Microsoft..Nintendo..did you take notes????

[bluefox9er]

Congratulations, Apple on a fabulous international product launch for the iPad.

Whilst there are those who will argue long into the night ( and then some) about the merits of the iPad ( I love my 64gb wifi version), the point is, on launch date the vast *majority* of people who actually *wanted* an iPad actually got ONE....

a far, far, far cry from the retarded marketing strategy to deliberately short supply the product for as long as possible as pathetically demonstrated by Microsoft and Nintendo for their xbox360 and wii consoles respectively...( and by Canon following it's launch of it's 5dmkII camera which was still unavailable 9 months post launch)

Not gonna see any 16gb iPads on eBay going for a buy it now price of £1000, Apple has made sure if anyone is selling iPads, it's them and if anyone wants one, they can get one from THEM.

there might well be those who didn't get their iPad on launch day for whatever reason, but I am gonna wager they wont have to wait months or better part of a year to get one....

 

[Chupa Chupa]

What is retarded is that people think companies use "short supply" as a marketing strategy. It's not. It's just poor demand calculations and logistics. Companies want to sell as many units as they can. They also don't want a warehouse of unsold merchandise. The object of the game is to book sales on the balance sheet. You can't do that when you sell vaporware or product is getting moldy in storage. When you see a shortage of a product its because someone screwed up, not because someone successfully executed a marketing plan.

 

[NoSmokingBandit]

What is retarded is that people think companies use "short supply" as a marketing strategy.

What? You mean its better for a company when they sell more products? Thats amazing!

 

[Chupa Chupa]

What? You mean its better for a company when they sell more products? Thats amazing!

I know. I was confounded myself when I learned this. I previous assumed companies existed to add "color" to the inside of stadiums and subways. I had noooo idea.

 

[bluefox9er]

What is retarded is that people think companies use "short supply" as a marketing strategy. It's not. It's just poor demand calculations and logistics. Companies want to sell as many units as they can. They also don't want a warehouse of unsold merchandise. The object of the game is to book sales on the balance sheet. You can't do that when you sell vaporware or product is getting moldy in storage. When you see a shortage of a product its because someone screwed up, not because someone successfully executed a marketing plan.

errr...no. what is retarded is not knowing the difference between manipulating supply chain from forecasted demands and current market trends.
Microsoft and Ninentdo do not hire 10 year olds to do their business forecasting for flagship products.

The knew *exactly* what the demand for their product was..they just wanted to whip up the hysteria so non purchasers and fence sitters would want to buy one too as it is so rare to have one...effectively making the product vapourware .

 

[Tulipone]

errr...no. what is retarded is not knowing the difference between manipulating supply chain from forecasted demands and current market trends.
Microsoft and Ninentdo do not hire 10 year olds to do their business forecasting for flagship products.

The knew *exactly* what the demand for their product was..they just wanted to whip up the hysteria so non purchasers and fence sitters would want to buy one too as it is so rare to have one...effectively making the product vapourware .

I imagine that they thought that knew what demand their product would have. Until it hits the shelves, it is a guess. A big iPhone? What would anyone want one of those for?

 

[GoCubsGo]

While the OP may be right he is only half right, if even that. I don't think Apple anticipated the shortage as it was. They likely anticipated some shortage but what it turned out to be doesn't feel all that anticipated.

 

[Chupa Chupa]

errr...no. what is retarded is not knowing the difference between manipulating supply chain from forecasted demands and current market trends.
Microsoft and Ninentdo do not hire 10 year olds to do their business forecasting for flagship products.

The knew *exactly* what the demand for their product was..they just wanted to whip up the hysteria so non purchasers and fence sitters would want to buy one too as it is so rare to have one...effectively making the product vapourware .

OK, you go on believing that while you stare with pride at your online MBA.

BTW if your theory was valid it would hold true for any moderated selling product. But it doesn't which is why its not used as a valid marketing strategy anymore than states use russian roulette to carry out a death penalty.

 

[bluefox9er]

OK, you go on believing that while you stare with pride at your online MBA.

BTW if your theory was valid it would hold true for any moderated selling product. But it doesn't which is why its not used as a valid marketing strategy anymore than states use russian roulette to carry out a death penalty.

