New 4GB iPod nano fetches over $350 on eBay
With Apple Computer now showing signs that it will fall far short of meeting overall holiday demand for the 4GB iPod nano, consumers eager to obtain the ultra-slim digital music player in time for Christmas have shown a willingness to pay over $350 (or 40-percent above retail).
In an eBay auction that ended just before noon on Wednesday, a brand new 4GB iPod sold for an eye-popping $355 -- $106 above its $249 manufacturer suggested retail price. Several similar 4GB iPod nano auctions remained open with bids near and over $300, suggesting they will also close near the $350 range.
The online bidding battle is heating up amongst reports that Apple has told some of its partners and authorized resellers that it cannot guarantee that new or recently filed orders for the 4GB nano will ship in time for Christmas. Similarly, the company has raised lead times on its own online store to 1 to 2 weeks for the 4GB model. The 2GB iPod nano remains available for shipment in 1 to 2 business days.
Consumers looking for a 4GB nano before Christmas will likely have better luck swinging by the closest Apple retail store -- outlets the company appears to be favoring, with new shipments arriving throughout the week in some locations.
All but one of a dozen Apple retail stores contacted on Tuesday afternoon said they had stock of both the black and white 2GB nano. Approximately 60-percent of the stores also showed inventory of the 4GB nano in black. However, none of the stores contacted were able to turn up a 4GB nano in white.
Those consumers who are not within driving distance to an Apple retail store may have the toughest time filling gift lists that include a 4GB nano. Major online retailers Amazon.com, Best Buy, Circuit City, and CDW have been sold out of the players for weeks.
Individual Apple Authorized Resellers, not designated as "Specialists," are fairing no better, with Apple's largest US-based channel distributor recently showing backlog (unprocessed orders) of almost 200,000 iPods, including nearly 100,000 nanos.
Optimistically, sources say Apple had hoped to ship between 10 and 12 million iPod nanos this quarter, but recently toned-down its internal forecast amidst component supply issues. Once such obstacle reportedly involved a shortage of a the Cypress chip used in the nano and video iPod's Apple-designed click-wheel.
As a result, Apple has reportedly mended ties with its old click-wheel supplier Synaptics, asking the company to act as a second click-wheel component supplier for nano production beginning December 15th and onward. Although Synaptic would not confirm that it is producing parts for iPods again, sources say the Synaptic's recent ramp orders to manufacturing facilities in Asia are "too large to be from any client other than Apple."
With the necessary measures being put in place to improve production, Apple representatives have begun to tell iPod resellers not to fret, and that they'll be plenty of iPod nanos to go around come January. Unfortunately for those resellers, the big bucks come before Christmas.
Analysts now expect Apple to sell between 9 million and 11.4 million iPods during the three-month period ending December 31st, which would also include sales of fifth-generation video iPods and iPod shuffles.
In an eBay auction that ended just before noon on Wednesday, a brand new 4GB iPod sold for an eye-popping $355 -- $106 above its $249 manufacturer suggested retail price. Several similar 4GB iPod nano auctions remained open with bids near and over $300, suggesting they will also close near the $350 range.
The online bidding battle is heating up amongst reports that Apple has told some of its partners and authorized resellers that it cannot guarantee that new or recently filed orders for the 4GB nano will ship in time for Christmas. Similarly, the company has raised lead times on its own online store to 1 to 2 weeks for the 4GB model. The 2GB iPod nano remains available for shipment in 1 to 2 business days.
Consumers looking for a 4GB nano before Christmas will likely have better luck swinging by the closest Apple retail store -- outlets the company appears to be favoring, with new shipments arriving throughout the week in some locations.
All but one of a dozen Apple retail stores contacted on Tuesday afternoon said they had stock of both the black and white 2GB nano. Approximately 60-percent of the stores also showed inventory of the 4GB nano in black. However, none of the stores contacted were able to turn up a 4GB nano in white.
Those consumers who are not within driving distance to an Apple retail store may have the toughest time filling gift lists that include a 4GB nano. Major online retailers Amazon.com, Best Buy, Circuit City, and CDW have been sold out of the players for weeks.
Individual Apple Authorized Resellers, not designated as "Specialists," are fairing no better, with Apple's largest US-based channel distributor recently showing backlog (unprocessed orders) of almost 200,000 iPods, including nearly 100,000 nanos.
Optimistically, sources say Apple had hoped to ship between 10 and 12 million iPod nanos this quarter, but recently toned-down its internal forecast amidst component supply issues. Once such obstacle reportedly involved a shortage of a the Cypress chip used in the nano and video iPod's Apple-designed click-wheel.
As a result, Apple has reportedly mended ties with its old click-wheel supplier Synaptics, asking the company to act as a second click-wheel component supplier for nano production beginning December 15th and onward. Although Synaptic would not confirm that it is producing parts for iPods again, sources say the Synaptic's recent ramp orders to manufacturing facilities in Asia are "too large to be from any client other than Apple."
With the necessary measures being put in place to improve production, Apple representatives have begun to tell iPod resellers not to fret, and that they'll be plenty of iPod nanos to go around come January. Unfortunately for those resellers, the big bucks come before Christmas.
Analysts now expect Apple to sell between 9 million and 11.4 million iPods during the three-month period ending December 31st, which would also include sales of fifth-generation video iPods and iPod shuffles.
