spent around 3-4 hours in a line last year waiting for an iPhone 4 and came up short - didn't 'rue the world' - it was what it was

Similarly, got to Fashion Island yesterday, waited under 3 hours, and got the iPad 2 that I wanted - crazy!

Nonetheless --- first off, no one is FORCING you to wait in line - this isn't Communist Russia - you're all making that decision

Second - you gotta know, before waiting, that YOU MIGHT NOT GET ANYTHING --- if you're prepared to take that risk, then wait in line - honestly, made a couple new friends yesterday (and even last year) and had a good time, either way

But if waiting in line for hours, is not worth the risk, then DO NOT WAIT - order online and wait patiently for a few weeks - either way, you're gonna get your iPad and be happy - pretty easy how that all works out, right?
 
likegadgets said:
It is not a conspiracy when we say they deliberately made the choices. The criticism, I believe, boils down to the arrogance of a store (from what I read, the majority of their stores) knowing they only have (e.g.) a 100 units and 300 people in line, and letting them wait for hours knowing well that they will not be getting one.
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Okay fine, since everyone in here thinks they are some sort of genius when it comes to handling corporate supply chains and retail outlets, let me break it down better. This post might be a little long but hopefully it will put this retarded thread to bed.

There are 18 different models of iPads.

This means they have absolutely no way of predicting what people want. At my local Apple store once they went through the line asking what every person wanted and doing an exact count of the people in line (not just an inaccurate estimate), they discovered they would not have enough of certain models. They had over 600 iPads (they knew this), but even with only 300 people in line (which they themselves said was an estimate), certain models were going to sell out before that line was done.

How exactly do they predict exactly what people wanted before doing a count like that? It's impossible. They knew that there were 600 iPad boxes spanned across 18 models, and 300 people in line, so they weren't going to turn people away just because over half the stock would be gone. They instead did a poll and found out they needed to give out tickets to prevent people from being disappointed when they couldn't buy the model they wanted. With 600 iPads and 18 models, that comes out to roughly 33 of each model (if it was spread evenly, which is probably was not).

What resulted was an extremely organized retail launch. From what I heard of other Apple retail stores the situation was basically the same, they had lots in stock, but had no clue which models would sell out. Other retail outlets definitely screwed up though from what I hear. They were completely unorganized in some places. That is not Apple's fault that those companies screwed up, because all Apple did was hand them the packages.

As for anytime after launch day, I agree that things could be done better, they could put up a website listing individual stores and if they have them in stock, or at least let you reserve one online and go pick it up when they were in stock. They did this with one of the iPhone launches (but only a week or so after launch!) so it's clearly possible for them to do. However this is only the 3rd business day after launch, so I can understand Apple might still be working on getting that website going.

Complaining about lack of stock information at this point is ridiculous, because it relies on companies like FedEx, and even if the Apple store were to call FedEx and ask them, they wouldn't know how much were getting delivered. Before you say that corporate would know how many, you have to realize that there are 200+ stores (not to mention WAY MORE 3rd party retailers!), and Apple is simply swamped with requests for iPads from every single one of them. This means they have to route all new shipments from China as fast as they can without sitting there informing each store exactly the amount they will be getting. This is where the reserve system needs to be implemented, to prevent people from having to simply guess when stock will arrive. I would put money on Apple implementing the reserve system in the next week or so, just like they did with other launches. They didn't want to do the pre-reserve system this time for the day it launched because so many people didn't show up to pick up their product. They wanted to avoid having too many iPads sitting around not being sold because someone said they would come pick it up. This launch happened at 5pm, so they wouldn't have time to set a long enough "grace period" on reserves that would allow people to make it through the "reserve only line" before the period was up and they started selling them to regular customers. More things actually go wrong with splitting the line in two anyway with reserves vs non-reserves. Tensions rise and it causes a lot of extra work for Apple. With 18 different models going on sale, they couldn't afford to let that happen.

Still this is not even close to a "consumer nightmare" it's one of the most organized launches I have ever seen Apple pull off, considering:

1) There are 18 different models!!!
2) They released it at multiple retail outlets, not just the Apple store.
3) Knowing that they wouldn't have enough of certain models they actually counted how many people wanted and gave out tickets if they were gonna sell out any models.
4) It's only been 3 days, so it's way too early to be complaining.
5) People don't get in line knowing they are guaranteed a product, people always knew they might not get one.
 