I don't have an MBA..you don't need one to figure out why they deliberately manipulated supply chains. those that WANTED an xbox360 purchased one eventually..as did those who wanted a wii..but they HAD to wait for it...as did those who had no intention of buying one whatsoever.

 

[JMax1]

Hopefully the MBAs will be refreshed at the WWDC next week. Then we might all want an MBA. Although I think this is the wrong area to be talking about macbook airs...

 

[gdeputy]

I don't have an MBA..you don't need one to figure out why they deliberately manipulated supply chains. those that WANTED an xbox360 purchased one eventually..as did those who wanted a wii..but they HAD to wait for it...as did those who had no intention of buying one whatsoever.

I can assure you microsoft didn't purposely have a shortage of xbox 360s. They rushed their product out the door, it was lack of internals that cause that shortage nothing to do with manipulating the supply chain. It was the first next gen console by over a year, there was absolutely no need to manipulate anything it would have sold even more if the resources were there

 

[skubish]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_1_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7E18 Safari/528.16)

What is retarded is that people think companies use "short supply" as a marketing strategy. It's not. It's just poor demand calculations and logistics. Companies want to sell as many units as they can. They also don't want a warehouse of unsold merchandise. The object of the game is to book sales on the balance sheet. You can't do that when you sell vaporware or product is getting moldy in storage. When you see a shortage of a product its because someone screwed up, not because someone successfully executed a marketing plan.

+1

anyone who thinks otherwise is terribly ignorant of business and supply chain management. Companies don't make business plans based on the initial launch rush.

 

[GFLPraxis]

What is retarded is that people think companies use "short supply" as a marketing strategy. It's not. It's just poor demand calculations and logistics. Companies want to sell as many units as they can. They also don't want a warehouse of unsold merchandise. The object of the game is to book sales on the balance sheet. You can't do that when you sell vaporware or product is getting moldy in storage. When you see a shortage of a product its because someone screwed up, not because someone successfully executed a marketing plan.

We're conditioned by the media to see conspiracies in everything.
It's all part of their plan.

 

[dukebound85]

I don't have an MBA..you don't need one to figure out why they deliberately manipulated supply chains. those that WANTED an xbox360 purchased one eventually..as did those who wanted a wii..but they HAD to wait for it...as did those who had no intention of buying one whatsoever.

tell me why companies would want delayed sales over sales at the moment

your stance has NO logic behind it.....maybe it would if Nintendo and co would have sold the units for WELL above what they were selling for in stores but the fact remains that the wiis today cost the same as when they launched for th most part minus modest price drops due to cheaper components and moves by MS and SONY

The fact that they did not sell them for the "demand price" makes your point moot

 

[NoSmokingBandit]

I can see Steve and the rest of his crew sitting at a long oval table...

Steve: How can we sell as few iPads as possible?

Elvis: Lets only make a handful, that way its not physically possible to sell many!

Jimi Hendrix: But wont that cut into the profits? Like wouldnt we make more money if we sell more?

Steve: **** you, you are fired.

Elvis: Yeaaaah.


Silly me, its all about minimizing profit... No wonder my lemonade stand couldnt keep up with demand.

 

[Zazoh]

There is something to be said about creating hype around a product. And, as someone pointed out, it creates demand that becomes newsworthy and in effect, something to talk about and that drives further demand.

Wether it is planed or not, companies benefit from hyped demand.

Do I think it is a business model, no, at least not at first. But if you can't keep supply exactly even, you're better off being in the hole when you are offering a product that is exclusive, otherwise the other guy gets the business.

There are also profit thresholds. So If I make a profit selling 1000 widgets, it may cost me more to sell 1500 because then I need more staff, more trucks etc. And, I would have to outlay more capital for storage and distribution.

Business is alot of science, but also some luck.

 

[qtx43]

I don't have an MBA..you don't need one to figure out why they deliberately manipulated supply chains. those that WANTED an xbox360 purchased one eventually..as did those who wanted a wii..but they HAD to wait for it...as did those who had no intention of buying one whatsoever.

I wanted a Wii. I didn't see one in a store for so long, I lost interest, I moved on, I decided to play other games on my PC (yes, I own a Windows PC too). Count me as a lost sale.

