What if the reason we have such long ship times is because their inventory system is "holding back" inventory for in-store availability that isn't required, and in reality most orders will be filled this week? The later ship dates are probably going to be pulled from the stuff that was positioned for the retail launch that has since been delayed... AAAAAAND Go.
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New, far fetched speculative theory. We're all getting our watches in the coming days
- Thread starter samcates86
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I think they realized quite a while ago that they were not going to have an in-store launch. I don't think that factors in to this at all.
I don't think we'll be getting them in the coming days but I do think that I'll be getting mine sooner than my current June ship date. As long as Apple concentrates on filling preorders before selling them in store we should get them sooner than we've been told. That's probably why preorder ship dates haven't moved past June for most watch versions.
Better chance of this scenario playing out:
- Folks needing just one watch preordered several at 3am because they didn't know what they wanted.
- Same folks tried-on later that week and decided which was the keeper.
- Rumors of high eBay prices for preorders meant they kept the excess hoping to make a profit.
- Watches are delivered.
- eBay gets flooded.
- eBay prices collapse.
- Not wanting eBay hassles, excess watches are promptly returned to stores, unopened.
- Stores start selling returned inventory.
- eBay prices collapse further.
- Etc.
Well, at first sight this is really far fetched. But thinking about it.. On the day they began taking preorders, April 10, and hence gave out the shipping estimates which haven't change since various Apple Store employees had the info that there would still be some kind of in-store reservation on launch day. If this actually still was Apple's plan at that point, it might be possible that the units that were designated for in-store pickup were shifted to the contingent of the online store. This could lead to some orders getting processed earlier than originally estimated.
But we don't know.
In my experience unopened items that are returned are opened at the store for inspection. Apple doesn't just recycle returned items and resell them. Usually those items will become refurbished for warranty replacements.
