While it may be difficult for Apple Store employees to keep their cool while rabid iPad fans are camped outside waiting for the latest shipment of the next-generation tablet, the Cupertino, Calif. company is telling their retail locations to keep calm and hold onto the new shipments for a day.
The request is part of a new tactic Apple reportedly has undertaken after assessing the first weekend of iPad 2 sales where the new product quickly flew off the shelf. The goal is to provide Apple Stores a chance to “calmly and accurately” handle new supplies – even if it requires telling customers a “little white lie.”
Although talk of new iPad 2 shipments are making their way to consumers, “a person familiar” with Apple’s retail plans says the tech giant believes its retail staff can tell a “little white lie.” Instead of informing customers about the day-previous shipment, retailers are given the okay to say the iPad 2s are instead fresh off today’s delivery truck, one Apple news site is reporting Wednesday.
Additionally, Apple is considering changing its online inventory reporting to prevent news items suggesting the company is four to five weeks behind on iPad 2 shipments.
The new strategy comes amid numerous reports of lengthy online waits for the tablet, as well as concern by some analysts Apple may have difficulty meeting demand.
Ed Sutherland is a veteran technology journalist who first heard of Apple when they grew on trees, Yahoo was run out of a Stanford dorm and Google was an unknown upstart. Since then, Sutherland has covered the whole technology landscape, concentrating on tracking the trends and figuring out the finances of large (and small) technology companies.
21 responses to “Report: Apple Approves ‘Little White Lies’ As Part of New iPad 2 Inventory Strategy”
Stocking and shipping merchandise has a cost and people should realize that APPL is just trying to get as many online orders as possible…why ? because they ship from china directly to your home cutting all extra cost in between, that saves them $$$$$$….
The store front lines are very positive to the strategy…people see it as 1 – great product, everyone wants it….2 – Extremely hard to get one and both will lead to more online sales…
smart uh ? That’s why their profits are going higher.
I showed up at an Apple store in Portland yesterday and was told there were no iPads in stock (shocking, I know) and that they weren’t expected to receive shipment until the following morning. As I walked out, I happened to see a UPS truck pull up and offload several boxes which were brought into the Apple Store. When the UPS delivery person came out, he told me that they were indeed iPads, but that the Apple Store would be unlikely to sell them until the following day.
I took this with a grain of salt, because I know of no way that the UPS driver could know beyond the shadow of a doubt what was in the shipping packages, let along be privy to the managerial policies of the Apple Store itself, but his comments provide corroboration to this article. I went back in the store after speaking with the UPS employee and asked again if the shipment I just witnessed coming in included iPads. The employees stuck to the party line of “we are not expecting to receive shipments until tonight. Please call tomorrow morning to see if we have stock.”
Make of this what you will, it doesn’t change the fact that getting an iPad right now is darn difficult! I suppose I’ll have to sit and wait for my online order to arrive…
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz………..
Oh, was that a news story? I fell asleep for a minute. Wake me when you talk about something interesting.
portland maine?
Just stay asleep, we’ll all be better off for it.
reading these stories, I feel lucky to have my new iPad.
Oregon.
As long as they don’t charge my card before it ships, I’ll wait for the 25th for it to sell here, then just buy on line, and wait for it to ship. If its like the iPhone, then it will still probably get here faster than trying to find it at a dealer (we have no Apple stores in NZ)
It’s just a tablet for cryingoutloud!
As long as they don’t charge my card before it ships, I’ll wait for the 25th for it to sell here, then just buy on line, and wait for it to ship. If its like the iPhone, then it will still probably get here faster than trying to find it at a dealer (we have no Apple stores in NZ)
It’s just a tablet for cryingoutloud!
The only way anyone can claim it is a lie is if you know for a fact that the stores do NOT get their delivery in the morning. And I doubt that anyone can actually say they do know that fact since Apple protects that info very strongly.
And keep in mind that even if the boxes do turn up the day before, we have no idea how much prep has to be done before they can be sold, who can do it or what time they work. It is possible that only a select group can actually receive them into the system, they can’t be sold until they are processed and recorded or that perhaps that person or persons work from 5am to 2 pm and are gone by the time the boxes show up. So maybe while they are physically there, they can’t be sold until the next day when they are ‘delivered’ into the system
I highly doubt that the UPS guy had a clue what was in those boxes. He might have assumed they were ipads and been wrong. At the least he is an idiot and I hope he gets reported and taken off that route. Cause he could have just set himself up for a robbery attempt. and some poor jerk would be stuck with crates of cases while Fed Ex was delivering the ipads at 5pm that afternoon