Angela Ahrendts has told Apple Store staff that the Apple Watch is unlikely to be available for in-store purchases before June – but they should expect the usual ‘blockbuster launches’ in retail stores for future products.
In a memo to retail store staff, Apple’s retail head thanked staff for making the try-ons “unforgettable,” told them customer feedback had been “overwhelmingly positive” and that the online-only ordering period was likely to continue throughout May.
Many of you have been getting questions asking if we will have the watch available in stores on April 24 for walk-in purchases. As we announced last week, due to high global interest combined with our initial supply, we are only taking orders online right now. I’ll have more updates as we get closer to in-store availability, but we expect this to continue through the month of May.
Ahrendts said that the decision to do things this way had not been an easy one …
She said that the approach of in-store previews with online orders had been taken because the watch was not just a new product but an entirely new category for the company.
There’s never been anything quite like it. To deliver the kind of service our customers have come to expect—and that we expect from ourselves—we designed a completely new approach. That’s why, for the first time, we are previewing a new product in our stores before it has started shipping.
The number of watch and band permutations also meant this approach would “get customers the model they want earlier and faster.”
But if you were worried that Apple might take the same approach with future iPhone launches, Ahrendts had some words of reassurance.
Are we going to launch every product this way from now on? No. We all love those blockbuster Apple product launch days—and there will be many more to come.
Help will also be available in-store when customers receive their watches, including personal setup to sync Apple Watches to iPhones. The full text of the memo, which was acquired by iGen, can be seen below.
In a tacit acknowledgement that few of those who have ordered an Apple Watch will receive them by the official launch date of April 24th, Apple quietly removed the date from its website last night. KGI estimated that pre-orders will top 2.3 million by next month, after it was earlier estimated that first-day orders in the USA alone were close to a million.
Team,
On behalf of Tim and the rest of the executive team, I want to thank you very much for making last Friday’s debut of Apple Watch unforgettable. The Previews going on in our stores and support from our Contact Centers are unlike anything we have done before.
The feedback from customers is overwhelmingly positive. They are excited about Apple Watch, and your teams are creating fantastic experiences for them. Customers who pre-ordered will start receiving deliveries next Friday as planned, and I know you will do a great job helping them get set up.
Many of you have been getting questions asking if we will have the watch available in stores on April 24 for walk-in purchases. As we announced last week, due to high global interest combined with our initial supply, we are only taking orders online right now. I’ll have more updates as we get closer to in-store availability, but we expect this to continue through the month of May. It has not been an easy decision, and I want to share with you the thinking behind it.
It’s important to remember that Apple Watch is not just a new product but an entirely new category for us. There’s never been anything quite like it. To deliver the kind of service our customers have come to expect—and that we expect from ourselves—we designed a completely new approach. That’s why, for the first time, we are previewing a new product in our stores before it has started shipping.
Apple Watch is also our most personal product yet, with multiple case and band options because it’s an object of self-expression. Given the high interest and initial supply at launch, we will be able to get customers the model they want earlier and faster by taking orders online.
I know this is a different experience for our customers, and a change for you as well. Are we going to launch every product this way from now on? No. We all love those blockbuster Apple product launch days—and there will be many more to come. They’re the moments where you, our teams, shine. And our customers love them as well!
Apple Watch is an exciting new product and we are at the start of a very exciting time at Apple. You’re the best team on earth and you are doing an amazing job.
For customers who want to buy a watch, please continue to help them place their order online. Also make sure they know that, wherever they buy, Apple will provide them with a great Personal Setup experience — either online or in our stores. This includes syncing their Apple Watch with their iPhone and teaching them about all the incredible features of their new Apple Watch.
Thank you very much again, and I look forward to seeing you soon.
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And simultaneously admitting that this hasn’t been a “blockbuster launch”, as she describes them.
the only blockbuster launch these days is iPhone.