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Employed Lloyd said:
The ipad2 launch was an incredible success for apple, and incredibly frustrating for many consumers.

People throw the word "entitlement" around in this forum more than my late grandparents ever did, which is really saying something. Frankly, it's a pretty awkward use of the term. I don't consider people frustrated by the disorganized insanity surrounding this launch to be "entitled" any more than I consider those who waited in line and purchased an ipad 2 to be "deserving." Either is a strange way to view the purchase of a consumer good, no matter how exciting that product may be.

I sat out launch day. That has proven to be a major mistake on my part, but it hardly invalidates the following:

1) Apple products don't fall from the sky and onto the shelves at the apple store. Somebody is making decisions about where and when to ship ipads as they become available, and those people know exactly when they are arriving. There is nothing even slightly cryptic about the whereabouts of thousands of dollars in product within the distribution chain.

The decision to keep retail employees in the dark about this information is beyond stupid. There is nothing even remotely entitled about being angry that the line of fifty people at your neighborhood apple store was for nothing, because no actual product arrived that morning.

2) Selling out before everybody is served is the nature of any highly desired product. However, there is nothing cryptic about the number ipads currently available at a store at a given time. If there are 150 people in line and you have 20 ipads to sell, you might think about saving people some time.

3) Apple store employees, if you don't like answering endless questions about ipad 2 availability, consider looking for another job, or at least passing this along to your superiors' superiors:

"Our refusal to utilize any of the limitless technology afforded us to communicate to consumers about ipad 2 availability is going to result in endless phone calls from people asking the exact same thing over and over again. We don't use twitter, we don't publicize store inventory online, we don't make any statements about pending deliveries, we don't do anything except act annoyed when people call around the clock asking about ipads."

Added to that, mysterious answers to straightforward questions don't go over well. It might be corporate policy to say things like, "we may or may not be able to meet the ipad demands of the line of people around the block," but you should expect very little courtesy from people in return.

Maybe I'm just getting old, but I find the whole thing pretty obnoxious (in case you couldn't tell.)
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All this. +1

On another note, I don't know how anyone can claim Apple has physically sold a million of these things. Based on the anecdotes here, from across the country, lots of people got one on launch day, but most did not. Since then, the stories are of 10 ipads showing up here, 5 there, of mostly white and/or VZW ones, times a few hundred, or maybe 1000 outlets.

If 1000 retailers, including Apple, Target, etc., got 5 ipads a day in stock, which for the most part they have not, that's 5000 units/day. Add to that let's say another 10,000/day between the bigger cities (in Manhattan, the 3 Apple stores have been getting between 0 and a couple of hundred each per day, and only of a few models since Saturday). That means from Saturday to Tuesday they sold an estimated total of 60,000 sold in stores. And that's being generous because there were no deliveries Sunday. Even if the estimate is low, how much more could they have shipped, based on what we're hearing here? 100,000? 200,000? What person has said "there were 1000 people in line and everyone got one?"

Maybe they've pre-sold a million online and offline combined, but I have a very hard time believing a million people have an iPad 2 in their hands today.
 
Lots of people got one on launch day but most did not? Where I waited in line the vast majority of people who showed up DID get one. In fact, anecdotal evidence strongly suggests that that was the case at most Apple store locations, not the other way around.
 
Surf Monkey said:
Lots of people got one on launch day but most did not? Where I waited in line the vast majority of people who showed up DID get one. In fact, anecdotal evidence strongly suggests that that was the case at most Apple store locations, not the other way around.
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Yep at my store the FedEx guy said to me as he passed by the line that they got 600 that morning (he delivered them). There was 300 people in line at peak. Not enough for everyone to get the model they wanted (they sold out of certain ones), but the line kept going until they were completely sold out at about 8pm. Some people turned away once they were sold out of certain models.

To be honest Apple was very communicative, and the only real people disappointed were the ones who showed up after 5 or 6 and couldn't get the model they wanted.
 
