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
Dreamwriter said:
Maxxgold said:
Nothing wrong with ordering from different providers, but the retail stores will get their shipments. I remember when I was waiting for my Rift, and people were just buying them from Amazon and Bestbuy, while I patiently waited. If you think Amazon isn't going to have a huge shipment day one then prepare yourself for some learning. Also, despite what you say about BestBuy getting shipments a month in advance; that may be true in some instances, but normally items arrive a few days before sale.
Amazon and Best Buy got a tiny, tiny amount of Rifts to sell while Rift preorders were still being sent. Dunno how that equates to Amazon having a huge shipment day one. It doesn't even make sense, because the vast majority of Touch sales will be direct from Oculus, so why would Oculus risk pissing off their customers again when they don't need the retail stores? The units at Amazon would just be sitting around while Oculus' actual customers would be waiting. It seems pretty clear to me that if there are any shortages, Touches will first be sent to Oculus preorderers with priority queue, and retail stores will be delayed.
I think there might be a logic fallacy there. A majority of the Day 1 preorders might be from Oculus' website, but overall I think you'll see more orders coming from Amazon and Best Buy than Oculus.com - especially after release. Even when I was demoing Touch in Best Buy, the guy before me (who had never heard about or tried VR) was so sold that he immediately wanted help to see how he could buy both a computer and Rift from the store. I imagine Touch will be the same, with most trusting the big name companies over buying directly from the manufacturer.
Oh, just an update. Amazon has sent out emails with a release date delivery (December 6th), so it appears they have started allocating items to orders. Not sure about Best Buy, but I'm probably cancelling my Oculus and Best Buy orders at this point! I'm happy I'll be getting my Touch ON release day! 🙂