Not “admitting” but, rather, confirming. This “new approach” was by “design”…
For a company with over $180B in the bank, they couldve done better research as well as take a calculated risk to ramp up supply. I mean, Microsoft made a huge error in producing too many Windows RT tablets at a write down of $1B, and Amazon lost a couple hundred million with their Fire Phone. Both of these are a mere fraction, however significant, compared to their bottom line. The difference is Apple knows better, so at this point, people (and analysts) can either start to perceive Apple as naïve, ill-prepared, overly conservative, stingy, and/or cheap, and that makes for a poor customer experience and hurts their image, at least for this launch.
Agreed. You could run a company better than that fledgling Apple Inc.
Beyondthetech should be in charge. Get rid of that naivety at Apple.
Yeah because letting a ship date slip to build inventory is much better. Sorry, but getting products into customers’ hands ASAP is much better than letting inventory sit while waiting for supply to overtake initial demand, just to “save face”. This is an instance where regardless of what Apple did it would’ve been perceived as negative; low supply or vaporware.
The bigger problem we face today is this mentality of “ME WANTIE… NOW!” and the whining that ensues.
Sorry, but I’m pretty sure Apple knows exactly what they’re doing. Any company in the world would prefer to have demand stretch out for months, rather than supply sit for months. this is what all businesses hope for when they produce a product.
I disagree completely, this is Angela’s fault. She decided to take orders first, make products later, something Apple has never done before. They started with a minimal inventory, probably around 200,000 Watches and started producing more after the preorders got in. Not only shows Angela is new to Apple and she doesn’t know how much this company sells, it shows she didn’t have faith in this new product so she played it safe. Everything Apple has done in regards to the Apple Watch has been a mistake except the marketing, of course. They announced a product in september! That’s 7 months before they had the actual product, not even the iPhone took this long. To make it worse, they don’t even have supply to satisfy the demand, if you order your watch today you may be lucky if you get it by June, 2 months after the “launch date”, 9 months after the announcent. This “online only” strategy is clearly a mistake, this is not a kickstarter product, if Apple launches a new product I fully expect to be able to walk into a store and buy that product.
Alejandro, with all due respect you are making claims that just aren’t factually based. You claim that the new retail chief is largely at fault for this. You have no evidence to support this claim. She was given the product to sell with severe availability constraints and she had to figure out how to best go about selling it. Also, you have no basis in fact to say that they started with 200k in inventory. None. With reported estimates of 2.3 million watches sold thus far, this is not the doom and gloom that the Apple naysayers are calling it.
It’s not a simple matter of throwing more money at the problem.
It takes over 9 hours to cut the links for the link bracelet for example.
Unlike an iPhone which they’ve worked out how to mass produce aluminium shells for, watch uses premium materials and advanced manufacturing techniques – requiring extremely expensive equipment.
If they were injection moulding little plastic watches en masse then that’d be simple.
So, manufacturing capacity constrained.
Solutions:
Charge more money, enough to reduce demand
Build more factory equipment than needed to meet on going demand, just for launch demand, if possible.
Use less premium materials and techniques which are easier and cheaper to fabricate.
I don’t know the ins and outs but Apple must have chosen what they believe to be the best option. I wouldn’t argue to know better, personally.
Yes, because Tim only needs to whistle for all the parts to magically appear, and production difficulties are things that never happen.
Maybe they wanted to sell out this quickly, it potentially get’s them more free news coverage/people talking about them. It does make the produce more elusive and in some sense more desirable. it also rewards those who plunked down the cash immediately with 2 or 3 months worth of bragging rights. I am not saying that they did it on purpose but I think it is a possibility.
I don’t see any admission this was anything less than stellar. Everyone knew you couldn’t walk into a store last week and buy a Watch, but you could pre-order one online, so of course there weren’t queues. Apple has never shown a product in store before launch before now.
There is no misstep here, or naivety or lack of preparation. Quite the opposite I would counter. By showing the Watch in store for people to try on before launch means that, like any purchase of something you wear, you get what will fit, in the finish that looks best on your wrist. What would have been a misstep is if they didn’t allow people to do this prior to launch day. Additionally, with so many options, they couldn’t possibly create all of the combinations and have them in store. How many options are there? 50? More? No store is going to stock that without an inventory nightmare, just as they don’t stock every possible ‘custom’ Mac that can be built. They have to be ordered online too.
