4 ms·

What a tremendous failure. Why check with your distributors before going live? It's not even the traffic; RS never sold any and for the rare moment that you cou

What a tremendous failure. Why check with your distributors before going live? It's not even the traffic; RS never sold any and for the rare moment that you could get to Farnell, they were already (or always have been) out of stock from minute one.

noonespecial 15y ago
The tweets from the foundation make it look more like Farnell actually took about 10 minutes to sell what they had. Nobody's quite sure whats up with RS yet.
- revelation 15y ago
  Then I blame their fucked up shop system with yet another site for every other region? All I can say is that one minute after launch, the product page on Farnell was showing "out of stock". After that, the site never loaded again. Apparently the only way you could actually get one is through some back of the woods partner site of them in Australia. Hooray.
  - xelfer 15y ago
    I couldn't even find it on the Australian site. I got it into a shopping cart on the UK one, but it died while trying to create my account.
    - bigiain 15y ago
      I managed to get a confirmation for an order of two through the Australian Element14 site - it took a dozen or so reloads to get the product into the cart, then almost an hour to get through the payment process (I was already registered from previous purchases).
      - finnw 15y ago
        According to the blog at raspberrypi.org (currently offline) they are limiting orders to 1 per customer. So it will be interesting to see if this order goes through.
        RLG_RLG 15y ago
        They underestimate what it takes to audit 10,000 orders for fraud (breaking their business rules, not laws).
        bigiain 15y ago
        Yep - will be. I know a bunch of other local (Sydney Australia) people who placed orders for more than one via Farnell (Element14 here in .au), both online and by phone. I suspect if they've billed my credit card they'll honor the order/confirmation whatever the RPi org tells them.
        xelfer 15y ago
        I keep getting 'No price was found for product 2081347. Item was not added to basket.' on the au site now.
  - flannell 15y ago
    Apparently.... http://au.element14.com/raspberry-pi/raspbrry-chipset/chipset-raspberry-pi-model-b/dp/2081347# http://au.element14.com/raspberry-pi/raspbrry-chipset/chipse...
    - robryan 15y ago
      Isn't it this one? http://au.element14.com/raspberry-pi/raspbrry-pcba/sbc-raspberry-pi-model-b/dp/2081185 http://au.element14.com/raspberry-pi/raspbrry-pcba/sbc-raspb...
    - Devilboy 15y ago
      So $35 turned into $50
      - deleted 15y ago
        [deleted]
      - haakon 15y ago
        Demand skyrocketed.
      - DanBC 15y ago
        Are those US or AU $, and did you include shipping and taxes etc in that? Weirdly that link lists prices for more than one board; RaspberryPI made it very clear that the initial batch was "one per customer".
        Maxious 15y ago
        The $50 record is clearly erroneous, there is another for $38 that has the specifications/photos and has a 1 per order limit.
      - nl 15y ago
        That's Australian dollars. The $AUD is worth more than the $US, but tech goods always cost more in Australia than they should.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
DanBC 15y ago
Who is this a tremendous failure for? RaspberryPI, or Farnell and RS?
- wr1472 15y ago
  I think this is a great success for RPi. Demand exceeded expectations. They always said the first batch would be 10,000 in size, and that's been eaten up in minutes (or probably seconds). I would rather they had a small initial run first, that didn't take so long to get to market, and allowed them to test the waters tentatively. The alternative would have been to take a much larger risk, longer lead time, and bigger upfront cost to make a bigger batch. We're always advocating that companies should ship small and early and then iterate to refine their product. This is a MVP from them. If I was involved I would be extremely proud and overjoyed at this. all the complainers should take a step back and relax. What's the worst that has happened because you couldn't get you hands on this just yet? It's not as though you have lost money, missed deadlines, or anything else. Just give the consumerism a rest for a while. As for RS Components' and Farnell's reputation as businesses... PS. I did get up at 6am to try and order a board, but wasn't too disappointed when I couldn't get on the RS website. I can wait another month or so.
- djhworld 15y ago
  The distributors tbh. I'd imagine traffic to their website on a normal day is relatively low. Even though they're worldwide companies, their market is pretty niche.
  - topbanana 15y ago
    It might seem niche to you but these two companies keep a whole industry going in the UK!

