Will Best Buy offer discounts? If not there is nothing special about the offer. Since people already are willing to line up at a store with inventory, what real incentive would Best Buy give? People can order iPads online at the Apple web site if there isn't any discount.
Maybe Best Buy is just doing this to draw in customers in the hope that they will buy other things while they're there and disappointed.
Just opened the early edition of the Sunday NY Times - the Best Buy flyer says "starting at $499" - cover sold separately, so no special deals.
Interestingly, the Toys-R-Us flyer also touted iPad2 availability.
When I was a supervisor at Target we used to do this all the time. Two particular examples that popped into my mind are the Wii Fit and the iPod Mini ("OMG COLORS?! I TOTALLY WANT A PINK ONE!!1!"). We would internally call it a promotion and sit on inventory, but "promotion" really only meant that there would be a small picture of one in the weekly sales flyer that equated to "we do really sell these from time to time when we actually have them in stock." Both items were in short supply for an extended period of time, and withholding sales for weeks at a time was the only way to guarantee that we would have any at all and, by extension, avoid getting rapped for bait-and-switch.
This will likely work on a national scale, but in smaller communities the supply isn't nearly as constrained and this could hurt some stores. I went in to best buy looking for an iPad last week but they said they didn't have any. I went to Walmart and got the one I wanted.
All these Flash-less iPads (and iPhones) will severely impact Flash-dependent websites' views statistics. That will dent ad revenue. Google/Youtube e.a. won't like that.
This will likely work on a national scale, but in smaller communities the supply isn't nearly as constrained and this could hurt some stores. I went in to best buy looking for an iPad last week but they said they didn't have any. I went to Walmart and got the one I wanted.
Yup - I can't see how hold back on inventory works at all. If a customer doesn't buy from you he could go and get it from somewhere else. Then you've completely lost the sale. As iPads retail for $700 on average there isn't that much that sells at that price in the volume that iPads can command.
All these Flash-less iPads (and iPhones) will severely impact Flash-dependent websites' views statistics. That will dent ad revenue. Google/Youtube e.a. won't like that.
YouTube doesn?t need Flash. Nor do Google ads. Nor does video, though some sites are slower to open up than others. SOMEBODY won?t like it though (And they won?t like Android much better, where Flash support is trickling in... in name only, but not working at all well and with no signs of that changing.)
This will likely work on a national scale, but in smaller communities the supply isn't nearly as constrained and this could hurt some stores. I went in to best buy looking for an iPad last week but they said they didn't have any. I went to Walmart and got the one I wanted.
Quote:
Originally Posted by DogGone
Yup - I can't see how hold back on inventory works at all. If a customer doesn't buy from you he could go and get it from somewhere else. Then you've completely lost the sale. As iPads retail for $700 on average there isn't that much that sells at that price in the volume that iPads can command.
Speaking as someone from a small community (we have a Best Buy here but it's scarcely larger that a typical mall shop) I can say that the downside of being sold out is a much smaller factor than you think. You assume that supplies are allocated equally across stores when this is not the case at all. Going back to the Wii Fit (the most recent example I've experienced personally...I haven't worked retail in a couple years), the bulk of the inventory was heavily allocated to major metropolitan stores. Our Target store here in Montana would be lucky to receive a single unit a week.
The truth is that an item in as much demand as the iPad is likely to be fairly constantly sold out across the board. The various stores will get their own shipments at different times and different amounts, and you clearly hit the Wal-Mart at the right time. There will be other times when Target or Best Buy will be the only store with them in stock. These are not lost sales, where you and a competitor both have items to sell and the customers choose the other guy to buy from. The retail chains WANT things like the iPad to be sold out. To them, the only "lost sales" are the units still sitting on the salesfloor.
One final thing I want to throw out there. The only thing that retail chains are interested in regarding Apple products is the "halo effect." You know how having an Apple product can make you feel cool and hip? It's pretty much the same thing for a store. I can say firsthand that iPods and other Apple products are sold effectively at-cost with almost no markup (I'm talking less than $2), so aside from the ride they get from the coattails of Apple's reputation, there is almost no financial incentive for them to sell iPads at all. The fact that they sell for $700 is irrelevant.