I still think that your last statement could have been fixed by selling the watch and bands separately. Maybe they should have had 3-6 “flagship” models that come with exclusive bands… but they should have sold the watch faces by themselves as well. It would have made inventory management 1000x easier.
This whole thing is just a bummer. As an Apple fan I wanted to see this thing selling like crazy: but for whatever reason they just weren’t able to make enough.
I hope mine gets here earlier than the “4-6 weeks” that’s on my order ;-)
Agreed. That is just poor planning on Apple’s part. Apple needs to admit they didn’t plan properly. They don’t sell every iPad/iPhone with a case. That would be ridiculous. I realize a watch is different but they could’ve given people the sport band by default in black or white. The user can then take it from there to personalize their watch with one of the other bands.
Absolutely agreed. There are so many SKUs and packing considerations. It’s really ridiculous.
Even if they sold them EXACTLY like they’re selling them now, except when you buy one, you receive two packages. One for the watch, and one for the band.
That way, you don’t have X number of Leather loop silver watches sitting around, while people who want one with the sport band can’t get one, despite a billion sport bands sitting separately in the corner.
Apple was never going to sell a watch without a band. So I don’t see how splitting the two would make it any less complex. Honestly I think this is just “noise” on rumor sites and will soon be forgotten once WWDC rumors start flying. I’ll bet any money shipping times will improve within the next two weeks.
You have no real idea how many watches they sold to know whether it’s selling like crazy or not. Everybody is going off of one group’s HIGHLY speculative number that—given their model—is most probably a very inaccurate guess.
I think Slice Intelligence just did it for PR, to get their name out there around a high visibility product. Other than that, their methodology and sample set aren’t enough to derive much accuracy whatsoever.
Agree more or less. When I first bought the all flash Mac book pro it too had to be ordered online only( not sure now). Watch is complicated partially because apple wants to wow us in every aspect. It’s tough to stock every combination as it would lead to elevated sellin over sell thru numbers. Apple could have had inventory of watch body and straps which would risk loss of wowing opportunity and increase chances of people buying just the body and cheap bands from Amazon.
Cue the people who will still say the communication issues have nothing to do with Angela.
She’s writing internal memos, instead of pushing it upstream to be communicated more clearly to customers. Apple’s broad appeal doesn’t stem from the fact that all of its customers sit around reading tech news all day. This is an absolute shambles.
There will be people in line anyway.
Um, Apple put out a press release specifically saying orders would be online-only during the launch period. I don’t know how much clearer they could be. Maybe they never have
Ugh, I pushed post comment too soon….
Maybe Apple shouldn’t have put out the 4.24 date but outside of that I think they’ve been clear this is online only for now.
They haven’t been clear until it’s plastered all over their website. A press release is meaningless for people who don’t read tech press.
It’s a massive change from the usual. It needs to be communicated in the same luxuriously emphatic way they communicate everything else.
Does this article basically refute the previous conjecture that the Apple Watch launch is a sign of things to come for how Apple stores will conduct business in a hybrid online/in-store model?
I suspect we’ll still see integration between the two, but will be interesting to see how this might work with the iPhone launch which is essentially confirmed as store sales on day one.
Still showing “Available 24.04.2015” on the UK store homepage?
Good spot – looks like someone didn’t get the earlier memo :-)
Same for Canada as of 11:10 am Eastern.
And we don’t have the updated video guides yet.
Wow. I’m going with the Moto 360 2 with my iPhone 6 plus
My question is whether anyone will get theirs on April 24? Every place I have looked forum members report a range of dates from 4/24-5/3 to 4/24-5/8. Why in the world can’t they be more precise for the Watch compared to all their other devices. If I am lucky to get an order in on pre-order day, the phone arrives on launch day.
Some people will, but how many remains to be seen …
And what happens if Apple promise a delivery on 24 April but there is a problem with the courier? That happened with my last order when the truck broke down mid afternoon and the rest of the deliveries got pushed back to the next day. Much safer to give a date range and then hope everything gets delivered at the front end – then expectations are not shattered and less people whine about a problem.
