As I planned to purchase an iPhone 4s I first called my regular Mobistar dealer:
DEALER: -”Hello sir. Of the 30 phone calls we receive daily at our shop, 28 are about the availability of the iPhone…. Well, we have no iPhone 4s in stock, but we will receive a shipment next Friday.”
ME: -”Great, can you put one aside for me?”
-”I’m afraid not, sir. There is a waiting list of dozens of people.”
-”So how many units will u receive next Friday?”
-”2 (two)”
Then I called Vandenborre:
-”we have no iPhone 4s in stock, but you can order one.”
-”What is the delivery term?”
-”We expect 3 weeks”
Then I called another telco dealer, Sonal:
-”Unfortunately we have no iPhones 4 s in stock. However if you give me your business card I will call you whenever we have one available.”
-”Any idea when?”
-”We have absolutely no idea if and when we will receive a delivery”
So, you might conclude Apple’s logistics is really lousy. I don’t even think Apple really cares about marketshare on the short term. In my idea, they are just applying a brilliant logistics concept: to artificially create scarcity by making sure that unsufficient iPhones are delivered at unpredictable times in too few outlets.
Apple’s strategy is probably contrary to the Samsung’s of this world, that you can find by dozens of models and hundreds of units in every shop.
But it’s stronger than me: i’m ready to wait a long time and pay way too mich money for a device everyone else also wants to have but can’t get… That’s the effect of scarcity. Apple may not care about day to day marketshare, I think they know very well how to keep their margins high.
Posted by Patrick Dalle