So BestBuy has changed the meaning of promotion from "I will give you something extra for your money's worth" to "I will let you buy what you want".
Only a few products ever commanded this level of demand.
BTW, I visited a BestBuy in Toronto, Canada and there was a long line waiting to try out the iPad. A RIM salesman was on the floor demonstrating the PlayBook. Poor guy, he had a tough job selling to me, even though I tried to be nice.
I don't see that as being possible. You walk up to a check out clerk with a product
Easy. They often don't have high price/demand items right on the floor for you to just grab. So you have to go to a clerk who is happy to check the stock computer. But first he's going to probe you about what else you want. And when you say no to the warranty 'oh so sorry but we are sold out'
I had a store in Los Angeles do that to me over a blu-ray I wanted to get. I shrugged and walked away, got on the site on my phone and ordered it for in store pick up at that location and suddenly they had it
It is unlikely that it is a company or even store policy though it might be a practice by some staff and overlooked unless the manager gets a complaint.
So the famous "promotion" is finally here. I can't wait! Are they going to drop iPads out of helicopters over shopping malls all across the country? "As God is my witness, I thought iPads could fly!"
Easy. They often don't have high price/demand items right on the floor for you to just grab. So you have to go to a clerk who is happy to check the stock computer. But first he's going to probe you about what else you want. And when you say no to the warranty 'oh so sorry but we are sold out'
I had a store in Los Angeles do that to me over a blu-ray I wanted to get. I shrugged and walked away, got on the site on my phone and ordered it for in store pick up at that location and suddenly they had it
It is unlikely that it is a company or even store policy though it might be a practice by some staff and overlooked unless the manager gets a complaint.
Yep, if you'd quoted my entire post I kind of alluded to that as the only way they could do this. Frankly pushing their own extended warranty over Apple's own should be a red flag to Apple when dealing with this chain of numb nuts.
When all is said and done I think the entry level wi-fi version will garner 60% or more of the sales volume. 3G just makes no sense for most buyers IMO.
Let me start by saying I would normally make an Apple purchase directly from Apple. In the case of the iPad 2 I thought I'd use Best Buy gift cards. What a mistake.
Remember the reports of Best Buy being blacklisted by Apple. Followed by statements (at least from Best Buy) stating that they have a wonderful relationship, yada, yada, yada. So with the upcoming promotion I decided to show up at my local Best Buy and basically say, "Ok, so where's my iPad? Weekly flyer all but guaranteed there would be at least a couple of each model available." Problem is they don't. But what really infuriates me is that according to the inventory manager they actually did receive five black 64 GB iPad 2's, only to have them yanked by Apple with zero explanation. When I asked him about the whole "blacklist" thing, he said it was ABSOLUTELY TRUE. So basically because Apple got their knickers in a bunch they f'd over a ton of loyal customers. If they are such control freaks and soooo worried about customer experience, why in the hell would they punish the end users? If there was some sort of manufacturing defect, just be honest and admit it. If Best Buy is acting unethically then deal with them behind closed doors. Don't jerk your customers around.
Up until this product release, I have enjoyed fantastic customer service and a great buying experience . . . when buying directly from Apple. In fact I'd say it's been better than great, it's been phenomenal (a model every company could learn from). But this nearly five week drama is getting really old, and has really taken the "magic" (to use an oft used Apple adjective) out of this purchase for me.
Best Buy charges $0.99 more than retail for Apple products.
Couple that with Apple charging only state sales tax (no local tax) on mail orders and you're much better off buying from Apple on line.
Not sure what state you live in, but here for shipments to New York Apple (and other online merchants) charge the full sales tax -- including but the state and local taxes.
Let me start by saying I would normally make an Apple purchase directly from Apple. In the case of the iPad 2 I thought I'd use Best Buy gift cards. What a mistake.
