So let’s imagine that you’re a big company that has particular expertise in selling things online, things which are later delivered by UPS et al.
And let’s say that you’re launching a big product that you hope will create a whole new market segment for yourself.
Don’t you think you’d have the sense to have enough of the things in stock? Or at least to not have a clogged supply pipeline?
This morning, Amazon launched the Kindle e-book reader thingy, which seems like something that I might be able to make good use of.
I looked at it, and read some reviews, and provisionally decided to buy it. Since my schedule isn’t all about buying things from Amazon, though, I took care of some actual revenue generation first. After having read a few more favorable reviews, I clicked on the ‘Overnight 1-Click’ button, which, thanks to my Amazon Prime membership, causes things to show up here the next morning for $4 extra.
But the Kindle won’t be here tomorrow; oh, no. Apparently, when the west coast woke up, the thing sold out. I suppose I can understand that.
But they’re not just sold out for today: after I ordered, the website said that they’ll be in stock on November 21, i.e. the day after tomorrow.
Now, the day after tomorrow is the day before Thanksgiving, so presumably they’ll hand the thing off to UPS, who will park it in a truck somewhere while they all go eat turkey.
The day after Thanksgiving is also a UPS holiday.
UPS doesn’t deliver on Saturdays or Sundays.
So the newly-launched product that I ordered today with extra premium one-day shipping will arrive, according to Amazon’s shipping-predictor, seven days from now.
You’d think that Amazon, of all companies, would understand the customer-satisfaction risks of launching a product for UPS delivery with what appears to be insufficient stock on the Monday before Thanksgiving. But no. Instead we get another example of why I avoid mail-order products in general. Even when dealing with a company like Amazon, which has a great reputation and a lot of expertise, there are too many random disappointments.
How many people will not get a demonstration of this thing from the family geek at Thanksgiving because of this?
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This is close to my complaint about paying a premium for overnight shipping from a company expecting to get my item the next day only to find out they can’t ship the item the same day. Say for instance I order a new HD from buy.com because I have a drive that failed and I need/want it tomorrow. Even if I pay for next day shipping it doesn’t mean that buy.com can actually ship it the day I order it. grrrr
Then in contrast a company like Waterfield Design is so good about getting your products out they might fulfill and ship the order within 30 minutes of you placing it.
To be fair, I can still cancel the order even at this point; a large part of the reason why I’m more willing to order things from Amazon than from other online sellers is that they’re one of the very few who have decent order-management systems. I get the distinct impression with a lot of online sellers — even large ones — that they’re trying to get their would-be customers into gotcha situations, selling them things that they don’t really want and making money on shipping and ‘restocking’ charges.
As it happens, the thing is now scheduled to arrive on Tuesday of next week, meaning eight days from order to delivery, or a delay of seven days from order to UPS handoff. If I didn’t pay the $4 premium it would presumably show up on Wednesday.
Having looked at the device, I wonder why it’s been launched at all. It seems to have no style, and I am not really sure why someone would actually purchase it. It reminds me of an etch-a-sketch from my childhood.
Now don’t get me wrong: I am neither a Luddite nor am I blithely misunderstanding the role of the Kindle. However, when it comes to reading I still prefer printed paper – book, newspaper, magazine. Even when reviewing documents downloaded from the web, or lengthy e-mails I still prefer to print them off (duplex, of course, so as to save the environment) and hold them in my hand.
Each to their own, of course. My taste is no doubt as unique as yours! I hope you enjoy your Kindle but I bet you £5 that it’s languishing on a shelf / in a drawer by Thanksgiving next year…
I think there’s a better-than-even chance that it’ll be gathering dust by next Thanksgiving. Among the serious problems I think it has is:
Points #1, #3, and #4 are just limitations of the technology, or of the practical application of the technology when you consider cost. Newspapers, and to a lesser extent magazines, are the real killer app of the e-reader, I think. But with a relatively small screen and no ability to display color photographs, they’re seriously hamstrung in this area. Still, you have to start somewhere.
For reading, the printed page is easily superior to something like the Kindle. No question. There are two things to consider, though.
First: paper isn’t entirely practical to store or to carry around. It’s heavy, and it takes up space. I find myself reading a lot of books — particularly trashy political thrillers — where I have no particular interest in seeing it on the shelf, or being able to feel sure that I’ll still be able to read the thing in fifty years. Not having to dispose of the things somehow and not having them not take up space on the shelf is far more valuable than being able to lend the thing to friends, or mark up the margins with notes, etc., etc.
Second: Paper can’t change once it’s been printed. Obvious, yes, but what’s less obvious is that most e-readers up to the Kindle have had the same limitation; to change their content, you had to plug them into a computer. It’s the network connection, more than anything, that convinced me to give the Kindle a try.
That network connection gives the Kindle a significant advantage over a printed book, and one that possibly makes up for the fact that the display technology is still immature. It doesn’t only allow you to carry around your information with you; it effectively allows you to carry around all information with you.
One other thing that’s caused me to give it a try is the fact that nearly all the reviews I’ve seen have been nearly worthless. This is a problem with technology reviews in general lately, as most people — even some professional reviewers — seem to be more interested in grinding axes than in giving a decent impression of how well a thing works. This will probably change in the next week or so, but so far I’ve seen precisely two kinds of Kindle reviews: those from people who were in on the Amazon testing and who like the thing, and those from people who have never used a Kindle but who have all kinds of opinions on its deficiencies.
We saw the same thing with iPhone reviews; at least one idiot even suggested that the iPhone should be banned before it was even released. WTF?!
I’m trying to figure out whether the Kindle will work adequately for reading novels, and whether it’s simple enough to convert my own reference content for the thing (ideally I’d like to see a print-driver interface to the conversion so Kindle content can be generated as easily as a PDF). So far not a single review I’ve read even comes close to answering my questions. So we’ll see.
If these questions still aren’t answered by the time I get the thing and use it for a while, I’ll make some posts (and possibly videos) to reflect my experience with it.
I look forward to the reflections (musings?) of an avid Kindle user in due course.
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