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Fulfillment by Amazon would be awesome for this. Free two-day shipping and the site wouldn't go down. Edit: Seriously, you send them a big box, and they mail o

Fulfillment by Amazon would be awesome for this. Free two-day shipping and the site wouldn't go down. Edit: Seriously, you send them a big box, and they mail out all the little boxes. Check it out: http://www.amazonservices.com/content/fulfillment-by-amazon.htm#!features-and-benefits http://www.amazonservices.com/content/fulfillment-by-amazon....

rmoriz 15y ago
how would they handle RMA? RMA for such devboards are very common, even the TI folks had several issues with the recent BeagleBone...
- Lewisham 15y ago
  Amazon deals with this too. [1] The TL;DR is that Amazon will take back units, and if they're marked as bad (presumably by the customer), Amazon holds on to them in their center, and can then ship them back to you. It's basically exactly the same as normal retail. [1]: http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/ref=hp_rel_topic?ie=UTF8&nodeId=200386180#returns http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/ref=hp_r...
- lancefisher 15y ago
  Amazon has a complete plan for returns, and handles them for you. "Returned unit is added to your inventory and designated "Unfulfillable." You can create a removal order to have the unit returned to you." You can read more here: http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=200386180#returns http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=2... Of course there is a cost to having Amazon handle everything, but I'd happily pay a little more for a board I could order through Amazon.
forza 15y ago
While it would have been a good idea to distribute some of the devices from the US that wasn't the main problem. A common way to do a launch like this is: 1. Make people register with their e-mail adress. 2. Send order links with unique and expiring tokens in batches. 3. Process payments.
- arghhh 15y ago
  If their forums were up, you'd see that they said that they have no plans for U.S. distribution anytime soon. In addition, the HDMI support means you are locked into a T.V., or a computer monitor with HDMI which isn't as common, and the ARM architecture means most of the pre-built code out there won't run on it. I was caught up in the hype too originally thinking of everything I would do with it, but basically, it is a slow computer without a case that will have few OS options, few software options, and that you could connect to a T.V. While there is much you could do with that, it certainly puts it into perspective. A better option for most would be to find a used computer on Craigslist or eBay. However, if you live in the UK and are truly interested in a small ARM computer and have everything else you need to use it, go for it. I won't.
youlost_thegame 15y ago
Only that Amazon doesn't ship electronics to outside the US, and thus international customers wouldn't be able to get them. Since the Foundation is from the UK, they probably know that. Maybe they didn't go for the best option, but I always like to remind the US customers (who usually just don't honestly know about Amazon's restrictions) that buying electronics from them is a bad idea for the international market
- wheels 15y ago
  Amazon has sites all over the world, including the UK, for which it also offers fulfillment services. I suspect the larger reason this hasn't been done yet is that it allows them to first take the orders and then scale the production run size to that.
  - JCB_K 15y ago
    All over the world? They've got sites in 9 countries.
    - kamjam 15y ago
      For most people in the US, that it is all over the world! </sarc>
      - GiraffeNecktie 15y ago
        And beyond
    - deleted 15y ago
      [deleted]
    - ma2rten 15y ago
      But here in the Netherlands you can order anything your heart desires either on Amazon UK or Germany. I'd imagine it would be the same for other EU countries. So that part of the world would be covered at least.
    - deleted 15y ago
djhworld 15y ago
Also, and this is from a naive perspective, I'd imagine the deal they have cut with their distributors gives them a greater share of the profit (the R-PI foundation is a charity remember) I'd imagine Amazon's services, whilst great, might cost more to use
mjwalshe 15y ago
But amazon doesnt make stuff like RS and Farnells do

rmoriz 15y ago

how would they handle RMA? RMA for such devboards are very common, even the TI folks had several issues with the recent BeagleBone...

Lewisham 15y ago
Amazon deals with this too. [1] The TL;DR is that Amazon will take back units, and if they're marked as bad (presumably by the customer), Amazon holds on to them in their center, and can then ship them back to you. It's basically exactly the same as normal retail. [1]: http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/ref=hp_rel_topic?ie=UTF8&nodeId=200386180#returns http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/ref=hp_r...
lancefisher 15y ago
Amazon has a complete plan for returns, and handles them for you. "Returned unit is added to your inventory and designated "Unfulfillable." You can create a removal order to have the unit returned to you." You can read more here: http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=200386180#returns http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=2... Of course there is a cost to having Amazon handle everything, but I'd happily pay a little more for a board I could order through Amazon.

forza 15y ago

While it would have been a good idea to distribute some of the devices from the US that wasn't the main problem. A common way to do a launch like this is: 1. Make people register with their e-mail adress. 2. Send order links with unique and expiring tokens in batches. 3. Process payments.

arghhh 15y ago
If their forums were up, you'd see that they said that they have no plans for U.S. distribution anytime soon. In addition, the HDMI support means you are locked into a T.V., or a computer monitor with HDMI which isn't as common, and the ARM architecture means most of the pre-built code out there won't run on it. I was caught up in the hype too originally thinking of everything I would do with it, but basically, it is a slow computer without a case that will have few OS options, few software options, and that you could connect to a T.V. While there is much you could do with that, it certainly puts it into perspective. A better option for most would be to find a used computer on Craigslist or eBay. However, if you live in the UK and are truly interested in a small ARM computer and have everything else you need to use it, go for it. I won't.

youlost_thegame 15y ago

Only that Amazon doesn't ship electronics to outside the US, and thus international customers wouldn't be able to get them. Since the Foundation is from the UK, they probably know that. Maybe they didn't go for the best option, but I always like to remind the US customers (who usually just don't honestly know about Amazon's restrictions) that buying electronics from them is a bad idea for the international market

wheels 15y ago
Amazon has sites all over the world, including the UK, for which it also offers fulfillment services. I suspect the larger reason this hasn't been done yet is that it allows them to first take the orders and then scale the production run size to that.
- JCB_K 15y ago
  All over the world? They've got sites in 9 countries.
  - kamjam 15y ago
    For most people in the US, that it is all over the world! </sarc>
    - GiraffeNecktie 15y ago
      And beyond
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
  - ma2rten 15y ago
    But here in the Netherlands you can order anything your heart desires either on Amazon UK or Germany. I'd imagine it would be the same for other EU countries. So that part of the world would be covered at least.
  - deleted 15y ago

djhworld 15y ago

Also, and this is from a naive perspective, I'd imagine the deal they have cut with their distributors gives them a greater share of the profit (the R-PI foundation is a charity remember) I'd imagine Amazon's services, whilst great, might cost more to use

mjwalshe 15y ago

But amazon doesnt make stuff like RS and Farnells do