Someone was also saying that the Apple stores in their area sold about 2,000 iPads each on Friday. There are 236 apple stores in the US. There are 1743 Target stores in the US, 4600 Walmarts and there are about 1,000 Best Buy stores. Most Targets and Walmarts reported low numbers from 0 to 20. Best Buy did a bit better as most reports are ranging from 50 to 200. Some stores also reported Saturday shipments. Discounting online sales and sales at other stores, it isn't hard to come up with a 5,000,000 number, let alone nearly 1 million. (although 1 million seems to be a stretch)
 
leenak said:
Someone was also saying that the Apple stores in their area sold about 2,000 iPads each on Friday.
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That was me. I know first hand from one of the managers of an Apple store here in Portland that each of the three locations sold roughly 2k each. He wasn't at liberty to say the exact number and he strongly implied that the number was actually higher than that, but the safe bet is right around 2k. That means that most people who waited in line got one at each of those three locations. Looking at the threads here it appears that the situation was similar at other Apple store locations.

One of the BIG problems with the smear threads is that people focus on Target, WalMart and Best Buy. Sorry, but if you were serious about getting an iPad on launch day you had to go to the source. Buying at the third party retailers was a recipe for failure. Anyone checking out the forum on the morning of launch day would have known that.
 
Surf Monkey said:
That was me. I know first hand from one of the managers of an Apple store here in Portland that each of the three locations sold roughly 2k each. He wasn't at liberty to say the exact number and he strongly implied that the number was actually higher than that, but the safe bet is right around 2k. That means that most people who waited in line got one at each of those three locations. Looking at the threads here it appears that the situation was similar at other Apple store locations.

One of the BIG problems with the smear threads is that people focus on Target, WalMart and Best Buy. Sorry, but if you were serious about getting an iPad on launch day you had to go to the source. Buying at the third party retailers was a recipe for failure. Anyone checking out the forum on the morning of launch day would have known that.
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This totally true. My local Best Buy received 15 iPad 2's for launch. There are 18 versions of the new iPad this means they did not even get one of each. This is crazy!
 
Apple Store told me that if I want an iPad 2 I need to be at the store at 9am to have a chance. Did anyone get one today and what time did they have to be at the store to get one?:confused::eek::(
 
ovrlrd said:
There are 18 different models of iPads.

This means they have absolutely no way of predicting what people want. At my local Apple store once they went through the line asking what every person wanted and doing an exact count of the people in line (not just an inaccurate estimate), they discovered they would not have enough of certain models. They had over 600 iPads (they knew this), but even with only 300 people in line (which they themselves said was an estimate), certain models were going to sell out before that line was done.

How exactly do they predict exactly what people wanted before doing a count like that? It's impossible. They knew that there were 600 iPad boxes spanned across 18 models, and 300 people in line, so they weren't going to turn people away just because over half the stock would be gone. They instead did a poll and found out they needed to give out tickets to prevent people from being disappointed when they couldn't buy the model they wanted. With 600 iPads and 18 models, that comes out to roughly 33 of each model (if it was spread evenly, which is probably was not).

What resulted was an extremely organized retail launch. From what I heard of other Apple retail stores the situation was basically the same, they had lots in stock, but had no clue which models would sell out. Other retail outlets definitely screwed up though from what I hear. They were completely unorganized in some places. That is not Apple's fault that those companies screwed up, because all Apple did was hand them the packages.
Click to expand...

What launch were you at? My Apple Store did absolutely no line polling, nor seemed to know what stock they had until they went searching for a model in the back room and couldn't find it.

Now if it had been this organized with Apple employees polling the line and giving at least some information to those lining up then I would have thought it an organized successful launch. Even now the employees don't know if shipments came in that morning let alone if one will come in the next day. They just keep encouraging people to line up every morning before the store opens and see if they're lucky.

That is bad customer service.

Oh but I did hear one employee tell a customer to return in a week when they expected demand to abate and the store to build up stock.
 
ravenas said:
What launch were you at? My Apple Store did absolutely no line polling, nor seemed to know what stock they had until they went searching for a model in the back room and couldn't find it.
Click to expand...