Remember the reports of Best Buy being blacklisted by Apple. Followed by statements (at least from Best Buy) stating that they have a wonderful relationship, yada, yada, yada. So with the upcoming promotion I decided to show up at my local Best Buy and basically say, "Ok, so where's my iPad? Weekly flyer all but guaranteed there would be at least a couple of each model available." Problem is they don't. But what really infuriates me is that according to the inventory manager they actually did receive five black 64 GB iPad 2's, only to have them yanked by Apple with zero explanation. When I asked him about the whole "blacklist" thing, he said it was ABSOLUTELY TRUE. So basically because Apple got their knickers in a bunch they f'd over a ton of loyal customers. If they are such control freaks and soooo worried about customer experience, why in the hell would they punish the end users? If there was some sort of manufacturing defect, just be honest and admit it. If Best Buy is acting unethically then deal with them behind closed doors. Don't jerk your customers around.
Up until this product release, I have enjoyed fantastic customer service and a great buying experience . . . when buying directly from Apple. In fact I'd say it's been better than great, it's been phenomenal (a model every company could learn from). But this nearly five week drama is getting really old, and has really taken the "magic" (to use an oft used Apple adjective) out of this purchase for me.
This whole post strikes me as highly implausible. Why would Best Buy go ahead and run their flyer if Apple had pulled all their iPads? And the "blacklist" thing was supposed to have happened over a week ago, so it's not like they couldn't stop the presses.
No ... nor there any freebees ... Actually Best Buy had to redistribute its iPad2 inventory throughout 1100 stores to better met pre-paid back orders. Today they re-opened their back order process in order to help customers get their products faster if possible. Thats it folks.
iPad2 is the hot selling product and the demand is very high as you all know. The Promotion is just having stock to sell. There are 18 models and it is tough to met so much variety in inventory management. Even though the White Model is nice (I have one ... only because I couldn't get black). In my mind of 40 years in sales, I would have gone the Ford route. You can have any color you want as long as it is black. Black color only would have enabled half the packaging differences ... most of the inventory differences... and black is really great in this instance.
That's it folks ... back to work or grumbling or what ever turns you on.
Best Buy often lists items in its Flyer. The Flyer, like a lot of Stores, isn't always to show items that are on sale. Sometimes the flyers are to generate interest in other products and just to show new products to market. The iPad likely isn't offered at a discount, but is shown in the flyer to show new products in the store. I suspect Best Buy makes no more then fifty dollars for an iPad sale. Probably less. The margins are small. The profit is in accessaries like the smart cover, which probably has higher margins, and things like unneeded extended warranties.
Best Buy often lists other Apple products in its flyers even when there is no discount offered.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Smallwheels
Will Best Buy offer discounts? If not there is nothing special about the offer. Since people already are willing to line up at a store with inventory, what real incentive would Best Buy give? People can order iPads online at the Apple web site if there isn't any discount.
Maybe Best Buy is just doing this to draw in customers in the hope that they will buy other things while they're there and disappointed.
Comments
Will Best Buy offer discounts? If not there is nothing special about the offer. Since people already are willing to line up at a store with inventory, what real incentive would Best Buy give? People can order iPads online at the Apple web site if there isn't any discount.
Maybe Best Buy is just doing this to draw in customers in the hope that they will buy other things while they're there and disappointed.
Just opened the early edition of the Sunday NY Times - the Best Buy flyer says "starting at $499" - cover sold separately, so no special deals.
Interestingly, the Toys-R-Us flyer also touted iPad2 availability.
"As God is my witness, I thought iPads could fly!"
One of the best from Mr. Nessman!
When I was a supervisor at Target we used to do this all the time. Two particular examples that popped into my mind are the Wii Fit and the iPod Mini ("OMG COLORS?!
This will likely work on a national scale, but in smaller communities the supply isn't nearly as constrained and this could hurt some stores. I went in to best buy looking for an iPad last week but they said they didn't have any. I went to Walmart and got the one I wanted.
This will likely work on a national scale, but in smaller communities the supply isn't nearly as constrained and this could hurt some stores. I went in to best buy looking for an iPad last week but they said they didn't have any. I went to Walmart and got the one I wanted.
Yup - I can't see how hold back on inventory works at all. If a customer doesn't buy from you he could go and get it from somewhere else. Then you've completely lost the sale. As iPads retail for $700 on average there isn't that much that sells at that price in the volume that iPads can command.