noonespecial 15y ago

The tweets from the foundation make it look more like Farnell actually took about 10 minutes to sell what they had. Nobody's quite sure whats up with RS yet.

revelation 15y ago
Then I blame their fucked up shop system with yet another site for every other region? All I can say is that one minute after launch, the product page on Farnell was showing "out of stock". After that, the site never loaded again. Apparently the only way you could actually get one is through some back of the woods partner site of them in Australia. Hooray.
- xelfer 15y ago
  I couldn't even find it on the Australian site. I got it into a shopping cart on the UK one, but it died while trying to create my account.
  - bigiain 15y ago
    I managed to get a confirmation for an order of two through the Australian Element14 site - it took a dozen or so reloads to get the product into the cart, then almost an hour to get through the payment process (I was already registered from previous purchases).
    - finnw 15y ago
      According to the blog at raspberrypi.org (currently offline) they are limiting orders to 1 per customer. So it will be interesting to see if this order goes through.
      - RLG_RLG 15y ago
        They underestimate what it takes to audit 10,000 orders for fraud (breaking their business rules, not laws).
      - bigiain 15y ago
        Yep - will be. I know a bunch of other local (Sydney Australia) people who placed orders for more than one via Farnell (Element14 here in .au), both online and by phone. I suspect if they've billed my credit card they'll honor the order/confirmation whatever the RPi org tells them.
        xelfer 15y ago
        I keep getting 'No price was found for product 2081347. Item was not added to basket.' on the au site now.
- flannell 15y ago
  Apparently.... http://au.element14.com/raspberry-pi/raspbrry-chipset/chipset-raspberry-pi-model-b/dp/2081347# http://au.element14.com/raspberry-pi/raspbrry-chipset/chipse...
  - robryan 15y ago
    Isn't it this one? http://au.element14.com/raspberry-pi/raspbrry-pcba/sbc-raspberry-pi-model-b/dp/2081185 http://au.element14.com/raspberry-pi/raspbrry-pcba/sbc-raspb...
  - Devilboy 15y ago
    So $35 turned into $50
    - deleted 15y ago
      [deleted]
    - haakon 15y ago
      Demand skyrocketed.
    - DanBC 15y ago
      Are those US or AU $, and did you include shipping and taxes etc in that? Weirdly that link lists prices for more than one board; RaspberryPI made it very clear that the initial batch was "one per customer".
      - Maxious 15y ago
        The $50 record is clearly erroneous, there is another for $38 that has the specifications/photos and has a 1 per order limit.
    - nl 15y ago
      That's Australian dollars. The $AUD is worth more than the $US, but tech goods always cost more in Australia than they should.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

DanBC 15y ago

Who is this a tremendous failure for? RaspberryPI, or Farnell and RS?

wr1472 15y ago
I think this is a great success for RPi. Demand exceeded expectations. They always said the first batch would be 10,000 in size, and that's been eaten up in minutes (or probably seconds). I would rather they had a small initial run first, that didn't take so long to get to market, and allowed them to test the waters tentatively. The alternative would have been to take a much larger risk, longer lead time, and bigger upfront cost to make a bigger batch. We're always advocating that companies should ship small and early and then iterate to refine their product. This is a MVP from them. If I was involved I would be extremely proud and overjoyed at this. all the complainers should take a step back and relax. What's the worst that has happened because you couldn't get you hands on this just yet? It's not as though you have lost money, missed deadlines, or anything else. Just give the consumerism a rest for a while. As for RS Components' and Farnell's reputation as businesses... PS. I did get up at 6am to try and order a board, but wasn't too disappointed when I couldn't get on the RS website. I can wait another month or so.
djhworld 15y ago
The distributors tbh. I'd imagine traffic to their website on a normal day is relatively low. Even though they're worldwide companies, their market is pretty niche.
- topbanana 15y ago
  It might seem niche to you but these two companies keep a whole industry going in the UK!