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Forums - Sales - Debunking a VGC myth: PS3 needs more stock because it ships to more countries

Machina said:
I think you may be ignoring at least 2 factors. 1) there are going to be efficiencies inherent in shipping to a smaller number of countries vs. a larger number (this is an extension of thrusting's point above), and 2) there are going to be self-through differences between (to simplify things) the States and the 'Other', smaller countries (a smaller market is going to sell through at a slower rate, and this will be duplicated across multiple countries, which means there'll be more on the shelves at any one time for that product... i.e. more stock).

But if these countries sell more slowly, wouldn't they alse require less stock?

That's my point, if you sell less units you order less. You don't need 1m PS3's if you need 1 year to sell them.

I don't think Sony wants outdated PS3's in these countries either, so they must be aiming at a similar shipping rate.



No troll is too much for me to handle. I rehabilitate trolls, I train people. I am the Troll Whisperer.

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LivingMetal said:
Here is how I see it. If there is not enough of a demand for a product, not a lot of people are going to buy it. If there is enough of a demand, people are going to buy it. So what if the PS3 is shipped to more countries than the competing consoles. No one is going to buy something just because it's sitting on a store's shelf. There is a high enough demand for the PS3 so people are going to buy it regardless of what country it's sold in and regardless of its (and if any) competition. It's just another excuse to downplay the continual success of the PS3. Does this mean everyone who buys a PS3 prefers it over a Wii or an Xbox 360? No. It just means the PS3 is worth it. It's that simple.


you really need to get your head out of your butt and stop acting like the ps3 is some high and mighty system everyone is jealous of. The ps3 is the worst selling console this gen so far at least. It isn't an excuse. Its just something that some people think makes sense. Sony can't magically instantly ship consoles to anywhere in the world. Thus unless they want to deal with hardware shortages when there are random spikes in demand, they would need to have extra stock in a LOT more locations. Have you ever been to a store. Unless there are hardware shortages, stores don't go out of stock of their consoles every day. There are ususally dozens if not hundreds of consoles sitting in the stores and in storage.



enrageorange said:

As a few other people pointed out. What I think is that popular stores will get stocks replenished far more often than smaller stores.

If a store sells an average of 100 ps3 a week, they will probably try to get maybe 110 ps3s shipped a week, and then maybe skip a week when their stockpile grows too much. Because it will take up too much space to buy enough ps3's to sell for a month.

 

On the other hand if a store is only selling 5 ps3s a week, it doesn't make sense to order new ps3s every week. They would save on shipping by buying lets say 30 ps3s a month, and only replenishing their stock every month.


Ofc in the end the numbers will get balanced out by the end of the month, since ps3 isn't shipping more consoles until the next month for small stores, but at certain times, such as when the holidays are approaching and stores start stockpiling more consoles, the ps3 should have a bigger ratio of shipped to sold than the xbox 360 until the holiday seasons end when the smaller stores finish selling their stock of ps3s

This is obviously just my idea on how things are done and not some cold hard fact.

This theory doesn't work well, because as some shops order many units (for, say, one year), other shops have enough units from the last 1-year order and don't order anything for the month, making the average the same.

So this can't account for any significant difference.



No troll is too much for me to handle. I rehabilitate trolls, I train people. I am the Troll Whisperer.

enrageorange said:
LivingMetal said:
Here is how I see it. If there is not enough of a demand for a product, not a lot of people are going to buy it. If there is enough of a demand, people are going to buy it. So what if the PS3 is shipped to more countries than the competing consoles. No one is going to buy something just because it's sitting on a store's shelf. There is a high enough demand for the PS3 so people are going to buy it regardless of what country it's sold in and regardless of its (and if any) competition. It's just another excuse to downplay the continual success of the PS3. Does this mean everyone who buys a PS3 prefers it over a Wii or an Xbox 360? No. It just means the PS3 is worth it. It's that simple.


you really need to get your head out of your butt and stop acting like the ps3 is some high and mighty system everyone is jealous of. The ps3 is the worst selling console this gen so far at least. It isn't an excuse. Its just something that some people think makes sense. Sony can't magically instantly ship consoles to anywhere in the world. Thus unless they want to deal with hardware shortages when there are random spikes in demand, they would need to have extra stock in a LOT more locations. Have you ever been to a store. Unless there are hardware shortages, stores don't go out of stock of their consoles every day. There are ususally dozens if not hundreds of consoles sitting in the stores and in storage.


