

Nexus 4 oversold, Google places many on back order - datalus
http://www.droid-life.com/2012/11/15/google-appears-to-have-oversold-the-nexus-4-surprises-customers-with-status-change-backorder-emails/

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andyjsong
If Google sold 1 million vs 30 million would really matter to you as a
consumer? The sales numbers only matter to stockholders, competitors and
analysts. Why is there such a demand to know how much N4s were sold during
launch to the consumer? Aren't we just perpetuating the "sheep mentality"
Android users accuse Apple users of by demanding that we know the sales
numbers during launch to assure that we don't have buyers remorse?

~~~
vidarh
Yes, it matters. The psychological reward of validation of your choices
through group behaviours is very real, and very strong. Call it the "sheep
mentality" as much as you like, but it is just as much the "human mentality" -
popularity is a key indicator for us for the quality of a product, but even
more so it also shapes how happy we are with the product after purchase.

~~~
sixothree
It does matter in real ways too. The Palm Pre may have been an awesome device,
but tell that to the people using it with no community for support and
development.

------
jnky
What irks me the most about this whole ordeal is the utter lack of
communication from a company that prides itself on being open and transparent.

There was no release time, no numbers on the amount of phones after they sold
out way too soon, no excuse for the Play Store and Wallet glitches, and now,
finally, no statement on how they somehow managed to miscount their inventory.
I cannot even fathom how something like this can happen to a company like
Google to begin with.

I'm really disappointed in Google, to say the least.

~~~
stcredzero
_> What irks me the most about this whole ordeal is the utter lack of
communication from a company that prides itself on being open and
transparent._

The amount of suckage with Google's automation-first customer service pattern
and the corporate ossification of the various carriers still leaves an opening
for Apple to exploit. The question is, will Apple remain supple enough to
exploit this, and will the other companies wise up?

(I'm on a 2nd hand Verizon phone bought off ebay, with StraightTalk no-
contract 4G for $45 a month.)

~~~
ImprovedSilence
I've never heard of StraightTalk before, but after checking them out they seem
like that might be a path I want to go down. I'm been shopping around for pay
as you go/ unlocked plans for a bit now, I'm kinda fed up with verizons
offerings. How do you like the plan/ do you get service everywhere/are there
roaming charges?

~~~
stcredzero
So far, no roaming charges. The service seems okay. It's basically AT&T
towers. I may change back to SimpleMobile once their 3G access for iPhone gets
good enough. They're not so uptight about tethering as StraightTalk. (Probably
because of AT&T)

------
overshard
Got my order in a solid 4 hours after the actual release so I'm not that
surprised.

You'd think a company like Google would have a better system for 1.
Preordering and 2. Giving a better estimate for when you'll actually receive
your product.

~~~
wmf
_You'd think a company like Google would have a better system..._

I would think the opposite, since Google is not used to selling physical
products and they've managed to botch every previous Nexus launch in some way.

~~~
rhizome
Except that they have spent over a decade culling the world for the smartest
and most accomplished employees.

~~~
OriginalSyn
Just because you're a genius with search algorithms doesn't mean you know how
to run a successful, physical, product launch

~~~
emmapersky
This. But, not everyone at Google is a search engineer. Many many engineers at
Google work on one of our other products. We should, and probably do, have
experts on online retail scale-ability somewhere

(disclaimer: i am a search engineer at Google)

~~~
OriginalSyn
I was being a little ridiculous but only because rhizome seemed to be implying
that Google shouldn't have hiccups like this because they've been hiring
intelligent people.

~~~
rhizome
Am I supposed to believe that they've been selling cellphones for almost three
years without putting their recruitment strategies toward their fulfillment
chain?

~~~
OriginalSyn
Yes. People fuck up all the time. My employer has been in the eCommerce for
almost 12 years and we still have feature launches that destroy our website.
I'd say I work with some of the brightest people I've ever had the chance to
work with, but we're still just human and we sometimes underestimate demand
and over estimate our hardware. Just because Google is Google doesn't mean
they are infallible, they are perhaps overly arrogant due to their culture.

------
lucian1900
You know that I'd like? To be able to pre-order one _now_. I don't want to
have to keep track of news for when I can buy one (I got the notification
email hours after it was sold out in the UK). I want to give them my money and
have one within a month.

------
YZF
That means it won't be available again for ordering until all those orders are
shipped (> 3wks).

I guess they still have enough to sell for $500 through T-mobile... And enough
to supply the scalpers on eBay. I'm still upset from the errors during the
order window but maybe it's all for the best.

Google is still not making any visible effort to communicate what's happening
to the customers. Very disappointing. Do no evil?

~~~
ok_craig
How is the email not a visible effort to communicate what's happening to the
customers?

~~~
YZF
I signed up to be notified. I tried to buy many times and failed. I lost time
and sleep because Google decided to play all these tricks on us. I never got
an e-mail or any sort of communication. I guess it depends on your definition
of customer but in the physical world when someone goes in a store to purchase
something and talks with the staff I would consider them to meet the
definition of a customer.

EDIT: Let's say you drive to a store knowing a product is going on sale. You
go to a shelf, they have pieces of paper saying take this paper and claim the
product at the register. You take the paper. You queue up, you get to the
register and they tell you tough luck, we have no inventory. Wouldn't you be
annoyed? Then you leave the store to find stalls of people selling the product
for double the price.

This sort of stuff _can_ happen but it would be nice if Google said
_something_ about it. The only thing they told the community is "sold out" and
"check again soon". I was hoping to use this phone while traveling next month
but I'll have to make some other arrangements for a reasonable unlocked phone.

