Marketnews: Future Shop/Best Buy Gears Up for Gaming
Who would have thought that a new product could cause such mass consumer hysteria?
Who indeed? Certainly nobody who happened to work for Sony during the run-up to Playstation2's launch in the year 2000. *cough*
Future Shop and Best Buy are bringing out the troops to handle what will likely be their biggest product launches of the year. The night before each console’s respective launch date, the number of units to be available at that location will be posted on the store’s front doors. Each store location will have no fewer than 10 PS3 units; and between 15 and 60 Wiis. A limited amount of both will also be purchasable online at www.futureshop.ca.
On the day of reckoning, unlucky morning shift employees will arive two hours prior to store opening (8 a.m. on Friday for all locations; and varying from province to province on Sunday for the Wii) to distribute tickets to those in line on a first come, first serve basis.
As a veteran of more Boxing Day Gong Shows in the retail trenches than I care to admit to, I can imagine all too well the carnage that the management and staff at both banners will have to oversee.
One of my good friends, who is a senior executive with Future Shop confided in me that the stock situation for Friday was "grim." He went on to say "On Thursday, we will be running ads in all the major daily newspapers, explaining the situation, and asking for understanding and forbearance from our customers."
Oh my.
When I asked another contact who *cough* is a *cough* account manager for Sony Canada (really, I don't hold it against him) how bad it was going to be, his response (on condition of anonymity) was "Bad. Real bad. Thank God I'm not in that division!"
Well, I think that's enough schadenfreude for one night. I will continue to report on this story with glee regular updates.
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
Playstation Madness: It's gonna be a crummy weekend to work at Best Buy and Future Shop
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1 comment:
I would think that by comparison Boxing Day sales would be easier because you really did have stock, apart from the somewhat limited door crashers. On Friday CE stores are going to be disappointment central. I hope all the stores have some means of placating unhappy people, such as offering them a place in a virtual line for the next shipment. The manufacturers' approach is either rampant incompetence (and disregard for their own bottom line) or gross arrogance (captive market so how badly it is served does not matter).
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