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iPhone 4 Sells Out in Apple's Chinese Online Store in Only 10 Hours, Scalpers Blamed

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Apr 12, 2001
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iPhone 4 in Apple's Chinese online store: "No Supply"​

Earlier this week, Apple debuted its Chinese online store, offering consumers in that country the ability to order the full range of Apple products directly from the company. M.I.C gadget reports, however, that the store's supplies of the iPhone 4 completely sold out within 10 hours of the store going live, with Apple refusing to even offer shipping estimates or permitting customers to place future orders.

As with recent incidents in Apple's retail stores in China, scalpers are being blamed for rapid depletion of Apple's online store stocks. With Apple employing more stringent standards for in-store iPhone 4 sales, including reservations, purchase limits and ID requirements, the new online store appears to be scalpers' latest target.Here's what a scalper tells us,

"You will not have a chance to buy one. We have an auto-refresh system to place order, and we are watching it for 24 hours, can you do this?"Demand from legitimate customers appears to remain very high, but they continue to struggle to compete against scalpers working to soak up the entire country's supply as quickly as it can be released.As far as we know, there's a high demand for iPhone 4 in China, especially Beijing and Shanghai. The people here do not mind about the price, they just wish to buy one and tell their friends that they have got an iPhone 4. So, consumers no longer need to buy an iPhone 4 through China Unicom, the only telecom operator offering Apple's iPhone in China, they just need to learn how to act faster than those irritating scalpers and place an order on China online Apple Store before a scalper does.The iPhone 4's quick disappearance from the Chinese online store comes after all iPhone models became unavailable in Apple's Hong Kong online store. Hong Kong was a popular source for grey market iPhones before the iPhone launched in China and has continued to remain a profitable option for smugglers due to lower taxation and thus lower prices in Hong Kong coupled with continued tight supplies in China.

Article Link: iPhone 4 Sells Out in Apple's Chinese Online Store in Only 10 Hours, Scalpers Blamed
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2010/10/28/iphone-4-sells-out-in-apples-chinese-online-store-in-only-10-hours-scalpers-blamed/
Last edited:
Oh PLEASE Apple...just drop the price there about $100 tonight. :D

You've got cash in the bank. The look on the scalper's faces will be worth the money you lose.
 
Its a temporary issue. Once the demand levels off, the scalpers will disappear.

It happened here as well. The Pasadena, CA store had many groups assembled at the direction of scalpers to buy as many iPhones as possible on day 1.
 
Too bad they don't have a limitless production facility. They could just flood the Chinese market with more phones and the scalpers would get stuck with all theirs (and Apple would sell a boatload of phones).
 
what I hate is those damn scalpers/scammers have force so many web sights and business to go to those pictures with random letters in them. Some of them are hard to read and take me multiple tires to enter the answer and it is getting worse as those same groups are getting better at writing programs to see threw the "noise" thrown in.
 
NinjaHERO said:
Sucks for the legit customers who want one.
Click to expand...

1. Very small amount of quantity, and relatively large demand, create a illusion that iPhone is very popular in China.
2. They kept customer wait longer for supplying while again keep quantity relative small, so that it appears iPhone sells really quick. At least that i read from news article in Chinese website.
3. There are lots of people who buy large quantity of iPhone and resell it for higher price. So that those people took most of iPhone from Apple store. So it appears iPhone selles even more quickly. In reality, most people have to wait for iPhone at regular price or people has to buy iPhone off from other at higher price.
4. It is just in Beijing and Shanghai, city like those has lots of rich people. They just don't care about the price. They just want show off to satisfy their sick minds.
5. I love my Blackberry torch. It just good.
 
This reminds me of the throngs of Chinese resellers that would descend on Apple 5th Ave in NYC to buy as many iPhones (and iPads) that they could within the two-device per day limit.