Couple that with Apple charging only state sales tax (no local tax) on mail orders and you're much better off buying from Apple on line.
All these Flash-less iPads (and iPhones) will severely impact Flash-dependent websites' views statistics. That will dent ad revenue. Google/Youtube e.a. won't like that.
YouTube doesn?t need Flash. Nor do Google ads. Nor does video, though some sites are slower to open up than others. SOMEBODY won?t like it though
This will likely work on a national scale, but in smaller communities the supply isn't nearly as constrained and this could hurt some stores. I went in to best buy looking for an iPad last week but they said they didn't have any. I went to Walmart and got the one I wanted.
Yup - I can't see how hold back on inventory works at all. If a customer doesn't buy from you he could go and get it from somewhere else. Then you've completely lost the sale. As iPads retail for $700 on average there isn't that much that sells at that price in the volume that iPads can command.
Speaking as someone from a small community (we have a Best Buy here but it's scarcely larger that a typical mall shop) I can say that the downside of being sold out is a much smaller factor than you think. You assume that supplies are allocated equally across stores when this is not the case at all. Going back to the Wii Fit (the most recent example I've experienced personally...I haven't worked retail in a couple years), the bulk of the inventory was heavily allocated to major metropolitan stores. Our Target store here in Montana would be lucky to receive a single unit a week.
The truth is that an item in as much demand as the iPad is likely to be fairly constantly sold out across the board. The various stores will get their own shipments at different times and different amounts, and you clearly hit the Wal-Mart at the right time. There will be other times when Target or Best Buy will be the only store with them in stock. These are not lost sales, where you and a competitor both have items to sell and the customers choose the other guy to buy from. The retail chains WANT things like the iPad to be sold out. To them, the only "lost sales" are the units still sitting on the salesfloor.
One final thing I want to throw out there. The only thing that retail chains are interested in regarding Apple products is the "halo effect." You know how having an Apple product can make you feel cool and hip? It's pretty much the same thing for a store. I can say firsthand that iPods and other Apple products are sold effectively at-cost with almost no markup (I'm talking less than $2), so aside from the ride they get from the coattails of Apple's reputation, there is almost no financial incentive for them to sell iPads at all. The fact that they sell for $700 is irrelevant.
Only a few products ever commanded this level of demand.
BTW, I visited a BestBuy in Toronto, Canada and there was a long line waiting to try out the iPad. A RIM salesman was on the floor demonstrating the PlayBook. Poor guy, he had a tough job selling to me, even though I tried to be nice.
iPad 2's CAN fly... but it is usually 'out the door!'
Get it... they're flying out the door... (drum rim shot)
"cricket, cricket"... Boy, tough crowd.
/
/
/
Don't quit your day job. If you have one.
I don't see that as being possible. You walk up to a check out clerk with a product
Easy. They often don't have high price/demand items right on the floor for you to just grab. So you have to go to a clerk who is happy to check the stock computer. But first he's going to probe you about what else you want. And when you say no to the warranty 'oh so sorry but we are sold out'
I had a store in Los Angeles do that to me over a blu-ray I wanted to get. I shrugged and walked away, got on the site on my phone and ordered it for in store pick up at that location and suddenly they had it
It is unlikely that it is a company or even store policy though it might be a practice by some staff and overlooked unless the manager gets a complaint.
So the famous "promotion" is finally here. I can't wait! Are they going to drop iPads out of helicopters over shopping malls all across the country? "As God is my witness, I thought iPads could fly!"
HIlarious. But iPads are definitely not turkeys!
Easy. They often don't have high price/demand items right on the floor for you to just grab. So you have to go to a clerk who is happy to check the stock computer. But first he's going to probe you about what else you want. And when you say no to the warranty 'oh so sorry but we are sold out'
I had a store in Los Angeles do that to me over a blu-ray I wanted to get. I shrugged and walked away, got on the site on my phone and ordered it for in store pick up at that location and suddenly they had it
It is unlikely that it is a company or even store policy though it might be a practice by some staff and overlooked unless the manager gets a complaint.
