DrEvil

Guys and gals,

Now, for legal reasons I'm gonna be careful..

But on good authority I have been informed that a certain item that was in great demand for Xmas (selling for 2 to 3 times its RRP privately) had X thousand units held back to create a false shortage/demand, by the manufacturing giant that produced it...

Hence several thousand units were sitting in a warehouse in the UK... note now that you can actually order one and expect it within a few weeks...

Personally, I think this is an outrage...

Alex

Bajie

You're probably right.
But doesn't this sort of thing happen all the time with "flavour of the month" type items.

DrEvil

Very true.. this was apparently something like 2/3 of the shipment went to stores, 1/3 got held back..

AWD

That would explain why they are turning up in all the shops now. It saddens me when they feel that they have to behave like this.

chambjj

doesn't anyone work in marketing???
The guy that thought this up is probally the toast of the company, all that publicity. News at Ten, auctions.......etc.

Give the man a gold star

Bajie

I'm sure there are a lot of consumers out there who would love to give him a ninja star!

GranTurismo

I have a slightly different opinion, however I dont think that what you have suggested is not a posibillity.

why would they hold back a product that they can sell in bucket loads. I know that it has created headlines, but not that many headlines. In fact the competition as had a very very good christmas becuase people have opted for them becuase they dont want to wait.

All the official comments about the new stock from Dixons etc have impied a certain ammount of frustration at the lack of units for sale.

After all whats the point in using cunning marketing for a product that you cant buy.

DrEvil

GT - although I accept what your saying.. the above is insider information... for sake of argument..

30000 units shipped to the UK
20000 units distributed
10000 units in storage

The above figures are not accurate, the number of units that never hit the streets (until now) was a large portion of the total number shipped. Now to a degree you can say X number of spares put aside to replace any possible DOA units... but the numbers I was told could not be justified this way.

It is a great marketing ploy though.. pushed the resell value higher than the RRP.. and publicity was huge too.. Perhaps the P1 would have benefitted from this (i own a P1 before anyone flames me)..

I will end up with one of the units sooner or later.. later judging by other comments I heard on 3rd party support for them.

Fink that is enuff cats out of my bag..

GranTurismo

Oh well..

Dave T-S

DrE
So Tesco's luxury christmas puddings are still out of stock???

DavidRB

Thing is, Sony missed out on the extra cash made by people who ordered them in advance and then sold them on for £500+. Shows how much people want(ed) them.

As Sony had already suffered from recalls, they may have been hedging their bets on the UK market.

Personally, I think it was a total disaster, but a lot of it was driven by manufacturing shortages. Chances are, after those 10,000 had gone, there simply weren't <I>any</I> spares left.

&lt;Devil's Advocate&gt;
If Sony only wants to ship 20,000 units when the market demand is probably nearer 200,000, then that's up to them.
&lt;/Devil's Advocate&gt;

Who knows, but whatever happened, Sega sold a lot more Dreamcasts than they could have ever hoped.

DrEvil

GT - Sorry hope my post didnt come accross badly... just stating some facts I'd been told...

Dave TS - damn rumbled Wait a minute bet that was your fault... don't you eat a lot of puddings or pies or something

DaveRB - have no idea what you are talking about

sunilp

I cant see why Sony would want to do this. After all, if the product sells at a premium then they do not share in this surplus profit, however they do lose the extra std profit on every box they dont sell.

Doesnt make sense to me, its not like a swiss watch or the like where restricting supply aids the brand goodwill and maintains residuals etc.

Sunil

Dave T-S

DrE
They don't call me Fat Ba5tard T-S for nothing....

AllanB

This is fairly common in IT with manufacturers falling margins meaning they make smaller amounts of stock so dealers do not trash the margins of the products and start price wars to devalue the product in question, now how this affects the manufacturers isn't toally clear but most feel if the margins drop too low people will actively sell against the products....err Dreamcast anyone ??

What this shortage of PS/2 seems to have done is to allow Sony to make more money on software titles by restricting supply to the resellers who will sell you a PS/2 if you buy a bundle with some games giving Sony more money.

AllanB

AllanB

This is fairly common in IT with manufacturers falling margins meaning they make smaller amounts of stock so dealers do not trash the margins of the products and start price wars to devalue the product in question, now how this affects the manufacturers isn't toally clear but most feel if the margins drop too low people will actively sell against the products....err Dreamcast anyone ??

