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Amazon and Best Buy Have Not Received Touch Stock from Oculus

Tbone
Protege

I pre-ordered from Amazon, Best Buy, and Oculus because I didn't want to be stuck with the company hit with a delay.

I spoke with a Best Buy manager a few weeks ago who told me it's standard procedure for their warehouses to receive stock over a month in advance of the release of a product. When he went to check to see if they had Oculus Touch stock yet, however, he was surprised that all the warehouses were empty. He told me to check back next week.

Fast forward to today. I check back again and it turns out the warehouses are still empty. I believe the warehouses checked were one in New Jersey and one or two in Virginia. According to the manager, Apple is the only company they work with that waits until the last minute to deliver stock. While the manager is still hopeful they'll have it available for in-store pickup on launch day, he finds it extremely odd that they still don't have stock in the warehouses two weeks away. It takes time to process and allocate to the different stores.

Meanwhile Amazon still has not given a firm delivery date, still stating that they need more information and will email with an update. Checking with customer support, Amazon claims it is still slated for a December 8th delivery date (with Prime shipping), but that date is just based off of the presumed launch date and not whether or not they have enough stock to allocate to their orders.

Two weeks away and neither Amazon nor Best Buy have received any product from Oculus and have not been able to start allocating product to stores or orders. Is this a cause for concern? Is it a sign that the third-party retailers will be fulfilling orders after Oculus has fulfilled theirs? Both Best Buy and Amazon still sound confident that they will deliver "on time", but there's nothing to currently back up those assurances.

Is there anyone who works at Best Buy who could give more info? I'd love to be able to pick it up in store on the 6th, but I'd hate to be hit with a delay because I stuck with them over the other options. Can someone from Oculus give a wink and a nudge as to which order is the best one to keep? For those keeping score...

Best Buy - December 6th (subject to delay, no stock in warehouse)
Amazon - December 8th (customer support is confident but order page still says pending more info)
Oculus - ??? Dec 6th-15th (also probably slowest shipping speed)


The Furious Angels - an Oculus Rift Online Gaming Community!
67 REPLIES 67

JohnnyDioxin
Expert Trustee
What makes you think they were telling the truth?

Why should they tell you?

Oh - and Amazon delivery date given here is 6th Dec - not 8th. Yes - delivery date.

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falken76
Expert Consultant
The retailers will get theirs first.  They won't leave a distribution chain hanging before they fulfill a single customer order.  Amazon is far to large for them to cause an issue with and defect rates that even large companies are held to will ensure that they get fulfilled or they could lose the amazon account and that is a major source of income for anyone in retail.

I'm sure the relationship with Best Buy is similar but Amazon will be fulfilled for sure because it will bring in the most money via retail sales channels.

Tbone
Protege

Brixmis said:

What makes you think they were telling the truth?

Why should they tell you?


The truth regarding...? It was two different managers who checked the warehouses. I was standing there with them as they checked on the computer. It would have actually been in their best interest to tell me the warehouse was stocked so that I wouldn't cancel my order. Now the Amazon customer service agent could have just been saying whatever he could to make me happy.
The Furious Angels - an Oculus Rift Online Gaming Community!

LZoltowski
Champion
Youd be shocked to know what Apple does ... with their super secured boxes and time delay mechanisms that arrive mere days before sales
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Dreamwriter
Rising Star
Yeah, I don't think that's true, an entire month in advance is way too long for something to sit around taking up space. And I know for a fact that new game consoles never ship to retailers that early (often even the day before), and new games rarely do. Usually brand new items like this only show up a few days before they go on sale, maybe a week.

Of course, in this case if there aren't enough to go around Oculus is most likely going to ship to people who had placement in the priority queue before retailers, after the debacle that happened with the Rift. They've said more than once to judge them on how they handle this shipment with end users. And of course that's where the majority of the day-one Touch customers will come from, people who preordered Rifts.

Techy111
MVP
MVP
Maybe they have to source the double A batteries ? 😉
A PC with lots of gadgets inside and a thing to see in 3D that you put on your head.

Tbone
Protege


Yeah, I don't think that's true, an entire month in advance is way too long for something to sit around taking up space. And I know for a fact that new game consoles never ship to retailers that early (often even the day before), and new games rarely do. Usually brand new items like this only show up a few days before they go on sale, maybe a week.



Yeah, I'm not talking about the retail stores. I'm talking about the massive warehouses where stock goes FIRST. Product doesn't go straight from a company to the stores. It goes to Best Buy warehouses where it is stored, processed, and allocated to individual stores. Oculus hasn't even sent the product to the warehouses yet, which means that whole process will have to happen very fast during a very busy season if it's going to drop in the stores in two weeks.
The Furious Angels - an Oculus Rift Online Gaming Community!

Dreamwriter
Rising Star
That;s what I'm talking about too, the warehouses. New products like this never show up in the warehouses more than 2 weeks before release, and new game consoles usually only show up the day before release

But even with that, like I said I wouldn't think Oculus would send to retail stores if there wasn't enough to get to all the people who had priority preorders - expect those people to get theirs first, since those people are the majority of Rift owners thus that's where all their holiday money is coming from, and Oculus is trying to prove to their customers that they aren't messing up this time.

JohnnyDioxin
Expert Trustee
I just had another look around and had a thought (oh dear!).

Remember Amazon's first announced and then retracted release date of November 23rd? I'm thinking that this date was put up because that's when they were told they were getting their Touch units - so they put two and two together.... only for Oculus to phone them up and say "but we are announcing a release date of 6th December, so please remove that date".

How about they will receive their Touch units from 23rd November and sell them from 6th December. This way, Oculus can make themselves look good and not get trounced, by everyone receiving their Touch on launch day, including most of those that buy them direct from Oculus (i.e. including shipping time - don't forget they can stipulate which day a courier delivers a package). The date range posted by Oculus is a just-in-case for those where issues with delivery arise.

That's my theory and I'm sticking to it! 🙂

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