Yep, if you'd quoted my entire post I kind of alluded to that as the only way they could do this. Frankly pushing their own extended warranty over Apple's own should be a red flag to Apple when dealing with this chain of numb nuts.
Remember the reports of Best Buy being blacklisted by Apple. Followed by statements (at least from Best Buy) stating that they have a wonderful relationship, yada, yada, yada. So with the upcoming promotion I decided to show up at my local Best Buy and basically say, "Ok, so where's my iPad? Weekly flyer all but guaranteed there would be at least a couple of each model available." Problem is they don't. But what really infuriates me is that according to the inventory manager they actually did receive five black 64 GB iPad 2's, only to have them yanked by Apple with zero explanation. When I asked him about the whole "blacklist" thing, he said it was ABSOLUTELY TRUE. So basically because Apple got their knickers in a bunch they f'd over a ton of loyal customers. If they are such control freaks and soooo worried about customer experience, why in the hell would they punish the end users?
Up until this product release, I have enjoyed fantastic customer service and a great buying experience . . . when buying directly from Apple. In fact I'd say it's been better than great, it's been phenomenal (a model every company could learn from). But this nearly five week drama is getting really old, and has really taken the "magic" (to use an oft used Apple adjective) out of this purchase for me.
Best Buy charges $0.99 more than retail for Apple products.
Couple that with Apple charging only state sales tax (no local tax) on mail orders and you're much better off buying from Apple on line.
Not sure what state you live in, but here for shipments to New York Apple (and other online merchants) charge the full sales tax -- including but the state and local taxes.
Let me start by saying I would normally make an Apple purchase directly from Apple. In the case of the iPad 2 I thought I'd use Best Buy gift cards. What a mistake.
Remember the reports of Best Buy being blacklisted by Apple. Followed by statements (at least from Best Buy) stating that they have a wonderful relationship, yada, yada, yada. So with the upcoming promotion I decided to show up at my local Best Buy and basically say, "Ok, so where's my iPad? Weekly flyer all but guaranteed there would be at least a couple of each model available." Problem is they don't. But what really infuriates me is that according to the inventory manager they actually did receive five black 64 GB iPad 2's, only to have them yanked by Apple with zero explanation. When I asked him about the whole "blacklist" thing, he said it was ABSOLUTELY TRUE. So basically because Apple got their knickers in a bunch they f'd over a ton of loyal customers. If they are such control freaks and soooo worried about customer experience, why in the hell would they punish the end users?
Up until this product release, I have enjoyed fantastic customer service and a great buying experience . . . when buying directly from Apple. In fact I'd say it's been better than great, it's been phenomenal (a model every company could learn from). But this nearly five week drama is getting really old, and has really taken the "magic" (to use an oft used Apple adjective) out of this purchase for me.
This whole post strikes me as highly implausible. Why would Best Buy go ahead and run their flyer if Apple had pulled all their iPads? And the "blacklist" thing was supposed to have happened over a week ago, so it's not like they couldn't stop the presses.
Will Best Buy offer discounts?
No ... nor there any freebees ... Actually Best Buy had to redistribute its iPad2 inventory throughout 1100 stores to better met pre-paid back orders. Today they re-opened their back order process in order to help customers get their products faster if possible. Thats it folks.
iPad2 is the hot selling product and the demand is very high as you all know. The Promotion is just having stock to sell. There are 18 models and it is tough to met so much variety in inventory management. Even though the White Model is nice (I have one ... only because I couldn't get black). In my mind of 40 years in sales, I would have gone the Ford route. You can have any color you want as long as it is black. Black color only would have enabled half the packaging differences ... most of the inventory differences... and black is really great in this instance.
That's it folks ... back to work or grumbling or what ever turns you on.
Best Buy often lists other Apple products in its flyers even when there is no discount offered.
Will Best Buy offer discounts? If not there is nothing special about the offer. Since people already are willing to line up at a store with inventory, what real incentive would Best Buy give? People can order iPads online at the Apple web site if there isn't any discount.
Maybe Best Buy is just doing this to draw in customers in the hope that they will buy other things while they're there and disappointed.