Nexus 4 oversold, Google places many on back order
droid-life.com
droid-life.com
It doesn't really matter as a consumer. However, many people are interested in the industry as a whole and there's a lot of armchair analysis put forth that the Nexus 4's sold out status puts it in the same league as the iphone and galaxy s lines, the only phones anyone ever seems to hear hard figures on.
Also, it's different the waiting in line at an Appletore. I wanted to buy a N10 but didn't expected to have it in hand the very same day. You're kind of comparing if I may say, apple and oranges.
That said, if it's a stunt, it half failed because newspaper talks about the N4 but not about the N10.
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.
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.)
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.
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.
Whether or not they have world-class supply chain, fulfillment, and retailing people is far from sure - in fact evidence suggests they do not.
Heck, up until not so long ago, Google didn't even have a very good design team.
Google's competencies are surprisingly narrow.
Having worked at Amazon before I'll say this: retailing is really, really hard, and it takes a lot more than being smart. It takes years of experience. People who try to go toe to toe with Amazon don't often realize this.
(disclaimer: i am a search engineer at Google)
Every interaction I've had with buying physical goods from Play was far more painful than my average online buying experience, even when buying items that are readily available. Once you place a Play order for hardware it basically goes into a black hole where you're never quite sure if the order was actually processed or not and you usually get no indication from Google of the actual status until after the device arrives at your doorstop. Attempts to get information about the order results in robo-emails that manage to appear even stupider than your average "reading from a script" custom service drone. If you keep replying to these robo-emails, sometimes a real person will email you like 2 days later, but not always. Using the phone is nearly as bad, the whole system is clearly designed to stop your from ever talking to a real human, and while I understand the cost reasons for doing this, as a customer it totally sucks, especially compared to companies like Amazon and Newegg who totally nail this stuff (IME).
Play customer service is just busted from top to bottom and woe unto anyone for whom the default process doesn't operate as expected the first time. I love Google for many things but I hate buying hardware from them.
How long do we give Google the benefit of the doubt? How long do we let them off the hook? This isn't their first phone or device launch.
They know how to sell product by now.
edit: I mean, they said 'Sold Out', then after a few hours apparently they allowed more people to buy. I wonder if anyone is getting a phone within the original time span, or if they're buying time at this point.
While I didn't buy a Nexus 4 I did buy a Nexus 10 and it was plagued with the same ordering issues. I spent over 40 minutes refreshing the page to try to get my order in. Much of the time it just reverted to the "Coming Soon"; even when I got it added to the cart it kept failing over and over when trying to confirm the transaction. Yet my tablet was shipped today.
I think it's telling that now wallet.google.com is talking about "building a smarter wallet." I think they've realized they really screwed up. It would be nice though for them to just come out and say it and apologize for the really horrible buying experience. Especially for those Nexus 4 buyers that now have to wait after already being charged.
Something that ought to stop is folks blaming the buyers without realizing that having to refresh the page 20-50 times was the only way to get an order through for many if not most people.
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?
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.
"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.
Note that they probably cannot use the intercept to deliver to a new address if they are requesting signature authorization/etc
I also ordered a 32GB Nexus 10.. I wonder if this will impact the delivery of that item as well :S
Does that mean that we're getting free shipping for our backordered phones?
My drug of choice might not be here on Saturday. :(
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.
Will Google return money for 2 day shipping? :)
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.
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.