you can't beat physics

Several days back, I noticed that Amazon.com was asking people to vote on which deal they wanted to see. When I saw that the first item was an X-box for $100, I had no doubt what would win, and didn't bother to cast a vote.

Well, no surprise, people did vote and the X-box won. There were a limited number of units available, and as soon as they were, enough people tried to get one, that Amazon's server was overloaded and crashed. This too was a no brainer.

Amazon.com has usually been innovative in its marketing. This just seems silly and misguided. Had no one been to their neighborhood Target, BestBuy, or Circuit City and seen the people pitching tents? There were people lined up for days, willing to pay full price for this video game system. It's hot. Like on fire.

And while I haven't watched the news on a regular basis in my tv-free existance, there were stories all over the place about the buzz regarding the X-Box. One person was shot while waiting. Does the Amazon marketing team live in a bubble?

Why not have gotten the word out that a limited number of X-boxes would be sold via the treasure chest or the penguin on the top nav bar? Make them come available throughout the holiday season. Make people keep coming back to your site. Even better on the last day for 2-day shipping for Christmas, release the remaining units. Can you imagine the stories?

Plus doing it this way may have helped cut down on the people who are buying units and making huge profits over on Ebay. Nothing wrong with a free market economy, but you know that the people losing this one are the kids. I suspect more than not the people buying the units at over double the price are not the uber wealthy, and instead are parents willing to do anything to not disappoint their child on Christmas morning (lots of issues there, and wrong on so many levels).

Don't get me wrong, I still love Amazon. I am a big fan of Amazon Prime. I just think they really missed the boat here, and could have done have lots more holiday cheer had they been thinking.



on the night stand :: Searching for Mary Poppins