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Massive Stainless Steel Unavailability
- Thread starter donster28
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Pretty sure it’s not the demand. It’s the fact Apple made 48 watches in 2018. Unacceptable. Trillion dollar company and they had one garage overseas making these watches. Then said oh no ♂️ we can’t handle the orders. We need another garage crew to step in and help. Again, unacceptable by Apple.
Seems like they might have had some manufacturing problem with the SS or something. There has to be a recent why the stock is so insanely low.
How else would they ensure it's a huge smash!?
Not that they NEED to do it but... someone is getting a good chuckle out of it!
You could always sell the stainless 44 mm, assuming you have it almost in excellent condition, you Will lose some value, but could pay the difference for the black stainless if you justify the cost.
Ahem! I’ll take it off your hands!!
Funny thing I had a shot at a 44 SB SS milanese band, but hesitated for 10 seconds then it was gone... I was tempted just to get my hands on a 44 mm Stainless steel anything , but I’m holding out for SS or gold.
Ya it’s getting rediculous. At first I thought they had improved supply demands with the excess availability of the iPhone but now im feeling the phone just didn’t have a demand.
With the watch though, the SS are being dedicated to the Hermes range by the looks of it. The gold SS is in over demand. The space blacks are just harder to manufacture
With the watch though, the SS are being dedicated to the Hermes range by the looks of it. The gold SS is in over demand. The space blacks are just harder to manufacture
I got mine when they had 7 left. My Space Black SS 44mm comes Wednesday. I’ll keep my Apple order and make a couple hundred on eBay.
Pretty Cool, only a 4 day wait including the weekend.
You think you can sell on eBay for $1150+? That’s the only way you make $200 after eBay and PayPal take their cut.I got mine when they had 7 left. My Space Black SS 44mm comes Wednesday. I’ll keep my Apple order and make a couple hundred on eBay.
Pretty Cool, only a 4 day wait including the weekend.
Exactly. The demand for stainless steel isn’t a surprise anymore. They know it’s coming every year. Yet every year, it’s the same nonsense.
Yep, they are going for $1100 and with my 5% off at Target it comes out to exactly $200. It’s peanuts to what I do on the stock market but still some extra fun money, and just something to do.
The Target Red Card. I think you link your debit card to it and you save 5% when you use it.
Most of the Hermès watches and bands are out of stock. Why can’t people admit that the Watch is a bigger hit than Apple expected? No company deliberately restricts demand. They want to sell products to consumers. For the past 3 years the aluminum has sold better. If for some reason the stainless steel took off this year, then absolutely Apple might have been caught off guard.
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The aluminum is usually the bigger seller. Perhaps this year since there is no Edition the Stainless Steel (particularly the Hermès) is selling better than in the past.
Nah, there is definitely demand for it but there is literally no stock available. This isn't a normal release by any means in terms of SS stock numbers. Go to the tracker and set it to the last 7 days. NO stock anywhere. High demand still requires actual units to sell out of.
I attached a map of the stores that have had stock of the 44mm SS model in the last 7 days on the east coast. The west coast is the same story.
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The same thing happened with the last two Series. The stainless steel models were nowhere to be found for at least a couple of months after launch. Many of us here discussed this same thing a year ago. The demand for SS isn’t unprecedented.
To get what right? Can you imagine the amount of logistics that goes behind fulfilling millions of Apple Watch orders across the world, not knowing the specific demand for a certain model? I _doubt_ you have knowledge of that, considering Apple has an entire team dedicated to make adjustments to meet demand for manufacturing purposes, Apple doesn’t know as much as anyone else what to expect when it comes to pre-ordering, especially for the stainless model that isn’t nearly as popular as the aluminum model is.
For the record, Apple added a second manufacturer to help with production of the Apple Watch to meet the demand. So clearly they did to did not expect the shortage.
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KPOM no I don’t think the Hermes is selling better. The reason why the aluminiums do so well is because unlike other devices there is honestly no technical difference between the watches apart from material. Not like the iPhone where you get more storage or a larger screen. Same with laptops as well. More $ means faster cpu, more storage... So you’ll see most people with a larger more expensive max and an entry level cellular aluminium.
There aren’t many people who will spend money on a leather strap. Look at istockNow, for the last 7 days straight, every day it’s a refresh of the Hermes SS bands in Australia. All the silver SSs are going there
I honestly think they were expecting watch sale figures of last year and didn’t expect it to do so well. Only thing is the watch is heavily in demand. I’m hoping the don’t drop the QC to get these watches out faster
There aren’t many people who will spend money on a leather strap. Look at istockNow, for the last 7 days straight, every day it’s a refresh of the Hermes SS bands in Australia. All the silver SSs are going there
I honestly think they were expecting watch sale figures of last year and didn’t expect it to do so well. Only thing is the watch is heavily in demand. I’m hoping the don’t drop the QC to get these watches out faster
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Way back in my S2 SS order I had big issues with getting the SS model - same thing now but I was ready when they opened up the preorder and got it on release. It’s pushed back to end November here now
You are right that I don't have the exact numbers to be able to big data this for Apple. With that said, on-demand manufacturing, logistics, (a.k.a. supply chain) is literally what Tim Cook brings to the table for Apple. They also have 4 years worth of sales data to be able to work off of - and from the packaging improvements this year, I can already tell that decoupling the bands from the actual watch is something they've learned, to make each "part" more versatile. (i.e. if demand shoots up for milanese vs. sport band, they can now pivot more easily to increase milanese shipments vs. locking a few hundred thousand units of SS paired with other bands that have lower demand.)
With that said, production on SS watches is still ridiculously behind. If they're putting all their efforts on aluminum watches now, they could've at least manufactured (the anticipated) 3 months worth of SS watches prior to launch prior to shifting gears and see if they sell out of those in two months or a month. Maybe they did, I honestly don't know... but from the consumer side, all we're saying is that SS watches shouldn't be that hard to find past day 1, hour 1 of online orders.