 

[richpjr]

Congratulations, Apple on a fabulous international product launch for the iPad.

Whilst there are those who will argue long into the night ( and then some) about the merits of the iPad ( I love my 64gb wifi version), the point is, on launch date the vast *majority* of people who actually *wanted* an iPad actually got ONE....

a far, far, far cry from the retarded marketing strategy to deliberately short supply the product for as long as possible as pathetically demonstrated by Microsoft and Nintendo for their xbox360 and wii consoles respectively...( and by Canon following it's launch of it's 5dmkII camera which was still unavailable 9 months post launch)

Not gonna see any 16gb iPads on eBay going for a buy it now price of £1000, Apple has made sure if anyone is selling iPads, it's them and if anyone wants one, they can get one from THEM.

there might well be those who didn't get their iPad on launch day for whatever reason, but I am gonna wager they wont have to wait months or better part of a year to get one....

This, in a nutshell, shows the classic example of a zealot fanboy. If Apple experiences the EXACT same shortage as Microsoft, Nintendo or any other company, somehow it is sheer brilliance. But all those other companies are utterly incompetent - LMAO.

 

[Jaro65]

What is retarded is that people think companies use "short supply" as a marketing strategy. It's not.

In most cases you're definitely correct. Not many companies can do that. However, there are companies that have very successfully created allure for their products by limiting the market supply. If used right, this is in fact a very effective marketing strategy. Just look what it did for De Beers, which is used as a prime example for this type of strategy in marketing classes.

 

[The Mad Kiwi]

If used right, this is in fact a very effective marketing strategy. Just look what it did for De Beers, which is used as a prime example for this type of strategy in marketing classes.

De Beers are a near monoply and use limited supply to control the price of diamonds, not the demand, it's not a marketing strategy it's price manipulation.

Electronics companies don't have to use supply to control the price as they set the price themselves, so therefore they have no advantage to limiting supply.

Supply issues of new electronics has way more to do with manufacturing scaling. You can't produce more goods than you have components, and you don't want to commit to a new manufacturing plants (or contracts) unless you can sell all the goods coming off the assembly line. The last thing companies need is to be building warehouses to house unsold goods or components. In an ideal supply chain they come off the line and go directly to the final purchaser, like when you order from Apple online.

 

[The Mad Kiwi]

the point is, on launch date the vast *majority* of people who actually *wanted* an iPad actually got ONE....

a far, far, far cry from the retarded marketing strategy to deliberately short supply the product for as long as possible as pathetically demonstrated by Microsoft and Nintendo for their xbox360 and wii consoles respectively...( and by Canon following it's launch of it's 5dmkII camera which was still unavailable 9 months post launch)

Apple are struggling big time to keep up with demand, they're running about 3 weeks behind (online delivery times including weekends) given they sold 2 million in 60 days that means they're about 750 000 units short of current demand and they've only been available for 2 months, this situation ain't gonna get better soon, it's not like foxconn can just build another factory and hire 50000 people overnight.

Canon have a different problem for the 5dmkII, they just can't make enough sensors due to the poor yield rate on manufacture, Sony/Nikon have the same poor yield problems with the sensors on their top line cameras. It's not marketing, they just can't make enough top end sensors.

 

[Jaro65]

De Beers are a near monoply and use limited supply to control the price of diamonds, not the demand, it's not a marketing strategy it's price manipulation.

Electronics companies don't have to use supply to control the price as they set the price themselves, so therefore they have no advantage to limiting supply.

Supply issues of new electronics has way more to do with manufacturing scaling. You can't produce more goods than you have components, and you don't want to commit to a new manufacturing plants (or contracts) unless you can sell all the goods coming off the assembly line. The last thing companies need is to be building warehouses to house unsold goods or components. In an ideal supply chain they come off the line and go directly to the final purchaser, like when you order from Apple online.

Actually, De Beers are controlling the supply. The diamonds are not nearly as limited as we are made to believe. There was a fantastic documentary made about that which I saw maybe 3 years ago, or so. While I completely agree with you in regards to the electronics manufacturers, the documentary showed an amazing quantity of diamonds stored in an underground storage facility. Diamonds are a total scam. The way we look at them is the result of one of the best executed marketing strategies in a modern corporate history.