If the courier needs a two week window in order to ensure delivery, Apple probably needs a new courier.
for a device so groundbreaking that apple grouped it with Mac iPod iPhone and iPad, the launch of watch is turning out to be pretty anticlimactic.
while anyone can go in and try on a watch, NO ONE will leave with one. think about that.
and think of all those apple retail recap vids they like to start keynotes with – happy customers, swag in hand, high-fiving. now imagine being the guy editing the watch promo vid, with everyone trying on watches and leaving the store empty-handed. quite a difference.
I’ve had very similar thoughts since the day after pre-orders began. There are a relative few who will get their watch on April 24, but the only certainty others are left with is that they can go to the store to see it but not buy it.
It turns out the first day of pre-ordering was the climactic launch day but it’s too late for Apple to go back and celebrate that. Now, there will not be a climactic launch event.
The dates still there on the website
Something tells me the demand for this device is about as strong as the Google Glasses…..
Don’t get it, why would you have something on your wrist just to keep you from taking the phone out of you pocket? Kind of like having a watch on your wrist that talks to the pocket watch in your pocket to me. Silly.
The iWatch is no where close to expectations that Apple had. As a long-time Apple fan the iWatch is not something I will buy. I believe it quickly goes the way of Google Glases. The jokes are close.
What’s an iwatch?
Good more room for a product people actually want, the new Apple TV
Geez, Android has had wearable devices for over 4 years… Apple can’t even get THIS right?
I miss Steve Jobs :(
I’m still anticipating buying an Apple iWatch on eBay or Craigslist for $25 in mid July. I have not yet seen a satisfactory explanation of what function the iWatch will serve. I’m sure any young puppy I may adopt will have loads of amusement with it for a few hours until the battery runs out. I still think the whole notion of an iWatch is just a cruel hoax perpetrated on young people who are even more foolish than I can imagine.
Yet you’re still considering buying one in July.
ok,, i thought i would buy an apple watch, however, if i have to put out over $900 for the watch AND the band, I’m done! And, there is no 24 hour analog watch face. Done with over priced tech! Frank T..
There is a 24 hour mode, once you pair the Watch with your phone, there are a ton of settings you can change in the “companion” app, that being one of them. This was important for me to find out because I’m a security guard and we always use 24 hour notation.
Wrong Move… Wrong planing..etc..
Just wrong.
Dear Angela,
If your goal is “To deliver the kind of service our customers have come to expect,” you are failing. Badly. I love Apple products, and have bought them since 1984. I got out of bed at three am to try and buy the Apple Watch I wanted. I couldn’t get the black sport watch until June. So I ordered the green watch. I won’t get it until the end of May. I made the appointment to go try on the watch at my local store, but they didn’t have any of the green bands to try on. They did tell me I would be able to exchange one of the two bands that came in the box. Today Apple changed the “what’s in the box” listing on the Apple Store from “2 bands” to just one. At the end of the day, I’m still excited about the watch. But the store experience? A massive fail.
Like any proper famme fatale would tell you Apple knows that being incredibly hard to get and a litte bit mysterious will drive us crazy – hence the long teasing, carefully controlled leaks and scarcity created on purpose;). Imagine the headlines had they made 10m, you could easily buy them on Friday on a walk-in basis – rather than thinking I have to get this somehow many of us would be like – uhm maybe lets wait for 2.0 model, it is quite expensive, maybe there will be discounts, do I really need a watch to tell me what is on the phone etc etc – but as it is I can hardly wait to get my hands on one (seeing as I dont live in a launch country it is not easy) and when I finally will, I am afraid ther is zero chance that I can resist;)
Oh no! What a catastrophe!
Tisk tisk, as Apple become the first Trillion dollar company some of us will be crying all the way to he bank.
I get Rolex, Omega and other pricey watches, but I don’t get this or who is wanting/buying it.