What this shortage of PS/2 seems to have done is to allow Sony to make more money on software titles by restricting supply to the resellers who will sell you a PS/2 if you buy a bundle with some games giving Sony more money.

AllanB

ian/555

I ordered a PS2 from Comet direct yesterday for £299 and £3.99 for delivery, it should be delivered on Monday.

If you are after a PS2 give them a ring first as it might save you from searching the High St stores.

Call them on 0845 600 7002

Dario

GT3 - WOW, METAL GEAR2 - WOW, F1 2001 - WOW!

GranTurismo

DrE No offence Taken!

I know that companies do weird things and manipulate circumstances, but I also know about rumor and conspiracy theory.

The fact that I got mine from Currys yesterday without any hassle does tend to back up your point!

Cheers,

AWD

GrandTourismo

How much are Curries selling them for? £299?

AWD

Sorry - ignore that last question. Just read your response on another thread to the same question.

DrEvil

GT - I know what you mean, I wouldnt have believed it, had it not been for where the info came from..

Dave T-S - LOL So this would explain your fight with gravity whilst climbing ladders

AWD - Drink more coffee, I'm on my tenth this morning!!

Dario

Well if they had a lot of surplus stock - they hid it well as none was showing up on the stock lists - and we didn't nearly get our PS2 Christmas presents in time for Christmas.
My friend who is a broker in Japan commented on the Sony stock falling due to loss of sales because of the low stock.

Regards

Dario

AWD

mmmm.... coffee

DrEvil

Dario,

From what i know of the PS2, sony have had problems with s/w support as the platform isnt the easiest of systems to write stuff for... and what with the Xmas 'rush' to get titles out, the quality of said titles is in dispute..

Reports suggest that the poor s/w line up have caused sales to suffer abroad as well...

I think I'll be waiting for them to update the h/w and f/w so that DVD playback is better, until then I won't be parting with my cash...

It is potentially a great machine, but I have yet to see (as is normal with new h/w) anything that really makes me go 'wow' on it.. and from other threads here, people seem to be a little unimpressed with certain aspects of the machine.

I hope they listen to their customer base and deal with the DVD probs and maintain the high standard of games (not all admittedly) they have got on the PSOne...

Rgds, Alex

JoeyDeacon

I bet all the people who paid hundreds of pounds extra just to get one before christmas are a bit annoyed that you can just walk into Dixons and buy them now!!

I would buy one except none of the games released so far make me want to buy the machine just to play them.

Bet in a few months once sales have started to calm down abit they reduce the price. Remember the Playstation and Nintendo 64 were both £249.99 when they were both released and dropped in price pretty soon after.

Dave T-S

DrE
LOL

It wasn't a fight with gravity on the ladder, gravity won hands down (literally, ouch, pardon pun and pain recall)

Mossman

Hello all,

I am in marketing and I think it is common practice, especially in this kind of market, to do this kind of things. Think of the other examples - Rolex Explorer II's and Cosmographs - they could make loads more but don't.

Tends to be frowned upon by the general public but you are probably right about the PS2 Product Manager getting a pat on the back! Remember that a premium price and low supply often = HUGE demand!

Cheers,

Jon
(pharmaceutical Marketing!)

GranTurismo

Mossman...

I dont disagree with you becuase we all know it happens, but what is the point of creating a demand you cant (or wont) fulfill???

Afterall you only get revenue from what you sell, not demand? Surley if 10,000 people want things and you sell 10,000 units thats the same money in the bank as 100,000000 people wanting things and only letting 10,000 people buy them.

I know the difference with luxuary goods is that scarcity equals value (diamonds, truffels vintage plonk etc) but not with consumer electronics, where you want to create a big demand and then satisfy it?


Also with certain items the more people have them the more they become valuable (not expensive). For instance 3 years ago an internet email account was not that usefull becuase there were nto many people you could email, but now..

The smae appys to DVD players etc becuase the manufacturers need consumer acceptance in order for retailers to stock titels in order for the format to be a sccess?????

Anyway like I said I know you are correct in saying what you said but I think its wierd!

Bye,

Dave