“Nearly two months after its official launch, Apple Watch is now available at the company’s retail stores,” Daisuke Wakabayashi reports for The Wall Street Journal.
“An Apple spokeswoman said starting Wednesday, customers can walk into an Apple Store and purchase the device in the nine countries where it’s available, including the United States, Canada, Japan and China,” Wakabayashi reports. “Customers also can buy or reserve watches online and pick them up in stores.”
“Until now, the watch was only available through Apple’s website, a move Apple said it took because of limited supplies,” Wakabayashi reports. “That took some of the buzz out of Apple’s first all-new product in five years, eliminating the scenes of long lines.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Besides the lack of lines outside stores, did the protracted delay, by itself, also kill off some Apple Watch buzz? Yes, it did. Let’s see if Apple can reclaim it.
For early adopters, this has been the weirdest, longest, loneliest Apple product launch ever.
It’s available in stores unless it’s unavailable. I looked at the availability for the Apple Store in my state and we are one of the unlucky ones.
I think they had to do the launch the way they did because there was no way to predict the mix of model orders without the online only system. Now that they have a 9 week history of the order mix, they can catch up to store delivery production quantities without creating too many of the wrong model.
Apple sold every single Apple Watch they could build in the first two months. So why would they need to “reclaim” any “buzz”?
They would need in terms of long-term interest.
Apple will still require a month or two from now before meeting demand. But after that, Apple will be able to sell as much Watch as people would want.
But because Apple Watch was barely available within the first two-four months, a lot of people could not buy, and hearing about the issues with supplies, did not even try.
So yes, the “buzz” moment was lost for many people. After couple of months from now, Apple will have to deliver the message that, finally, all Apple Watch versions are on actual sale.
They don’t. I wouldn’t be surprised if this is all part of the plan. Look, we’re all still talking about Apple Watch. My interest hasn’t waned. I suspect there’s lots more pent up demand.
Alaska, Hawaii, California, Oregon, Washington, Arizona, and Nevada are the only states to get watches at this time. The rest of us in reasonable time zones aren’t in on the fun yet.
I agree about the lack of buzz. I’ve been to two Apple Stores in Florida and there was almost no one even looking at the display watches, much less trying one on.
Once all the fanboys and girls have theirs, Apple’s challenge will be to convince the average iPhone owner they need to drop some serious coin on a watch.
Serious coin? $399 plus $49 AppleCare Plus and sales tax hardly totals “serious coin”. You could easily panhandle that much money in a month. WATCH SPORT is the least expensive computer Apple sells. Even less than a Mac mini refurb.💥😱⌚️😨🎉😜😃👌🏻
This would be a problem IF Apple Watch sales were driven by “buzz.” For many products, initial sales are ALL that matter. After a few months, no one cares. Apple products have strong initial sales, and continue to have high sales indefinitely.
In fact, there will be a second round of “buzz” after WatchOS 2 is released. Everything that comes before is more like preparation and general knowledge gathering for Apple Watch’s first holiday shopping season. That’s when Apple wants to sell most of the Apple Watches during Year One, AFTER WatchOS 2 is released AND Apple knows the proper ratio of watch models to mass produce.
Look at iPod. For the first few years, it was a product designed for Mac users only. It wasn’t until the 4th gen iPod that Windows users were invited to the party (as equals), and then the floodgates opened on iPod sales AFTER Apple learned how to make exceptional media players at a lower cost. iPhone initially had a much higher price tag. Apple then lowered the price (giving early adopters Apple Store credit on the difference), and sales increased dramatically AFTER Apple’s “dress rehearsal” for entering the mobile phone market.
For Apple Watch, the mechanism to intentionally limit initial sales was not stocking physical stores with tens of millions in unsold inventory before launch. Instead, customers ordered online only (then waited) and Apple produced pre-sold units to precisely match demand (gathering data for future production).
Zactly!💥
Not the only one….the new MacBook is still saying a month to get it not matter which configuration you choose.