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Why is Apple shunning Canada?

X

X'zduz

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 29, 2010
6
0
I am a long time apple fan, I love em. When iPhone 4 came out I was all over it, I still have a 3g(no s) so the change would be day and night.

But alas there was no phones to be had.

I am in the Canadian Navy, I want away on deployment for like 3 months, i come back figuring that, hey, the product has be out for about 4 months now, surely they got past the initial shipping and production hurtles and are stocking stores but no. All the retailers are saying hey, we get a shipment in on fridays maybe it will have some in it.

Well it is friday... and I just called all 25 authorized rogers dealers in my area and not only do they not have any iPhones but their delivery today didn't bring them any.

There is a fine line between trying to create demand by reducing the supply and pissing off your fan base and hurting your sales because your products cant be bought. I know I will want the iPhone and prefer it but I wont hide the fact that I have looked at some android devices that I can actually have in my hand today. hell, I could get the Samsung Galaxy S style Android that Rogers doesn't consider a "smartphone" and get a hardware upgrade in a year when maybe Apple has figured out that in order to make more money they should make their products purchasable.

I can always buy it from the apple store, with no subsidization but that would be foolish when I can save upwards of 500$.

Anyone else feeling this frustration? I assume they are some of the rogers stores are almost answering the phone with "hello Rogers, we dont have any iPhones, how can we help you?" lol.
 
You can still buy it from an Apple store with a contract lol

But yes it's frustrating. I still haven't been able to find one, and yet I hear people randomly going into an Apple store and magically picking one up! Bah.

Of course there's also those people who call Rogers Retentions and get it that way... kind of unfair to the rest of the people I'd say.
 
I meant apples online store, if I want to access an actual Apple store I would have to take a ferry to Vancouver.

I can get on a wait list at rogers but it is over 200 people long and with apple shipping roughly 5 units to a city of 350 000 a week that one store should be able to hook me up in not time at all.

I just wonder when Apple will start sending real shipments.

there is a fine line between creating demand by reducing the supply and pissing off your fans and driving them to your competitors.

I just went and played with the x10 and samsung captivate they are ok but clearly inferior. dont know much about android VS IOS mind you.
 
rogers!

If you go with Telus, Virgin or Bell you can order the phone online and have it in a couple of days. I ordered one from Virgin website and i got it a couple days later.
 
here is Rogers version of that.

"Limited inventory of iPhone 4
Rogers is committed to getting an iPhone 4 into the hands of every customer who wants one. Many Rogers retail outlets are sold out of the device but we are receiving regular limited shipments of iPhone 4 from Apple. We recommend you contact your local Rogers retailer or Apple store to determine if stock is available."

as in we as customers are supposed to call every roger store in the city 3 times a week to find out that they didn't get any in.

I just thought this would be handled by now, it has been 4 months since launch. This is like first couple weeks type stuff.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/532.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.5 Mobile/8B117 Safari/6531.22.7)

While I'm sure there is some preference given to the U.S. market (hey, Samsung gives Korean's the first chance at their new stuff too), Apple's latest quarterly earnings call had the discussion of how lack of supply actually depressed their earnings slightly (with a more positive word spin, of course).

So I'm not sure if one can really claim they want to sell less.

Can y'all just order an iPhone in Canada and put yourself at the front of the shipment line?
 
TruckdriverSean said:
Can y'all just order an iPhone in Canada and put yourself at the front of the shipment line?
Click to expand...
You can order unlocked iPhones directly from Apple and have it delivered to your door (the OP said he does not want to do this), order a Telus locked device online from the Telus store, order a Bell locked device from the Bell online store or a Virgin locked device from the Virgin online store. Rogers and Fido appear to not be selling the iPhone 4 online and the OP wants to get a Rogers locked phone. At the authorized dealers like Future Shop, Best Buy, Battery Boys, etc. it's usually first come, first served.

An unlocked iPhone from Apple is a 2 week wait right now. I am not sure how long the wait is for a locked device from Telus, Bell or Virgin. They imply next day shipping, but I am not sure if that is reality. I do know folks that ordered theirs from Telus while I was waiting for mine from Apple and got their phone before me when they ordered after me.
 
Hey Navy boy!

I assume you are in Victoria. Damn that ferry to hell eh?

OK I got mine within the first month by a Telus at the West Shore mall store by wait list. However, while I was bloody waiting for the Telus call (non refundable deposit) I received a phone call from Future Shop telling me that they had got some 32s in. That was a week prior to my shipment coming in from the Telus store.

The big box stores like Future Shop and Best buy are getting more frequent shipments than the little carrier stores.

Just walk into a FS or BB and ask to have them put you on a waiting or call back list. It shouldn't take too long.

Or you could just wait for the Windows phone ;)
 
X'zduz said:
I am a long time apple fan, I love em. When iPhone 4 came out I was all over it, I still have a 3g(no s) so the change would be day and night.

But alas there was no phones to be had.

I am in the Canadian Navy, I want away on deployment for like 3 months, i come back figuring that, hey, the product has be out for about 4 months now, surely they got past the initial shipping and production hurtles and are stocking stores but no. All the retailers are saying hey, we get a shipment in on fridays maybe it will have some in it.

Well it is friday... and I just called all 25 authorized rogers dealers in my area and not only do they not have any iPhones but their delivery today didn't bring them any.