Don't project yourself on everyone else.

And retailers keep ordering more PS3 because what's in storage gets sold.

If you cannot accept the fact that demand create sales (as with the PS3), you really need to look at yourself in the mirror, and get over yourself.



I guess he is a right.

VGC even updated theirs numbers to show the stock almost the same between PS3 and 360... 0.5-07.m for both.



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kowenicki said:
Wrong for two reasons.

Machina's explanation....

Plus PS3 is selling more currently therefore should have more in the supply chain. Which is why it has been as Plain as day that the wii has been consistently overtracked here.

Again, I said in the OP that if the PS3 needs more stock it's because it sells more. I'm not arguing against that. If it's expected to sell the same, it will need the same stock, which is something many people seem to disagree with. It's in the last paragraph.



No troll is too much for me to handle. I rehabilitate trolls, I train people. I am the Troll Whisperer.

Machina said:
Troll_Whisperer said:
Machina said:
I think you may be ignoring at least 2 factors. 1) there are going to be efficiencies inherent in shipping to a smaller number of countries vs. a larger number (this is an extension of thrusting's point above), and 2) there are going to be self-through differences between (to simplify things) the States and the 'Other', smaller countries (a smaller market is going to sell through at a slower rate, and this will be duplicated across multiple countries, which means there'll be more on the shelves at any one time for that product... i.e. more stock).

But if these countries sell more slowly, wouldn't they alse require less stock?

That's my point, if you sell less units you order less. You don't need 1m PS3's if you need 1 year to sell them.

I don't think Sony wants outdated PS3's in these countries either, so they must be aiming at a similar shipping rate.

No because there are inefficiencies inherent in shipping to more countries/smaller stores. I think it's a gross over-simplification of the whole process to (essentially) say that Shop 1 sells 100 units of Product X each week, whilst Shop A and Shop B both sell 50 units each week of competing Product Y, therefore the stock levels will be equal for both products. If replicated on a large scale Product Y is - almost all of the time - going to have more stock in the channel. All shipment turns to sales eventually, of course, but there will be a greater disparity between shipped and sold for Product Y in the meantime.

As I have said before, if a store orders PS3's, say, once a year, it'll mean some stores will have more stock than needed and some will have almost nothing (small market, plus almost depleted stock about to have a 1-year order), meaning the average should come to about the same.

Edit: Just to make myself clear. It may be true that when it comes to smaller and harder to reach countries the disparities may be bigger. But some in some stores that disparity will mean having more units than necessary and in some others it will mean the opposite. The disparity won't always mean overstock, because some stores will wait until selling their stock before ordering the next batch. The average should be similar.



No troll is too much for me to handle. I rehabilitate trolls, I train people. I am the Troll Whisperer.

wow interesting read!



ethomaz said:
I guess he is a right.

VGC even updated theirs numbers to show the stock almost the same between PS3 and 360... 0.5-07.m for both.

ah,360 is about 1.15m in stock right now

we will know PS3 next week

maybe 1.6m or even more



D-Joe said:
ethomaz said:
I guess he is a right.

VGC even updated theirs numbers to show the stock almost the same between PS3 and 360... 0.5-07.m for both.

ah,360 is about 1.15m in stock right now

we will know PS3 next week

maybe 1.6m or even more

Hummmmm... this time of the year the shipped/sales gap grow up to near 1 million.

What I said is before the adjustmentes PS3 always have a bigger shipped/sales gap than 360... now it have the same (less than .2 differece).