They would buy a deuce at full retail price in cash, go outside with their purchase to drop off with Grandma, change their shirt or jacket / put on sunglasses, then return to buy more in their "disguise". :)

Most spoke no English whatsoever besides the words "iPad" or "iPhone" ("34 gee-bee") and big blue vans would drop them off in the morning to buy as many as possible for their "iPimp" who would return to pick them up at the end of the day and collect the loot.

Poor immigrant makes about $200 cash a day for a good score and a long day of "shopping" and sitting, then iPimp sells each phone in Hong Kong for $1000 over U.S. retail.

Crazy, but 100% true.
 
jeffreyropp said:
Its a temporary issue. Once the demand levels off, the scalpers will disappear.
Click to expand...

Except the demand has been very high for the last three and some years. There is nothing temporary about it.

Nanasaki said:
1. Very small amount of quantity, and relatively large demand, create a illusion that iPhone is very popular in China.
2. They kept customer wait longer for supplying while again keep quantity relative small, so that it appears iPhone sells really quick. At least that i read from news article in Chinese website.
3. There are lots of people who buy large quantity of iPhone and resell it for higher price. So that those people took most of iPhone from Apple store. So it appears iPhone selles even more quickly. In reality, most people have to wait for iPhone at regular price or people has to buy iPhone off from other at higher price.
4. It is just in Beijing and Shanghai, city like those has lots of rich people. They just don't care about the price. They just want show off to satisfy their sick minds.
5. I love my Blackberry torch. It just good.
Click to expand...

If you have ever been to China, you'll see the demand is very very high. People are paying as high as $2500 for the factory unlocked ones.
 
Small White Car said:
Oh PLEASE Apple...just drop the price there about $100 tonight. :D

You've got cash in the bank. The look on the scalper's faces will be worth the money you lose.
Click to expand...

They should have put an extra $100 dollars on the price from the start and then dropped prices when the demand slowed down, they make the extra money plus no one buys the phones from the scalpers, everyones a winner, well just Apple really.:D
 
NebulaClash said:
Doesn't take long for people to catch on to capitalism once exposed to it, huh? :)
Click to expand...

That is a very uninformed comment. China is communist because of the one party system and because the government has more power to regulate, not because people don't know how to be entrepreneurial. Capitalism isn't illegal in China. It is actually encouraged. China has been trying to get rid of any remaining state owned business and are certainly not expanding that. If anything the scalpers are against law/regulation because they are not respecting Apple's terms.
 
Apple just needs to show up with a dozen or so semi trucks of phones. Sell them and flood the scalpers with 100k phones then drop the price. Everyone wins.
 
alphaod said:
Except the demand has been very high for the last three and some years. There is nothing temporary about it.



If you have ever been to China, you'll see the demand is very very high. People are paying as high as $2500 for the factory unlocked ones.
Click to expand...

I am not really surprise of that. Lots of rich people in city like Shanghai and Beijing. So there you go. If i am still in China, there would be no way for me to spend 2500 (you mean Yuan or dollar?). I am not rich... sad.... Yea, Apple let Chinese people wait for at least 3 generation for the iPhone, of course the demand would be very very high. People over there like showing off their new shiny Apple product, since iPhone can make them proud of themselves. Seriously, i am Chinese, and i have living in China for almost 17 years. I know what people over there. I believe, when blackberry officially sells in China, the demand would be really high too. But it is good for Apple, coagulations to Apple. Thumb up
 
Banyan Bruce said:
Now that I would like to see.....;)
Click to expand...

Sigh... plans for iPhone are way to expensive here in Canada.... $50 per monthly (only have 500MB data bandwidth)... LOWER the price already!!! I am using unlocked BB and paying $30 without data plan...
 
Here's what a scalper tells us,

"You will not have a chance to buy one. We have an auto-refresh system to place order, and we are watching it for 24 hours, can you do this?"
Click to expand...

Jeeze....mafioso win? With statements like this I wonder if they have operations in the US at Apple headquarters, or have insiders at FoxConn taking them right off the line.
 
can't they just put a limit for 1 or 2 iphone per credit cards?

Unless the scalpers have a few thousand credit cards on standby, otherwise they are not going to be very effective.
 
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