[SeanSolo]

Amazon didn't buy many either but you better believe they will double up on the reorder.

[kvndoom]

LOL, it amazes me that some people just completely disregards logistics when they expect companies to "just do it" lol.

Well if that theory is true, we'll know by how fast they get back in stock. Because logistically speaking it would only take a few days at most to get more to Best Buy/Amazon to be able to sell online.

Prove me wrong next week. I like it when I'm wrong; at least if I'm wrong people will be able to get their phones that they want.

[slagman5]

Well if that theory is true, we'll know by how fast they get back in stock. Because logistically speaking it would only take a few days at most to get more to Best Buy/Amazon to be able to sell online.

Prove me wrong next week. I like it when I'm wrong; at least if I'm wrong people will be able to get their phones that they want.

I never said that was the reason. I'm not a CB psychic, we have enough of those here. I also don't work for them, so no inside information. My comment was directed at a conversation chain where they were discussing that possibility and someone said for them to "simply" sell it direct from their store in the mean-time... Whether that actually is the reason? Who the heck knows...

[u4ria]

Do they sell phones direct? If not, you think it's that easy to just start selling phones direct? It's just a click of a button right? lol

Imagine a BlackBerry Mobile Dash Button. Just one click of a button and boom, phone is ordered and sent to your door!! Amazon & BlackBerry Mobile are already partners so I can't see why not? Maybe that's what Steve's working on to alleviate all the problems.

[goku_vegeta]

That's hard to conclude when one doesn't know what the stock level actually was.

I'm guessing "non-existent" would be a pretty good guess lol

[rwcrwfrd]

TCL learning curve and incompetence.

Posted via Blackberry® Classic SQC-100 / 10.3.3.1463

[Bbnivende]

I'm in Europe, so maybe not 20.000 cities, but maybe 10.000?
The European shopping sites, since many weeks now, have been showing K1 stock just for minutes, if at all, before they went out of stock again (maybe the UK as an exception).

When checking for all other phone brands, including 'smaller' ones like HTC, Huawei, Sony etc., why is it that I can see stock of almost all of their phones, almost everywhere? Even the most recent phones, that were launched very recently?

I got my K1 yesterday evening, and when I returned it today morning, because it was defective, they were out of stock already, and could not replace it. And there were NO hundreds of people queueing up in front of the store to purchase all their K1s. So they just had very few.

My opinion still stands: very messed up launch. I hope no technical or design issues, but bad planning 'only'.

I am kind of concerned with reports here of defective units. Smells PRIV to me.

Posted via CB10

[gnirkatto]

Please read more carefully. I haven't said a word about how the launch has went. I am making that one comment directed at the people who claim they've only made 500 devices or some ridiculous thing like that... The others you see everywhere, they're everywhere because there are literally hundreds of thousands to over a million of those devices built. BB Mobile would be dumb if they produced that many phone in the state the name BB is in now. It'll be the Z10 all over again. They definitely didn't have enough for launch, but there's definitely more than just a few hundred units is my point.

And I haven't said a word on how many (500?) they built. I just said, a ridiculously low number. To me this is quite obvious, based upon the last months when basically only a handful of people could get a K1 into their hands.

This might be normal, for the beginning a carefully planned release, in order to not over-stock, but not now, many weeks or even months after a so called 'launch'. There must be other reasons.

By the way, I asked the dealer that I got my K1 from (that I returned), how many they got. He checked, and said 10 (!) units - which were of course sold out in minutes (I wonder how I even got one). They cover a market of roughly 100m people here in Europe, which probably makes them one of the biggest retailers. They usually sell loads of phones and other gadgets, and they usually are under the first retailers to offer new products.

And they get 10.

[Gajja]

They usually sell loads of phones and other gadgets, and they usually are under the first retailers to offer new products.

And they get 10.

...started by having ten in stock. ...no doubt more will come when the initial ten get sold.

[gnirkatto]

...started by having ten in stock. ...no doubt more will come when the initial ten get sold.

I think this is what I stated earlier: I could not get a replacement for my defective unit, just a few hours after I purchased it, because the initial 10 were sold. Internally they believe to get the next batch in the 2nd half of june.
Yes, no doubt, more will come. When?

[bb10adopter111]

Because logistically speaking it would only take a few days at most to get more to Best Buy/Amazon to be able to sell online.

Shipping electronics from Shanghai to Los Angeles (the shortest route from China to the US market) is typically a 20 day trip, with product spending a few days on the docks on either end. Then the product has to clear customs and be transported to a distribution center.

From there, pallets are repacked onto multiple trucks for transportation to the retailers' distribution centers, where the pallets are broken down into eaches, then repacked with other items for distribution to stores. Once at the stores it can take another day or two to inventory, price, and display the product.

