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Amazon sells out of the NES Classic Edition in less than a minute

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Re: Amazon sells out of the NES Classic Edition in less than a minute

#231

Post by ticviking »

dom0 wrote: post #227
hrrsn wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our local auction site here in New Zealand, TradeMe, does that. Any bid in the last 2 minutes resets the clock to 2 minutes. Works pretty well for the seller, as prices tend to jump dramatically in these two minutes.

There is also at least one auction site with a similar business model that is practically a legal scam; bids cost money/points, and every bid increases the price by a fixed amount and extend the clock. Non-successful bids aren't paid back, of course.

There are actually some good arguments for a cost to bid system.

In theory it encourages people to bid their true preferences rather than waste time sniping.

Re: Amazon sells out of the NES Classic Edition in less than a minute

#232

Post by eridius »

nommm-nommm wrote: post #202
eridius wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't just take any product, mark it up 10x, and call it a luxury good. People would laugh at you and buy the regular one. A luxury good has to have some reason to justify its luxury status. In this particular case, the $60 NES Classic is already a luxury good. Marking it up 10x doesn't make it more of a luxury good, it just either means people who actually want to use the damn thing can't afford to, or must pay…

Um isn't that exactly what designer purses and clothes are? A $300 pair of jeans doesn't cost 100x more to make than a $30 pair of jeans.

A $300 pair of jeans also isn't indistinguishable from a $30 pair. And you're talking fashion here, where the value is derived from the associated brand. That's not at all the case with people buying up a $60 item and reselling it for $600. They are providing literally no value at all to the buyer.

Re: Amazon sells out of the NES Classic Edition in less than a minute

#233

Post by nilved »

typicalrunt wrote: post #2

I grok capitalism and even like it. But there are times where it is difficult to like it. In this case, people rushed to buy this product for the sole purpose of reselling it for 8x. What's wrong with our society that some people can be so morally bankrupt and bereft of good sense. In the end, I think these scalpers won't sell for 8x because anintendo will just pump out more product. Still, it is sad to see this happ…

It might not have seemed that way in writing, but in reading your post is contradictory. If the motivation for a person to do this is lost on you, you don't grok capitalism; and if that bothers you, you don't like capitalism.

Re: Amazon sells out of the NES Classic Edition in less than a minute

#234

Post by hh2222 »

dgemm wrote: post #112
a_bonobo wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Australia, the NES Classic Edition came out on Thursday - the physical copies at Target etc. too were sold out in minutes, too. Some of the Facebook comments said that their local shop only got a few boxes which were gone mmediately: https://www.facebook.com/NintendoAUNZ/videos/714922218664914... As usual, Nintendo doesn't get their customers and is completely unprepared.

I think they know exactly what they're doing. Selling out in minutes causes news stories, and here we are.

This customer exploitation pattern is so common there should be an acronym for it.

Re: Amazon sells out of the NES Classic Edition in less than a minute

#235

Post by moyta »

simonh wrote: post #160
dgemm wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they know exactly what they're doing. Selling out in minutes causes news stories, and here we are.

Suppose they contract with the manufacturer to set up 10 production lines to meet initial demand, what happens when demand drops in the New a Year and 'everyon' forgets these exist? They'll have to decommission most of the lines, which also has a cost. Also if they over-supply the initial surge of demand even a little, they could be stuck with months worth of tail end sales. Then what do they do? Decommission all the…

Have you looked at the teardown of what this product actually is? Its using a very cheap Allwinner chip inside a plastic case, a similar board can be had for $7[1]. I highly doubt Nintendo is producing much in house, they probably have PCB manufacturing and final assembly outsourced, there isn't much to this device[2] physically.

[1] - https://liliputing.com/2016/11/orange-pi-zero-7-quad-core-de...

[2] - http://www.cnx-software.com/2016/11/08/nintendo-nes-classic-...

Re: Amazon sells out of the NES Classic Edition in less than a minute

#236

Post by michaelbuddy »

It'd be one thing if the product just came out, had a lot of media fanfare and sold out due to low volume. I mean that's reality right. But the fact that it appeared in weekly ads for stores all over the country. It's really expectation that hurts the most.

