3 ms·

The other option would be directly selling them themselves, instead of being at the mercy of a few existing retailers. I'm not sure that would go smoother, but

by pieter 15y ago

The other option would be directly selling them themselves, instead of being at the mercy of a few existing retailers. I'm not sure that would go smoother, but at least you wouldn't have to go to each retailer and sign up for their lists or having to check their sites which one will get a new batch first. (EDIT: I'm not saying I would think that's a good idea, but I think that's what the GP meant)

spurgu 15y ago
Well, the way it's done now, once evertyhing gets rolling there'll be enough Pi's for everyone. I can appreciate using experienced distributors instead of potentially facing much larger problems and delays. I agree it's not the smoothest of launches but from what I hear it's not much easier to get your hands on a new Apple device..
gaius 15y ago
... In which case they would cost more to cover the cost of setting up a logistics operation from scratch.
corin_ 15y ago
The speed benefit of not having to take a guess on one of two distributors would be more than wiped out by the delays caused by rPi having to do it all themselves, and would likely make it harder for them to meet their price targets. And regardless, even if you ignore the downsides, at the very best all it would do is make the way a little easier, it doesn't solve the op's problem of having to wait before buying.
DanBC 15y ago
In the future you will be able to buy directly form the few existing retailers. The only reason that you can't now is because they sold all their product. Both RS and Farnell are pretty large distributors (worldwide, not just UK) and should be able to easily meet demand. Only problem is confusion about selling to individuals not businesses, but that'll get solved. EDIT: The foundation is a non-profit charity, where everyone involved has other jobs. That sounds sub-optimal for receiving orders, processing them, shipping them, and handling returns. It's much better that they've outsourced that to companies who are in business to sell stuff.
ocdprogrammer 15y ago
RS Components only, has 200.000 applications of interest (and growing at 10/minute). Farnell may be close to this number too. I can easily guess that you never ever tried to sell ~400.000 products and you have no ideea about what this means logistically. If they tried to sell them themselves, It would have taken years to get a warehouse, employ and train enough people to handle those orders, invest in warehousing equipment, management etc. Although I don't like to wait, I think they handled it rather well until now. The best thing they can do from now on is to make sure that RS and Farnell don't remain the only 2 channels of distribution.
polshaw 15y ago
I would have preferred they sold directly. It is not so much the logistics, but that they have lost control. And lets not pretend that these companies are doing it for love-- they are taking money that could have gone to the charity. On the launch they had no idea one of the retailers was only going to take a statement of interest. I'm still not sure what's going on at RS. The servers were woefully under-prepared-- if the Pi folks were running it they could have thrown it up on AWS for an hour and then thrown up a static 'sold out' page. No faffing around, no attempting to register on a server that was being DDOSed. This announcement shows they don't seem to have control of their pricing either. It's not the end of the world, but this seems like something they should be in control of. As for the logistics side, I don't actually see why they couldn't have handled it themselves. They already had a payment processor set up for badge sales. I'm pretty sure 10,000 rPi's, 10,000 padded envelopes, and a printer could easily fit in almost any room. So all they would have to do is sort things out with a shipping agent, and hire a few people to pack them. IIRC, Amazon offer this service (send them boxes of something and they'll distribute it) so they could have even avoided this and still retained more control.

by pieter 15y ago

spurgu 15y ago

Well, the way it's done now, once evertyhing gets rolling there'll be enough Pi's for everyone. I can appreciate using experienced distributors instead of potentially facing much larger problems and delays. I agree it's not the smoothest of launches but from what I hear it's not much easier to get your hands on a new Apple device..

gaius 15y ago

... In which case they would cost more to cover the cost of setting up a logistics operation from scratch.

corin_ 15y ago

The speed benefit of not having to take a guess on one of two distributors would be more than wiped out by the delays caused by rPi having to do it all themselves, and would likely make it harder for them to meet their price targets. And regardless, even if you ignore the downsides, at the very best all it would do is make the way a little easier, it doesn't solve the op's problem of having to wait before buying.

DanBC 15y ago

In the future you will be able to buy directly form the few existing retailers. The only reason that you can't now is because they sold all their product. Both RS and Farnell are pretty large distributors (worldwide, not just UK) and should be able to easily meet demand. Only problem is confusion about selling to individuals not businesses, but that'll get solved. EDIT: The foundation is a non-profit charity, where everyone involved has other jobs. That sounds sub-optimal for receiving orders, processing them, shipping them, and handling returns. It's much better that they've outsourced that to companies who are in business to sell stuff.

ocdprogrammer 15y ago

RS Components only, has 200.000 applications of interest (and growing at 10/minute). Farnell may be close to this number too. I can easily guess that you never ever tried to sell ~400.000 products and you have no ideea about what this means logistically. If they tried to sell them themselves, It would have taken years to get a warehouse, employ and train enough people to handle those orders, invest in warehousing equipment, management etc. Although I don't like to wait, I think they handled it rather well until now. The best thing they can do from now on is to make sure that RS and Farnell don't remain the only 2 channels of distribution.

polshaw 15y ago

I would have preferred they sold directly. It is not so much the logistics, but that they have lost control. And lets not pretend that these companies are doing it for love-- they are taking money that could have gone to the charity. On the launch they had no idea one of the retailers was only going to take a statement of interest. I'm still not sure what's going on at RS. The servers were woefully under-prepared-- if the Pi folks were running it they could have thrown it up on AWS for an hour and then thrown up a static 'sold out' page. No faffing around, no attempting to register on a server that was being DDOSed. This announcement shows they don't seem to have control of their pricing either. It's not the end of the world, but this seems like something they should be in control of. As for the logistics side, I don't actually see why they couldn't have handled it themselves. They already had a payment processor set up for badge sales. I'm pretty sure 10,000 rPi's, 10,000 padded envelopes, and a printer could easily fit in almost any room. So all they would have to do is sort things out with a shipping agent, and hire a few people to pack them. IIRC, Amazon offer this service (send them boxes of something and they'll distribute it) so they could have even avoided this and still retained more control.