Shipping directly from the port (after clearing customs) to Amazon's distribution centers is faster, but Amazon still has to distribute across the country to its fulfillment centers.

Total transit time from factory to retailer is typically 45-60 days.

With air freight you can save the 18-19 days, at a much higher expense.

If the problem is late distribution, and there is already a large supply of phones in the US that has cleared customs, we should see more inventory next week.

If the supply is on a ship, we're looking a 2-4 weeks.

If the supply is ready to ship from China, it's 2-3 weeks by air, 6-8 weeks by sea before the product makes it to retailers.

If the bottleneck is production, we'll likely not see the KEYone is large quantities before the fall.

Posted with my trusty Z10

[ltoncb]

Well if that theory is true, we'll know by how fast they get back in stock. Because logistically speaking it would only take a few days at most to get more to Best Buy/Amazon to be able to sell online.

In addition to the reply 1 post above that points out the reality of shipping product from factories and just how "only take a few days" is disconnected from the actual logistics, the global product roll out is still going on.

So initially the KeyOne went on sale in UK. Demand outstripped supply. Before they caught up with UK they rolled out to Germany. Before catching up to those two they added two more ( USA and Canada). The UK/Germany outlets have been 'leaking' into the rest of EU market, but those other EU countries are coming online in next weeks (e.g., France. ) .

The point is not only do they have to get the long logistics train to get more phones to the USA. ... they are also are shipping to more places than before from the factory. That is only going to thin out and dilute the supply to individual terminating countries all the more. There is a limit to how long they can try to keep the markets segmented with a gradual worldwide roll out, before "speculators" start buying up significant chunks and moving them cross borders for high mark-ups.

It isn't like there is a dial on the factory where can just change it from 10K/week to 100K/week and more just magically appears off of the Oompa Loompa driven production line. ( upstream from the factory there are supplier logistics also. )

[bb10adopter111]

In addition to the reply 1 post above that points out the reality of shipping product from factories and just how "only take a few days" is disconnected from the actual logistics, the global product roll out is still going on.

So initially the KeyOne went on sale in UK. Demand outstripped supply. Before they caught up with UK they rolled out to Germany. Before catching up to those two they added two more ( USA and Canada). The UK/Germany outlets have been 'leaking' into the rest of EU market, but those other EU countries are coming online in next weeks (e.g., France. ) .

The point is not only do they have to get the long logistics train to get more phones to the USA. ... they are also are shipping to more places than before from the factory. That is only going to thin out and dilute the supply to individual terminating countries all the more. There is a limit to how long they can try to keep the markets segmented with a gradual worldwide roll out, before "speculators" start buying up significant chunks and moving them cross borders for high mark-ups.

It isn't like there is a dial on the factory where can just change it from 10K/week to 100K/week and more just magically appears off of the Oompa Loompa driven production line. ( upstream from the factory there are supplier logistics also. )

Speaking of Oompa Loompas, the typical consumer response to the reality of supply chain complexity is the same as Veruca Salt's, "But I want it NOWWWW!"

Posted with my trusty Z10

[slagman5]

And I haven't said a word on how many (500?) they built. I just said, a ridiculously low number. To me this is quite obvious, based upon the last months when basically only a handful of people could get a K1 into their hands.

This might be normal, for the beginning a carefully planned release, in order to not over-stock, but not now, many weeks or even months after a so called 'launch'. There must be other reasons.

By the way, I asked the dealer that I got my K1 from (that I returned), how many they got. He checked, and said 10 (!) units - which were of course sold out in minutes (I wonder how I even got one). They cover a market of roughly 100m people here in Europe, which probably makes them one of the biggest retailers. They usually sell loads of phones and other gadgets, and they usually are under the first retailers to offer new products.

And they get 10.

So why did you reply to my comment if you never said anything about that? My comment was directed at those who have been making claims of ridiculous numbers of units sold...

And I did look back to see why you felt it was directed toward you, and it's likely because I made that reply after one of your comments? Well, sorry for the confusion, but no, it wasn't directed at you, my comment was a general one for those who have made comments on the number of units made and sold. I typically would quote someone if I am replying directly to them. Again, sorry for the confusion, I just so happened to post that comment right after you posted yours, but it wasn't a comment directed specifically to you. Hope this clears that up...

[slagman5]

Speaking of Oompa Loompas, the typical consumer response to the reality of supply chain complexity is the same as Veruca Salt's, "But I want it NOWWWW!"

Posted with my trusty Z10

Both of you, stahp!! Too much info, let's just stick with how angry we are, mmmkay?

