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Palm Pre Lines at Stores: phone shortage

Palm Pre Lines at Stores: phone shortage

By: Daniel Chubb | June 7, 2009 | 9 Comments

We knew a few days ago that the Palm Pre would be in short supply at Sprint stores, and today people who went to get the new Palm phone confirmed this.

Its hard to see how low Palm Pre stocks would benefit the consumer, there must be a game plan here somewhere.

This is what one person had to say after lining up for a Palm Pre – There were long lines at my store. People showed up hours before the store opened and I showed up just 10 minutes before the store opened and there was at least 50 people in line.

Within half an hour one of the sprint reps said that there were more people on the list than Palm Pres in the store. He highlighted the sign in list and anyone below the highlighted line was cut off because of the inventory shortage.

I was 3 lines below that highlighted line. I counted the number of people below the highlighted line and there was 17, I watched only 3 people walk out of the store with a Palm Pre before that and I was watching the door all the time. So, there were only 20 Palm Pres in my store.

Oh well better luck next time on opening day. I guess things on the manufacturing side are a bit of a struggle right now, but to Palm and Sprint credit they did an outstanding job on this device and I was really impressed with the demo display units in the store.”

Did you try and get a Palm Pre on release day, if so let us know how it was at your local store?

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  • Chris

    Really…only 3 given to the local Best Buy! Seems silly to me to claim this phone as a savior and then come drastically short of meeting its demand. I understand the business side of keeping people on the edge of their seat and keeping the buzz on this phone as long as possible, but to continually let down your consumer is never a positive.

    Sprint has had many opportunities over the past 2 years to impress their customers and entice others. The Instinct came out as a hot product, but fizzled due to the lack of crisp functionality and its regressive smartphone model to those already on the market. They then came out with the next generation, S30, and they actually downgraded from the previous model save the look. Now, with the cell phone world holding its breath, they come up tens of thousands, maybe hundreds, short of meeting demand. With the technology world the way it is why wait to get your hands on a Pre. By the time they meet demand iPhone or Blackberry or Google will have taken the ideas and created a better product. If the phone doesn’t start finding its way into the stores they might as well just cancel the oreders and buy stock in one of their competitors.

  • Irene H Moss

    My Sprint store is a regional store. I showed up 1 1/2 hors early and there were 5 people in line. I was no 6. By the time the store opened at 8:00am there were 25 people in line. I have to say Sprint and the Palm rep did an outstanding job moving the line. Both the Pre Advocate and the Palm rep answered all of my questions. I was lucky enough to be taken care of by yhe Pre Advocate himself – very helful andknowledgeable young man! By the way, I am typing this from my new Palm Pre! It is awesome, and everything I read it would be! I love the keyboard much better than tha the Treos I have had. Oh, the Pre advocate told me that the store got 84 Pres! So everyone in the morning line got one!

  • Jim

    I showed up 15 minutes before opening and was the first one there! I got the first one in idaho and had the store to myself right up to the time I left!

  • Jerry Robins

    I went to my local Sprint store around 6:45 in Thousand Oaks, CA and I found my self 16th in line. About 7 am the Sprint store manager looked over the line and told us there should no problem having enough Palm Pre’s in stock for all of us. About 7:30 the store manager came over to explain how the day would work. We were told the store had 40 phones in all with 3 held back for potential defective phones. He handed out cards to everyone and even told us we could back anytime that day to claim the phone. The store manager then stayed out with us to answer any questions and let us play with his new Palm Pre. The store opened promptly at 8 and they let us 8 people at a time. I was able to get in around 8:30 and left by 9 am. My complements to the manager and the way the Store handled the traffic. I found it very smooth with very few glitches. They ran out Touchstone charging kits. I apparently got the last one. All in all kudos to Sprint, my Sprint store and the store manager. What could have been a very difficult process turned out to go quite smoothly.

  • Merv

    My wife and I went to the sprint store on Peachtree in Atlanta, GA Saturday morning. We arrived a quarter to eight since the store was to open at 8 AM. To my surprise the store was already open with about 10-15 people being served. The process was smooth and all of us geeks got to chat about how excited we were getting the pres’. My wife and I both got one and man it’s been 28 hours of pure fun! The phone definitely met all my expectations– great job!

  • http://www.mensfashiondeals.com Men’s Fashion Deals

    From all the reports I’ve heard opening day was relatively quiet. I’ve also heard that there were not going to be many phones avaliable either. It will be interesting to see what happens in the long run. I’m surprised there was a bit more of a response… seeing how much buzz there was about this phone.

  • James

    In NYC, I arrived at the Flatiron store at 8:05, left with my phone at 9:20. There were 200 phones at this store. Mine was #86.

  • Nick

    Take it easy iPhone fan…I love how the only negative reviews I’m seeing are coming from people who don’t actually have the phone. Other than the limited number of people experienceing screen problems (three people that I’ve seen) there are only positive reviews from actual pre users.

  • Liz

    I live in El Paso, TX. I arrived at 9:40 on launch day. I was the last person in line to be promised a phone. Long story short, it’s now Wednesday evening, I still am without my Palm Pre. I called one store on Tuesday, and was told that they received only 5 Pres that day and just sold the last one. I think it’s ridiculous to make all this hype and not meet the demands of Sprint’s customer base. What ever happened to “customer service.” Oh yeah, it died along side of chivalry.