There is a fine line between trying to create demand by reducing the supply and pissing off your fan base and hurting your sales because your products cant be bought. I know I will want the iPhone and prefer it but I wont hide the fact that I have looked at some android devices that I can actually have in my hand today. hell, I could get the Samsung Galaxy S style Android that Rogers doesn't consider a "smartphone" and get a hardware upgrade in a year when maybe Apple has figured out that in order to make more money they should make their products purchasable.

I can always buy it from the apple store, with no subsidization but that would be foolish when I can save upwards of 500$.

Anyone else feeling this frustration? I assume they are some of the rogers stores are almost answering the phone with "hello Rogers, we dont have any iPhones, how can we help you?" lol.
Click to expand...

Dont go to the stores. Call rogers and get transferred to teh Retentions department and order it through them instead. I ordered my 2 iphones this way on seperate occassions and got it teh next day. I told my nephew and he got it the 3 days later.
 
crazycanucks said:
Dont go to the stores. Call rogers and get transferred to teh Retentions department and order it through them instead. I ordered my 2 iphones this way on seperate occassions and got it teh next day. I told my nephew and he got it the 3 days later.
Click to expand...


That's what I did. Worked great. One poster above said that wasn't fair and that's just crazy talk.

I was walking down Robson st in Vancouver and one Rogers store had signs saying they had stock. I think stock is flowing more now? Hopefully soon.
 
I'm in Calgary and have gotten so fed up with not being able to get the iPhone 4 from either the Apple store or Rogers that I'm just gonna skip this upgrade. I have a 3GS that works fine, and if I upgrade now it's just gonna mess up my upgrade eligibility come next summer when (hopefully) the newest iPhone gets announced.

Annoying though, to say the least. I upgraded to 3G on launch day, and 3GS on launch day, and have been trying since launch day to get an iPhone 4. Can't win them all I guess....
 
It took me about a week to get my iPhone 4. The trick was that I was off work during a weekday and was willing to call each and every Rogers store to see if they had stock. I found one location that still had two and I raced over there to get it.

If course, that one energy back to apple because it was defective but that's another story.
 
So if there are no phones in stock it means that apple is shunning Canada:confused:
The iPhone is in great demand and they keep selling like hotcakes and can't make them fast enough for the demand. Blame it on the high tech machine they need to use to make the metal frame for it, that's the real limiter here.... Apple is giving you various options to buy it so it's not really their fault that you live so far way from an actual store.
 
The unlocked contract free iPhones sold at Apple stores in Canada are highly desired by U.S. citizens because we can't get them here. If you're a frequent international traveler and don't want to pay exorbitant international rates you've got no choice but to jailbreak and unlock your iPhone to allow a foreign sim and get local pay as you go rates. Jailbreaking and unlocking is a pain for most non-geeks.

It's far easier just to go up north and pay for an unlocked Canadian iPhone. The money you save from not having to pay AT&T's international rape rates makes the extra cost of the unlocked version rather trivial.

I'm betting that is at least contributing to the iPhone shortage in Canada--at least at the Applestores. :)
 
X'zduz said:
there is a fine line between creating demand by reducing the supply and pissing off your fans and driving them to your competitors.
Click to expand...

Apple has experienced a 100% increase in iPhone sales this quarter over last year (7.37 million sold in Q4 2009 versus 14.1 million sold in Q4 2010).

They are not reducing supply to create demand. This is a myth. The phone really just is that popular that nobody can keep it in stock.


I would suggest Rogers retentions. It may take you a few tries, but you will eventually be able to order through them.
 
Apple does not have to drive demand for this phone.. They simply can't make them fast enough for global supply at the moment..

Trust me, Apple would love to be able to sell a $700 device to everyone who wants in the door asking for one..
 
barkomatic said:
The unlocked contract free iPhones sold at Apple stores in Canada are highly desired by U.S. citizens because we can't get them here. If you're a frequent international traveler and don't want to pay exorbitant international rates you've got no choice but to jailbreak and unlock your iPhone to allow a foreign sim and get local pay as you go rates. Jailbreaking and unlocking is a pain for most non-geeks.
Click to expand...

Specifically, doing a hacked unlocking means always having to wait for them to hack the next firmware upgrade - which may take a while. An of course, if you buy a locked phone, no promises that the baseband it has is currently unlockable.
 
darkside flow said:
Apple has experienced a 100% increase in iPhone sales this quarter over last year (7.37 million sold in Q4 2009 versus 14.1 million sold in Q4 2010).

They are not reducing supply to create demand. This is a myth. The phone really just is that popular that nobody can keep it in stock.


I would suggest Rogers retentions. It may take you a few tries, but you will eventually be able to order through them.
Click to expand...

production issues and unplanned for demand are one thing, sending 5 phones to a city of 350 000 people 4 months after launch per week, where there are 25 dedicated rogers stores is another.
 
X'zduz said:
production issues and unplanned for demand are one thing, sending 5 phones to a city of 350 000 people 4 months after launch per week, where there are 25 dedicated rogers stores is another.
Click to expand...

quit complaining and call rogers then to get your phone. I called and got mine the next day. 3x. So have countless other people calling directly to Rogers retentions and getting the phone. You have wasted enough of your time. Just call and get your phone.\

I walked into Best Buy in New West and asked if they had any iPhones, only foir Telkus and Bell. Rogers was a 300 person waitlist.

The reason why Rogers is always sold out is they gave everyone that had a previous 3G and a 3Gs iphone a subsidy to upgrade. 3GS opwners would normally had to wait 2 years, but they wanted everyone to get an iphone. Dont blame Apple. This was a busniess decsion made by Rogers on who to give the Hardware Upgrade to.
 
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