[bb10adopter111]

Both of you, stahp!! Too much info, let's just stick with how angry we are, mmmkay?

Nah, that's what Twitter is for. The funny thing is I'm actually building a number of supply chain models for work, and running simulations on them. So I would REALLY like to know what's actually going on with BlackBerry Mobile.

What we need is actual, independent reporting but the only people in a great position to do that are now being sponsored by BlackBerry Mobile.

CBK or Bla1ze, can you score an interview with a Senior ops person at BlackBerry Mobile to get us some facts about their demand assumptions and manufacturing challenges? Not a negative piece, just details that would help us understand the reality of what they're working with.

Posted with my trusty Z10

[anon(5364777)]

Its quality issue. Just look at the amount of phones released compared to faulty basic to major screen coming off issues.

[qwerty4ever]

Shipping electronics from Shanghai to Los Angeles (the shortest route from China to the US market) is typically a 20 day trip, with product spending a few days on the docks on either end. Then the product has to clear customs and be transported to a distribution center.

From there, pallets are repacked onto multiple trucks for transportation to the retailers' distribution centers, where the pallets are broken down into eaches, then repacked with other items for distribution to stores. Once at the stores it can take another day or two to inventory, price, and display the product.

Shipping directly from the port (after clearing customs) to Amazon's distribution centers is faster, but Amazon still has to distribute across the country to its fulfillment centers.

Total transit time from factory to retailer is typically 45-60 days.

With air freight you can save the 18-19 days, at a much higher expense.

If the problem is late distribution, and there is already a large supply of phones in the US that has cleared customs, we should see more inventory next week.

If the supply is on a ship, we're looking a 2-4 weeks.

If the supply is ready to ship from China, it's 2-3 weeks by air, 6-8 weeks by sea before the product makes it to retailers.

If the bottleneck is production, we'll likely not see the KEYone is large quantities before the fall.

Posted with my trusty Z10

Solution: manufacture the BlackBerry KEYone in North America instead of a brutal, communist country.

[conite]

Solution: manufacture the BlackBerry KEYone in North America instead of a brutal, communist country.

So, $1500 for KEYᵒⁿᵉ?

[AllanQuatermain]

Add a '4. drops signal', for me, please.

yes 4 drops signal for me too

[bb10adopter111]

Solution: manufacture the BlackBerry KEYone in North America instead of a brutal, communist country.

Obviously the price would go up substantially, but you're absolutely correct that the level of service (LOS) would improve. This is the trade off that supply chain professionals make all the time. Unfortunately, Android mobile phones have become increasingly commoditized, and there is no indication that large numbers of consumers would be willing to pay more to avoid stocks outs.

Posted with my trusty Z10

[crucial bbq]

...and now come the conspiracy theories!! So predictable.

Posted with my trusty Z10

Not conspiracy, just an opinion.

[stlabrat]

So, $1500 for KEYᵒⁿᵉ?

Not sure about that, 1. Each return will possibly eat your 5-10 units profit plus brand damage. 2. If you can get large volume batch, instead of small one like we saw in UK, the overhead per batch will go down significantly. (set up cost, line qualifications) . 3. Reduce shipping cost and import duty. That is why major company set up shop in each continent, even just the final assembly. The sub assembly is taxed at much lower rate than the full handsets. (just look at BMW, Toyota. All setting up shop in North America (not sure if nafta.got canned will be impact the practice.. it might impact more on Mexico than US).
Besides, bb did MFG in NA before, with current volume of NA consumer market, possibly more than 50% of total K1 in demand, it make sense to put it in the backyard.
Posted via CB10

[conite]

with current volume of NA consumer market, possibly more than 50% of total K1 in demand, it make sense to put it in the backyard.
Posted via CB10

If it made sense, TCL, and many others, would do it in a heartbeat. The fact is, it's not even close.

DTEK60 / Z30

[kvndoom]

You guys are so funny. Amazon lets you preorder just about anything. I can go on there right now and preorder stuff that won't be released anywhere from next week till next year. If TCL was struggling to gauge demand, this would have been a perfect metric to go by. Preorders could have gone up in March or April, showing the estimated delivery date. With the launch so close, the bulk of preorders will be front-loaded, with a steady trickle increase afterwards. At some point TCL asks Amazon how many phones they think they need to fill preorders, then pad those numbers a little for expected additional preorders and impulse sales, then put them on the slow ship from China.

Instead they offered "pre-registration" on their website, which apparently notified customers the day phone was available to buy, even though that news was known about a week sooner. Useless.

This was a supply issue, not a demand issue. Nobody's going to convince me that they made and have enough to meet everyone's demand but weren't sure how many to ship to the US.