Comments
Originally posted by Booga
This is a huge, huge problem for Apple. Every customer they lose is essentially locked out of the iPod once they invest in Rhapsody or another online music store. And forcing people to buy Creative MP3 players because they can't make enough is a good way to lose market share really fast. Let's hope Apple can find a way to ship these things before the market share starts eroding. It would be ironic for Apple's advertising to drive sales of Creative players because there's nothing else to buy.
Not entirely. I think, for the most part, people will wait until January and probably end up getting a gift certificate or something similar just because they want the Apple name and the Apple fashion.
Originally posted by Booga
This is a huge, huge problem for Apple. Every customer they lose is essentially locked out of the iPod once they invest in Rhapsody or another online music store. And forcing people to buy Creative MP3 players because they can't make enough is a good way to lose market share really fast.
Not really. First of all, right now it's driving customers to Apple's own stores and the online store, which is actually a good thing for Apple. Secondly, scarcity of the resource adds to its fame. Having a gadget that everyone has isn't nearly as cool as having one that's hard to come by.
This shortage has cost me way more than the value of an iPod today (see the stock price). Oh boy. But in the long run, it won't have that big of an impact.
This is great for Apple. They may miss some sales this Christmas because of supply, but the buzz is cementing the iPod nano as a must-have product. I hope Apple sticks with the nano form factor for a while and add colors and larger storage over the next six months or a year.
The nano is about a small as an iPod can be and still be operated one-handed without breaking your thumb, so there's not much of a reason to continue trying to make it smaller and thinner.
Believe me, I love this site, but if you want to be considered a legitimate news source of an kind, maybe have someone proofread your stories before posting them. This article has so many typos. I've gotten articles from here by way of Google News... a little more precision would make this site look more credible.
Originally posted by SAukland
Is this late breaking news? By reading this article, it almost seems that AppleInsider jotted this down as quickly as they could to shove it onto the internet.
Believe me, I love this site, but if you want to be considered a legitimate news source of an kind, maybe have someone proofread your stories before posting them. This article has so many typos. I've gotten articles from here by way of Google News... a little more precision would make this site look more credible.
Have you read the NYT or WSJ recently? Everyone makes typos.
So, the lady has had to call about 70 people who pre-ordered last month to let them know their loved ones won't be getting any iJoy from them.
Originally posted by SAukland
Is this late breaking news? By reading this article, it almost seems that AppleInsider jotted this down as quickly as they could to shove it onto the internet.
Believe me, I love this site, but if you want to be considered a legitimate news source of an kind, maybe have someone proofread your stories before posting them. This article has so many typos. I've gotten articles from here by way of Google News... a little more precision would make this site look more credible.
Check yourself a bit mate. On any given major website, CNN.com and Foxnews.com for examples, you will find major and minor typo's in almost every story published. It may not be cool, but that is online journalism as it stands today and really isn't that big of a compromise.
Originally posted by krankerz
Not entirely. I think, for the most part, people will wait until January and probably end up getting a gift certificate or something similar just because they want the Apple name and the Apple fashion.
I think exactly the opposite. While people who post here would probably wait, no one else I know who isn't already an Apple fan would. The Creative Zen plays MP3s (ripped or stolen MP3s still constitutes almost all music put on these devices) and looks and costs similar enough.
And the story is probably different around Christmas, as people would rather give a gift than wait until January and give an IOU for Christmas. The Mom buying for the kid isn't going to care THAT much about brand, and the S.O. is more likely to just buy TWO non-Apple ones so they both have the same kind.
If Apple can't build them fast enough, it's going to cost them market share. And considering the lock-in nature of DRM, each loss will more than likely be permanent.
>>>Gates and Jobs To Face Off Over Online Music
Bill Gates and Steve Jobs appeared to be heading towards a new showdown as Gates's Microsoft Corp. said Tuesday that it will join up with MTV Networks to launch a new online music service next year that will compete directly against Apple's iTunes Music Store. The announcement brought to mind the original battle between Jobs, a co-founder of Apple Computer, and Gates in the mid-1980s, when Microsoft took the lead in providing graphical computer systems for the masses. Microsoft and MTV said their new service will be called Urge and will offer both Ã* la carte and subscription pricing. It will not only provide standard music downloads, but music videos from MTV's vast library.<<<
As far as I know, MTV does NOT own the rights to music videos, they own the rights to their own shows.
Your comments please.
What MTV brings to the table is cachet.
Now if the MTV site embraced the iPod in some way that'd be another story and Apple wouldn't care since you'd still be buying an iPod. Don't hold your breath.
Originally posted by Xool
Now if the MTV site embraced the iPod in some way that'd be another story and Apple wouldn't care since you'd still be buying an iPod. Don't hold your breath.
MS would never allow that.
Originally posted by Xool
What MTV brings to the table is cachet.
How so? MTV brings imho nothing except a brand. Now iTunes is THE brand. Watch iTunes hook up with BET and then we will see something interesting. MTV is sooo 1980.
More to this post point is that if a item is fetching a price so much higher than its retail value then I think the christmas of 2005 will be the high point of the iPod brand.
I fucking hate the fact that I was walking down the street when I was stopped my a dude who told me how cool the iPod was yet hated apple. Sometimes i liked better when apple as still a bit obscure... Yet at the same time if a few thousand idiots want to pay for apple to grow stronger to keep releasing awesome COMPUTERS in into that.
God, I love working with people.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/12...photo_auction/