That seems to have happened at a few of the locations, but the majority seem to have handled it differently.
 
vi2867 said:
This totally true. My local Best Buy received 15 iPad 2's for launch. There are 18 versions of the new iPad this means they did not even get one of each. This is crazy!
Click to expand...

The Best Buy I went to had about 100 iPad 2s so I might have been lucky. Also the line didn't really start until 4 or so but it got quite long, quite fast. I also wouldn't have considered myself serious as my backup plan was to order online and wait. I figured that I'd take a chance and see what happened. If I didn't get one, I wouldn't have been upset though.
 
ravenas said:
What launch were you at? My Apple Store did absolutely no line polling, nor seemed to know what stock they had until they went searching for a model in the back room and couldn't find it.

Now if it had been this organized with Apple employees polling the line and giving at least some information to those lining up then I would have thought it an organized successful launch. Even now the employees don't know if shipments came in that morning let alone if one will come in the next day. They just keep encouraging people to line up every morning before the store opens and see if they're lucky.

That is bad customer service.

Oh but I did hear one employee tell a customer to return in a week when they expected demand to abate and the store to build up stock.
Click to expand...

It can go either way. Line polling has its own issue. How many people who were earlier in line for a 16GB black took a white or 32GB because it was the only available model when they got to the front of the line? This happens enough and your poll is useless. Don't do it and that too is useless.
 
OMGitworks said:
It can go either way. Line polling has its own issue. How many people who were earlier in line for a 16GB black took a white or 32GB because it was the only available model when they got to the front of the line? This happens enough and your poll is useless. Don't do it and that too is useless.
Click to expand...

Absolutely.

My lesson from this thread is that expectations (which are often tempered by nothing beyond someone's whim) can always exceed the ability to meet them (ability which is often constrained by money, time, resources, and more).

As a result, most people get that there is a line, even if fuzzy, between reasonable and unreasonable expectations. Unreasonable expectations, when not met, do not a 'consumer nightmare' make.
 
Hindsight is always 20/20, and Apple has to be thrilled these are selling like hot cakes.

But I do mostly agree with the OP that it wasn't the idea product launch for consumers.

Having to either wait in line for hours, or get up in the wee hours to place an online order (that many haven't gotten shipped yet--though mine arrived yesterday so I can't complain) isn't the most consumer friendly launch.

But it's in the past. Hopefully the iPad 3 launch is smoother and returns to allowing preorders etc. to make it less work for consumers to get one around launch. Maybe it wasn't feasible this time, but hopefully they can find a way to do it next time.

Not launching 18 models at once and thus fragmented limited initial supplies would probably be a good start. Not doing the international launch 2 weeks after the domestic launch would probably help as well. Launch 1 color, maybe just wifi for the first month or so (like with the iPad1), then do the international launch a month or two after that, then roll out other colors if they feel that's necessary. That should help spread out demand and let supply keep pace with it better for the month or two around launch.

But either way, Apple is selling all they can make, and probably very few are going to get disgruntled and go buy some other tablet as there just isn't a comparable competitor out right now. Maybe by the time the iPad 3 or 4 comes out there will be and they'll have to focus more on not annoying customers and driving them to the competition.

Myself, I'll stick with what I've always done. If there's no preorders I'll order online and get it whenever. I don't need gadgets at launch bad enough to waste time in line or hunting down local stock afterwards. If there's a preorder I'll preorder and pick it up hours after the store opens on release day when lines are gone like I do with game consoles.
 
You guys are shrooming. Hard.

This article estimates iPad 2 sales on the first day range from 500k to a million, compared to 300k from the iPad launch a year ago. Can anyone successfully name which music artist sold 500k to a million albums in a single day? And cds are super cheap and fast to make, plus you can legally download an album as well...any artist would be doing very very well if the sold a 500k to a million albums in one week, let alone one day, but the music industries failings is another topic for another forum.

I read in another thread here that at full production (which they were not in leading up to launch) it takes a month to make 2 million ipad 2s (or ipads...sorry, I can't find the thread as it's buried). To double the order each store receive, we'd have to wait a month for launch. Doubling the orders still doesn't guarantee you'll get one. It doesn't guarantee anything, except possibly longer lines and even more feverish demand to get one on launch day.

It's simple supply and demand. Apple only controls the supply. We control the demand.
 
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