Yesterday, I sat up an appointment to try on the Apple Watch. I pre ordered mine at like 3:15am on the 10th, as soon as the site was back up. First, I wanted the Apple Watch with the black leather band and the classic buckle. I saw that it said the band was 8.4 inches. The larger watch is like 1.6. Thus, I thought it would fit my wrist, which is 9 inches. Then, someone on this site pointed out that it said “fits wrists” size 8.4. I got the feeling it would not fit my wrist.
I looked online and found Click. I backed them. I already ordered my 22mm wide, xl watch band. But, still, I was curious to see if the sport would fit. I decided that since the thing would not fit my wrist anyway, I would start out with the cheaper watch and just get the sport. I pre ordered the larger sport with the black band.
Now that I think about it, I wanted to try on the sport. That is what I set up. But, I think he gave me the version I first wanted. The sport does not have a regular buckle. That kind of sucks if he did that. ANWAY, whatever watch he did give me, fit on my wrist. It was in the second from the last hole and it would move around on my wrist. I was very happy to see that it fit. Again, I think he gave me the wrong watch.
The comments section on anything having to do with Apple are fascinating. The raw emotion and expressions are worthy of analysis, this is the primitive on display.
It’s Narcissim at its best!
Looks to me the watch is a bust, I guess we will see in June ….no wait maybe December. LOL
And these are the same apple drones who crucified BlackBerry for missing a few announced dates of delivery. Oh. I forgot. This is the vaunted APPLE we are talking about. Their missed dates are OK and jus opportunities t build inventory.
What a pant load.
This will end up like tablets. There will be short, rapid growth in sales as everyone that thinks they need an iWatch will buy them up as soon as they can get them. Then, once that market is saturated the sales will plateau. They will release a newer model that will address the obvious limitations expressed by the initial investors in the product and another modest spike will occur. Then, once everyone that wants a watch has a watch, there won’t be much interested in continually buying the latest greatest refresh that comes down the 6 month product cycle pipe unless their original watch is broken, lost, or stolen. I could see some continuing sales from power managers and execs on the go that rush from meeting to meeting and ping each other with quick messages. But most people are going to ping a friend with a smiley emoji a few times and then the novelty will wear off once they realize the watch is just a slow thin client to the phone that is sitting in their pocket.
I am kinda tired about hearing how the watch won’t make it to the store on opening day. I was one of the people that woke up at 3 in the morning finished my order by 308 and still have to wait 4 to 6 weeks for my watch. I would be pissed if someone who waited in line got theirs before me as my order was placed before they stood in line. So they sold out it happens and its only right to deliver to the people that ordered theirs first. There is absolutely nothing wrong with doing an online launch especially if it went that well that they sold out in mins. The only thing apple did wrong and who knows for sure if it was their fault but they didn’t have enough to supply the orders. It’s new and no other smart watch has done nearly as well as this did. But they have done something right as a company to build up a fan base that will buy up every available watch for the first few months. Quit complaining because you didn’t wake up and order yours. We all knew before had apple said go online to pre order that they would not be doing waiting lines on launch day.
I will be very surprised if this product catches on with my Apple devoted friends. I believe the watch concept was rolled out with inadequate market research. Engineering and marketing might have been a bit out of sync on this. Good luck to all the teams.
Scarcity creates interest and allows higher pricing. These folk want the high end pricepointand are working it.
Angela Ahrendts need to be given her walking papers. The even imply that Apple was taken off guard by the popularity of the watch is completely crazy. They knew 6 months ago they would be able to sell as many as they could make day one.
The lines of excited customers is worth a billion in advertising and Angela thinks this product is SO different than any other Apple has sold, it need to change everything…. SURPRISE! You were wrong! Pick up your two weeks pay on your way out the door!
I’m very exited when Apple delivers to me my Apple Watch in Germany, which I have preordered at the 10th of April after 9am. I hope, it will be before June yet. The delivery will be one of the most sad Episode in the history on this Earth. The timemanagement was wrong. The Release Date of 24th of April was anounced to early, and the Production was not in Time. Result: A lot of disapointed and very sad people, who are waiting of their Apple Watch, which we all have preordered. What a shame.