That's just causing hassle, distrust. Retail employees probably don't lke to get 50 extra calls a day for a product that will be in stock for 14 seconds. If I were a regional mgr I'd put VERY heavy pressure on corporate for say Target to NOT show ads for this product until reasonable levels of stock are guaranteed. Targets around the country got about 11 units. The one I went to only had 1 spare controller. Keep in mind that a good portion of the NES games are co-op.

There are 1800 target stores in the U.S. If they all got 11 units that means there were only 19,000 units for that store. I heard gamestops got about 5. Walmarts got about 6 units each.

So 6 units to walmarts 5229 stores is about 31375 unit. Gamestops 4,434 stores at 5 units each get 21700

Who knows what amazon stocked at. Would it be reasonable to say amazon got 10000 units? I mean they sold out in a minute. Maybe it was less than that.

So those totals add up to 82,075 units. Let's round up, not forgetting the Best Buys, Microcenters, mom-pop shops and The 800 Toys R Us stores in the U.S. and say the United States got maybe 112,000 units total for the release.

Re: Amazon sells out of the NES Classic Edition in less than a minute

#237

Post by dom0 »

ticviking wrote: post #231
dom0 wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is also at least one auction site with a similar business model that is practically a legal scam; bids cost money/points, and every bid increases the price by a fixed amount and extend the clock. Non-successful bids aren't paid back, of course.

There are actually some good arguments for a cost to bid system. In theory it encourages people to bid their true preferences rather than waste time sniping.

Personally I find sniping quite enjoyable (as an idle-activity), but I also consider "recon" part of it (finding mislabelled or less widely known items that get the same job done usually results in huge effective discounts).

Re: Amazon sells out of the NES Classic Edition in less than a minute

#238

Post by sogen »

oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #185
sogen wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually what really happens is that store managers have to decide what to stock in May, seven months before Xmas. Source: I was manager at a large store.

The NES classic was announced in July, though. Would retailers have been given some advance notice under an NDA, or is this an exception?

The retailers are flown to this place and treated like kids in a candy store, so they need to interact, feel, and try all new products, because a bad investment in inventory (too low or too high) will affect the store.

My best guess is that they are shown a working prototype, but for a company this huge (and protective) I don't know.

Re: Amazon sells out of the NES Classic Edition in less than a minute

#239

Post by wsc981 »

pjlegato wrote: post #139
IgorPartola wrote: post #25

Sounds like Nintendo, along with a bunch of other companies, need to take a page out of USSR's book. The way it worked there is that you put your name on the list to buy, say, a car. And when the car is actually manufactured, you get to buy it. Big product launches like this could really benefit from a system like that. I know some places already do this: x.ai comes to mind. They even had a thing where you could move…

The way it worked in the USSR was actually more like: you put your name on the list to buy a car. The local party boss' cousin wants a car, too, and he doesn't have to wait on the list, he gets the car that's being manufactured. And the factory director's brother wants a car, too. And his nephew. And the guy he is trading cars to for steel to make more cars. And that guy's cousin wants a car, too. All these people ge…

It's not really related, but it reminds me of this joke about buying cars in the USSR as told by Ronald Reagan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLW7r4o2_Ow

Re: Amazon sells out of the NES Classic Edition in less than a minute

#240

Post by NetStrikeForce »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #3

Clearly thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of gamers were sitting on the product page hammering the F5 key and some random selection thereof got their wish. I highly doubt that. My guess is that third party resellers used bots to purchase them all. Why wouldn't tc come to the same conclusion? Edit. yep here's one on eBay for $500+: http://m.ebay.com/itm/New-Nintendo-NES-Classic-Edition-Conso...

That's the answer.

Actually Amazon itself has listing from 3rd party sellers at crazy prices.

I was tempted to buy one, even at ~£70. Then I looked at my desk and saw my Rapsberry Pi with this case http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/3D-Printed-NES-inspired-Raspberry-... and a USB NES control replica and decided to forget about the mini NES.

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