Sprint stores sell out of Palm Pre stock, no resupply for a week!

Will Park

Will hails from The City of Angels - Los Angeles, California. He spends his time playing with his numerous gadgets and looking forward to seeing what future holds for mobile technology. An avid promoter of a fully "digital" life, he promotes the widespread adoption of truly mobile, paper-less living. He dreams of the day when he can go completely digital. No more snail mail, paper receipts, bound books, notepads/spiral notebooks, credit cards, hard currency. He's a digital warrior - fighting for the converged life. He is an idealist and a realist - he has a perfect view of what the world should be but knows that the world is not perfect. Can we ever hope to see Will's dream become reality? We'll see...

• Jeff

  Sure they sold out none of the stores had much inventory. Knoxville TN the best buy had two phones, I was told that the corporate store only had four phones. So I would not call this a success. This was the worst experience for me. I was holding on to Sprint by a thread and pre kept me here for about three months. With this lack of supply and the hype that they put in this phone I am over it. I am headed to switch to am I phone. I will wait for a week and see what the the new apple release is but Sprint you have lost me forever. Two phone and two data cards leaving to another phone service.

• Madison Politico

  No, they didn’t sell out. They just chose to distribute a very small number to hype up the launch of the Palm Pre. They intentionally wanted to sell out. For instance, the Best Buy in my city only had 4 of them. Obviously, within an hour, they were sold out. In some ways, I think this tactic kind of insults consumers. I mean, if you’re going to release it, just release it. Don’t play games. Not a good way to start.

• wlh2

  How is selling out a big deal though? I was 5th in line at a Chicago (city, not ‘burb) Best Buy and did not get one, meaning they had 4 to sell… I’m glad they sold, and hope they do well, but I think your post over exaggerates a touch. Selling 4 or even 10 wouldn’t have been hard to do.

• Jason

  It’s easy to sell out when Best Buy only received 5 PRE phones and no retailers in my area had or even could order the PRE. Sprint is a joke!!!

• Alex

  Selling the meager 30 units at a store doesn’t mean it was an overwhelming success, it points more to under-supply than over-demand. If each store had 200 and it had sold out, that would be different. The Blackberry Storm had a similar reception on launch though and wound up being very successful for Verizon, so the Pre should do very well. If Pre and Sprint are deliberately slow-playing the phone supply, they’re making a mistake. There are a lot of really great phones coming out in the next few months, they need to strike while they have the public’s attention.

• PreMad

  Bro, You need help. We’re waiting for the launch even in Singapore, Malaysia, Australia
  and China. Storm is NOTHING compared to Pre !!!

• AS147

  I am a big Windows mobile user but a very keen Palm Pre fan and I have to say how is less than 60 or so phones in most stores across the US being sold out in the first few hours a roaring success?

  How many phones were sold in the first day ? 2,000?
  Anyone !?

  What makes you think that the folk who did wait outside and didn’t get a phone will come back AFTER the new iPhone gets released??

  Many industry watchers believe that Palm will sell 1 million phones in a quarter ! HOW !???

  Please Palm don’t let your silly PR team cut the momentum of sales due to some silly marketing strategy. It is better to sell to everyone who wants one and have a few left over rather than p*ss people off.

  By the way I am in Australia so I have to wait another 6-12 months on top of the 7 months I have been waiting for this before I get a GSM version. I can tell you this I don’t plan on buying a Pre if I need to camp outside overnight. I might get there early in the morning but I like my bed too much to sit outside in the cold overnight. I don’t mind spending a $100 for the luxury of ordering online but I won’t do that if I stand little chance of getting one.

  Remember I am an avid fan and want this device but by the time it gets here Palm better get the stock sorted out.

• Gdog

  My sprint corporate owned store in rural Temecula, CA had 150 palm pres to sell on launch day. I heard that the corporate owned store 5 miles away also had as many to sell. Not very many touchstone chargers, but plenty of phones. I’m sure larger city corporate stores had at least 150 if not more to sell.

  Best Buy for some wierd reason did not recieve but a few per store. Maybe they split up the total qty that they recieved which only allowed 4 per store. Why would you want to shop at Best Buy when their retail was 749.99 for the phone. retail at the sprint store was 549.99. Be mad at Best Buy not Sprint or the phone.

  I really like my Pre so far.

• GotthePalm

  I went to a sprint store out here in Brooklyn, NY. Not sure what the big deal was. I was the first and ONLY one to get to the store 10min before it opened. No one else came in to get one till after i completed my purchase and sat there with the Sprint rep fiddling with the phone figuring out how to use it.

  I probably sat in the store for like 35-40min with other Sprint customers checking out this new toy. I’d say at least 10 people came in during that time and they had plenty. I saw in their little closet at least 20 Pre phones there.

  Not sure why all you people decided going to Best Buy was the best spot to buy this new phone when going to a Sprint store was the best solution … even radio shack had some.

• Kevin

  It shoule be easy to estimate how many units were sold:
  Number of stores: 1000?
  Average phones per store: 50?

  This will be the summer of smartphone, quite a few new attractive phones; One that is
  less known, the HTC touch pro 2. WM6.5 is actually very good.

• whisptick

  Can I have your phones?

• Paul

  After the media release that there would be no shortages or lines, this launch has really chapped by behind. I think the problems were regional supply problems. Everyone that’s complaining about not getting a phone is in the midwest, or on the west coast. I’m in central IL, and there was one sprint store that didn’t get any and one that only got a few. I’m about 26th down on the shortest waiting list I could find. I called today to see when that store (an actual Sprint store, not Best Buy) was expecting more stock, and was told “we don’t know.” and hung up on. Evidently there’s quite a bit of demand, and the front line people in the stores were not trained or are not being supported well by Sprint (or are just douchebags, which is very possible, too.)

  Sprint needs to get it’s head out of the ground and handle this correctly. I’m pretty much stuck on Sprint, so I’m gonna have to play their game. I can tell you one thing, though. The AT&T store right next to them will sell me an iPhone 3G for 99 bucks (and 2 year contract), and they’ve got the stock to do it right now. There’s going to be many lost opportunities at new subscribers if Sprint doesn’t get their act together quickly and get stock balanced. Playing games with supply to generate hype backfires almost every time. The only example in recent memory that didn’t backfire was the Wii. What the Wii had in its space that the Pre doesn’t in its is the fact that the Wii was revolutionary — there was nothing out there like it. Like I said before, AT&T’s got pretty much the same thing for $100 less right next door. You’ve had your fun, Sprint. Now let’s not screw this up.

• SJ

  I still can not find a Pre anywhere. Waiting lists range from 40 -150. I got on a list at number 18 on june 8th. Stores get their orders in on Thursdays. Looks like no pre’s were received at any locations last week. I think we have a problem…