| ils411 said: actually its pretty much what you said. forward orders for what? february? march? april? plus, your warehouse, truck ship excuse doesnt work. the ps3 was selling out, so why would they take their sweet time to transport the units to retail? naturally, they'd be rushing the stocks to stores to capitalize on the christmas sale. try again. |
Wal-mart has a huge and complex internal warehouse and trucking system, they almost always hold back and retain stock. Same deal but smaller scale for Target, K-Mart, etc.
And not many companies are going to go through the heavy expense to overnight PS3s (that they make a pittance on) just because they may have sold out, especially if they have units scheduled via ocean freight or something. You can't just will the boat to move faster, the docks to clear faster, customs to inspect faster, etc. This isn't taking their sweet time, this is how shipping logistics work.
Again, 2-3m in the channel is NORMAL. The only times you won't see it is when there are dramatic and prolonged supply constraints, like Wii's first 2 years or the first year of DSL. Or if a company smooth talks retailers and channel stuffs to meet lofty targets (this generation Sony and MS have both done this, though not recently).