------
flalaw
I am traveling so I had the phone shipped to where I am now. Got the email
about the 3 week delay. Just called them and they said that they can't change
the shipping address due to the "privacy policy." The rep couldn't explain
what that meant, but said I would receive a follow up email. Pathetic customer
service.

~~~
flalaw
Here is the follow up email.

"Unfortunately, we don't have the ability to change a shipping address once an
order has been placed due to security reasons. If the current shipping address
for your order is accessible to you, we recommend leaving it as is and
receiving your package there.

If that won't work for you, we can instead intercept this order immediately
with your consent. You are welcome to update your shipping address in your
Google Wallet account and place a new order.

If you'd like for us to intercept your order, please reply with a message
containing "I Consent"."

Now I get to call back and ask what "intercept" means. Great.

~~~
DannyBee
It means they can tell UPS/whoever to not deliver the package or to return to
sender.
[http://www.ups.com/content/us/en/resources/service/delivery/...](http://www.ups.com/content/us/en/resources/service/delivery/delivery_intercept.html)

Note that they probably _cannot_ use the intercept to deliver to a new address
if they are requesting signature authorization/etc

~~~
ktsmith
What doesn't make sense here is that they can only issue an intercept order on
a purchase that's been back ordered three weeks. In that case they should have
zero problem changing the shipping address. Google really needs to get on top
of their shipping and customer service issues.

------
bjustin
Off-topic, but I think the Nexus 4 is a good opportunity for Mozilla. It will
be sold mostly unlocked, I imagine, and mostly to geeks, so it could be a
great platform for Boot2Gecko. Nice looking, fast hardware for a relatively
low price will make for a good development platform.

------
mladenkovacevic
Still no e-mail for me. But I guess I should be expecting one soon since my
order still says "Pending" in my Wallet account :(

I also ordered a 32GB Nexus 10.. I wonder if this will impact the delivery of
that item as well :S

------
bryanlarsen
<i>We’ll send you a notification when your order has shipped and will credit
the shipping charges.</i>

Does that mean that we're getting free shipping for our backordered phones?

~~~
skeletonjelly
Yes that's exactly what it says.

------
blocke
I managed to get my order in about a minute or two after they became available
on the website but have yet to get a shipping notification.

My drug of choice might not be here on Saturday. :(

------
Steko
In the absence of actual numbers we can look at Google Trends. iPhone 5 is
about double Galaxy S3 and Nexus 4 had been about half of Galaxy S3 for a week
before almost reaching it on Tuesday. It may have peaked though (Wed shows it
falling but that could be an artifact of the weekend/holiday or whatever);
another week should give us a better idea. My guess is it will get swallowed
by the Droid DNA hype train which Verizon will be pushing like crazy.

------
yumraj
Google should start using Yahoo, eBay, Amazon, Shopify etc. for managing their
store and inventory.

~~~
mikelward
This was a clusterfuck, but I'm still sore at Yahoo, when the same thing
happened to me trying to buy world cup tickets. So I dunno if others are any
better?

------
thezoid
I got the email. It's a disappointment, but such is life. I'm in no rush and
now I'll get to enjoy the installation of CM 10 I installed last night a litte
bit longer.

------
beering
And I accidentally ordered multiple Nexus 4 because it wasn't clear if the
system took my order or not. I wonder if their ordering system was hosted on
App Engine.

~~~
paulgb
I'm sure "multiple Nexus 4s" is a problem a lot of us would like to have :)

~~~
beering
It's very possible that they'll get bumped by a few weeks like these other
people here. Still, two lottery tickets is better than one, right?

~~~
bryanlarsen
On the other hand, it's quite possible that they'll bump us multiple orderers
to the bottom of the line, due to the possible perception of abuse. We could
have also been bumped to the bottom because we were given an additional
opportunity to cancel one of our orders because Google thought that one of our
orders may have been an error.

That was the case for me, but rather than cancelling one of the errors, I
offered the phone to a friend who didn't manage to order in time. I hope I
don't regret that decision.

------
fatjokes
I was uber pissed off when I got that email today. I've been eagerly waiting
since day one and was expecting it tomorrow or Monday.

------
laxk
I got the same email 10 minutes ago.

Will Google return money for 2 day shipping? :)

~~~
mikeevans
Yep, the email says "[they] will credit the shipping charges."

------
JOnAgain
Seems like they launched with 1000 units or less. 3 stores in LA got 5 units.
So 15 units for the 2nd largest city in LA? They probably got shipments late,
or manufacturing went behind schedule, but they had a published launch date so
launched even though they weren't ready.

~~~
mkuhn
Do you have some sources?

~~~
skeletonjelly
Can't you read? He said he "seems".

------
drivebyacct2
It seems like Play credit would be an easy way to make this a less sour PR
blip. (Not to say it's the same, I just found out my Nexus 10 order is stucked
pending, needless to say I'd prefer it over Play credit right now).

~~~
timdorr
If you look at the email sent, they're crediting the shipping charges, which
were $13.99. I think that's a pretty good gesture on their part.

That being said, mine shipped out today and should get here Monday. I don't
know why they didn't give the option for overnight shipping or ground service.
Or they should have planned better than having 2 day shipping with a weekend
included, so it's really 4-day shipping.

~~~
darrenkopp
No kidding. At least they are shipping from Kentucky otherwise I'd be even
more upset seeing as how where I live I always get 2 day shipping from
California when it's shipped via ground anyway.

While technically it's still "2-day shipping" since it's always been 2
business days, I wish they would have added Saturday delivery for the ones
that were shipped on Thursday.

Oh well, better to have it shipped than to be one of the unfortunate that got
the back-order email.

~~~
MikeLindner
Shipping air from Kentucky is about the best service you can get since UPS has
their main air hub in Louisville. I actually expected ground shipment since it
said 3-5 days for delivery and was pleasantly surprised to see my Nexus 10
shipped as 2 day air.

