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Not as much excitement from launch @ carrier offices

Rayy42

Rayy42

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Oct 7, 2014
344
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This is just from my personal experience in my area, about an hour outside of Pittsburgh, but I work for a major wireless carrier and noticed that we didn't sell out of iPhone's this year like we do every year. Apple sent us 35 iPhone 6s devices and I only did one iPhone 6s upgrade today. I sold various other devices throughout the day, but definitely wasn't expecting this.

Last year at launch we got the same amount of phones and sold out within an hour.

Keep in mind that I work for a bigger corporate location in my area too.

Just wondering if the general public just isn't as impressed with the new iPhone's to justify an upgrade or what is going on. I know we are tech nerds who always have to have the latest and greatest, but to the average layman, maybe this just isn't worth the cost? I'm baffled.

What are your guys thoughts and what happened in your area of the woods? Did you see a lot of people in your local carrier offices getting the new devices or not so much? Do you think it's because of the Apple Upgrade Program?
 
Folks state that the preorder process was extra smooth this year, but I wonder if demand was still a bit less?
Not to be doom and gloom but it's inevitable, and will be interesting to see how it goes..
 
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I got mine from the Apple Store this morning and there wasn't near the crazy line I saw last year. My girlfriend went later just to browse and said there was no longer a line and this was in afternoon although she didn't inquire about their stock level.

Right after I left Apple at 9:30 am I went to meet someone at an AT&T store to sell him my 6 Plus and it was empty. I overheard the employees talking about how people were preordering and waiting in line at Apple when they could just have walked into their store and gotten one.

I think it's a bit of casual consumers being way more smitten by the design overhauls and us techies who get more excited about the S versions. I'm sure at least domestically in the US this won't sell near the numbers the 6 and 6 plus did. Really enjoying my 6S Plus though.
 
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Well, when I wanted to show off the Force Touch feature to my g/f (she own an Apple Watch btw) she was like: "I know how that works, Max, I have iPhone 6 too!". It's funny, but at the same time kind of sad :( I guess physical appearance matters to the layman a lot. Would be interesting to compare to the 3G-->3GS and 4-->4S upgrade experience.
 
supervelous said:
I got mine from the Apple Store this morning and there wasn't near the crazy line I saw last year. My girlfriend went later just to browse and said there was no longer a line and this was in afternoon although she didn't inquire about their stock level.

Right after I left Apple at 9:30 am I went to meet someone at an AT&T store to sell him my 6 Plus and it was empty. I overheard the employees talking about how people were preordering and waiting in line at Apple when they could just have walked into their store and gotten one.

I think it's a bit of casual consumers being way more smitten by the design overhauls and us techies who get more excited about the S versions. I'm sure at least domestically in the US this won't sell near the numbers the 6 and 6 plus did. Really enjoying my 6S Plus though.
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You bought it and sold it...............?
 
Maybe it's not for lack of sales. Maybe everyone wised up and stopped going to the stores on launch day and ordered online instead.
 
I agree with the other posters that a lot of orders were done online.

Also, I think most people know the carrier stores will have less stock than an Apple Store, just based on prior launches. Hence there was still a long a-- line at the main Apple Store at 7pm tonight. I also think a lot of people wanted to give the apple upgrade program a try instead of signing onto a carrier program.
 
Orien said:
From what I've heard, 6S sales numbers are higher than ever. Preorders have gotten very efficient.
Click to expand...

Because of China. My wife went to at&t store at 8:30, got what she wanted, zero line, which is not usual. My apple store appt was 10:30, still a decent line for walk ins, but they still had everything but no rose gold. Think it was less this year for sure.
 
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ParDigital said:
Folks state that the preorder process was extra smooth this year, but I wonder if demand was still a bit less?
Not to be doom and gloom but it's inevitable, and will be interesting to see how it goes..
Click to expand...
This. I think basically everyone that wanted to preorder was able to. Apple also got more stock AND they have their own lease program now.

I think this is how to should be, from a consumer standpoint. Getting an iPhone in the first few months shouldn't be a huge battle.

That said, places around here sold out.
 
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Rayy42 said:
This is just from my personal experience in my area, about an hour outside of Pittsburgh, but I work for a major wireless carrier and noticed that we didn't sell out of iPhone's this year like we do every year. Apple sent us 35 iPhone 6s devices and I only did one iPhone 6s upgrade today. I sold various other devices throughout the day, but definitely wasn't expecting this.

Last year at launch we got the same amount of phones and sold out within an hour.

Keep in mind that I work for a bigger corporate location in my area too.

Just wondering if the general public just isn't as impressed with the new iPhone's to justify an upgrade or what is going on. I know we are tech nerds who always have to have the latest and greatest, but to the average layman, maybe this just isn't worth the cost? I'm baffled.

What are your guys thoughts and what happened in your area of the woods? Did you see a lot of people in your local carrier offices getting the new devices or not so much? Do you think it's because of the Apple Upgrade Program?
Click to expand...
I think it's due to the 6/plus leaving bad tastes in everyone's mouth at launch last year. I've never got a phone on launch day before (except this year with the 6S) I usually like to wait and let others be the Guinea pig.

I was the only one in my carrier as soon as they opened here in Canada and was there for an hour talking and not 1 person showed up to any of the carriers (they are all lined up in a row, beside each other)

in a way I actually like this, a slow launch for carriers and some trust lost in Apple maybe this will help them pull up their socks on this shotty coding on iOS.
 
There is a clear move by Apple to ensure better experience when buying an apple product. Biggest gripes have always entered on lack of availability on launch day and also the rise of scalpers. It is therefore nice to see in store reservation and increased supply to ensure most get what they want on release day. Hope this is the way it continues. Judging by what Angela Ahrendts has said about going down the path of online pre-orders more, it will. Got to say, helps massively. On a downside, long queues won't be seen, however the is not such a bad thing anymore, with the rise of scalpers and such. Thats not to say they may only do in walk in orders only in the future but am very pleased with my experience this year. So have to congratulate Apple on this.
 
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I think its rather silly to go camp out for a phone, and maybe others are seeing that.

With that said, my wife who works across the street from an apple store saw a long line of people waiting for their apple phones. I'd much prefer to order it online and then enjoy it when it arrives.
 
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yet people who pre-ordered from ATT received later shipping dates. Maybe they took their allotment and prioritized them to go to the stores? But people don't like the hassle of going to stores anymore. we are soft. I feel like they want you to buy in store more than Apple so they can try an up sell stuff
 
Rayy42 said:
This is just from my personal experience in my area, about an hour outside of Pittsburgh, but I work for a major wireless carrier and noticed that we didn't sell out of iPhone's this year like we do every year. Apple sent us 35 iPhone 6s devices and I only did one iPhone 6s upgrade today. I sold various other devices throughout the day, but definitely wasn't expecting this.

Last year at launch we got the same amount of phones and sold out within an hour.

Keep in mind that I work for a bigger corporate location in my area too.

Just wondering if the general public just isn't as impressed with the new iPhone's to justify an upgrade or what is going on. I know we are tech nerds who always have to have the latest and greatest, but to the average layman, maybe this just isn't worth the cost? I'm baffled.

What are your guys thoughts and what happened in your area of the woods? Did you see a lot of people in your local carrier offices getting the new devices or not so much? Do you think it's because of the Apple Upgrade Program?
Click to expand...


I hear you seen various YouTube Videos literally No Line no wait at At&t Sprint Verizon or Tmobile literally no hype this year almost no news coverage. Anyways

#1. Extra smooth Pre-order process this year.
#2. Mid cycle launch not as popular in 10 months there will be lines weeks in advance for the 7
#3. People preffer buying at the Apple store
#4. No CHINA Resellers I made like $2,500 Reselling last year this year they are launching in China so no high markups for wealthy people will to pay anything to flaunt the newest Bling
 
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bking10 said:
yet people who pre-ordered from ATT received later shipping dates. Maybe they took their allotment and prioritized them to go to the stores? But people don't like the hassle of going to stores anymore. we are soft. I feel like they want you to buy in store more than Apple so they can try an up sell stuff
Click to expand...
As a sales rep I can totally agree with that when put in that perspective. They are going to try to do a lot more add-on's in the corporate offices.
 
redman042 said:
Maybe it's not for lack of sales. Maybe everyone wised up and stopped going to the stores on launch day and ordered online instead.
Click to expand...

Usually a lot of the people in lines are the people who tried and failed at preordering. Preorder phones usually sell out in minutes, and if someone wants it on launch day then their only option is waiting in line.
 
It's probably a combination of several factors. Last year there was pent up demand for a larger iPhone, and there were constrained supplies, so the pre-orders sold out more quickly. This year Apple sold a LOT more phones through pre-orders. Apparently they didn't have the same supply constraints and the rumor was they had 80-90 million ready for the launch. This year China was included in the launch, so there were fewer "resellers" in lines at Apple retail stores (and Apple cut off walk-in sales in states without sales tax).

I checked today and the Apple Stores in Chicago quickly sold out of rose gold. Most of the stores still had other colors available for pick up at noon, by 3:00pm the stock had dried up, but just now it looks like they are available again. I believe only sales from Friday count toward the 2015 fiscal year this year. In any case, we'll get a better sense of demand on Monday if Apple releases initial sales data.
 
mgmusicman94 said:
Usually a lot of the people in lines are the people who tried and failed at preordering. Preorder phones usually sell out in minutes, and if someone wants it on launch day then their only option is waiting in line.
Click to expand...
This year it took a week for pre-sales to sell out, and Apple offered pre-sales for a week longer than last year. I think they had plenty of supply and wanted to take advantage of it as much as possible.
 
Yeah, I think it was the extra smooth preorder experience as well. I was in a T-Mobile store for some other stuff and the reps there were trippin out like "how did you get it already?!" (it was like 11am on launch day)

I replied "it showed up on my doorstep about an hour ago because I preordered?"

Preorders went smooth as silk, even when the T-Mo phone rep completely forgot about one of the 6s's on our plan. Ended up putting the order in like 4 days later and still got it on the morning of launch day.
 
I didn't preorder and went by my nearest Verizon store after work yesterday around 4:45pm. The store was the busiest I've ever seen it...even more-so than last year's launch. They were completely sold out of the 6s Plus, which is why I was there. I wanted to stick with my VZW store for the $300 trade in value of my 5s, but have since abandoned that hope since 3 of the 4 VZW stores I tried here were all out of the Plus and they will refuse to tell you on the phone if they have any in stock. So instead, I went to Kroger and bought $900 in Apple Store gift cards, which netted me 3600 fuel points (meaning I can get gas for $1 off per gallon 3 different times and 60 cents off per gallon once in the next couple months).

Friends reported going to the Apple Store here this morning at 8am and finding they had all models in stock because of 700 reservations they had yesterday, only about 350 picked them up. When I stopped in there this afternoon, they didn't have any Plus models in stock, but told me to check the website first thing in the morning for a reservation because they are releasing the phones not picked up each night.
 
This is pretty typical of S cycle releases. The 5S was readily available other than the Gold and the 4S was widely available as well. While the iPhone 4 had long backorders as did the iPhone 5.
 
S releases are always in less demand.

Apple had an extra week to meet the high demand of pre-orders.

More people ordered online since it really was very smooth this year, even from AT&T. I was done in 5 minutes.
 
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