Whenever Apple launches something new, it often sells out fast in the first days and weeks, but it’s probably also a clever case of stock control, expectations and anticipation management.
US retailer Gamestop told Newsday.com that it had already sold out of its “first two allocations” of the Nexus 7, with Sam’s Club and Staples also being “out of stock” two days ago on Friday the 13th of July, even though Office Depot’s site was still taking online orders on the same afternoon.
Given the fact that Google is said to be making little profit from the device and “selling it through”, it must be Asus that is making what little profits there are left over after marketing, licenses and whatever else goes above the raw hardware costs, which iSuppli has listed as being US $151.75 for the 8GB model, and US $159.25 for the 16GB model.
That contrasts with US retail prices of $199 and US $249 for each model (not including taxes), a price that is, not including an AUD $20 shipping, AUD $249 and $299 in Australia, although at least these prices must, by law, include the taxes that Americans are additionally slammed with once they hit the checkout counter.
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With the Nexus 7 having far better specs than Amazon’s 7-inch Kindle Fire, while being the same price, it should come as no surprise that the Nexus 7 is so initially popular that Asus probably wishes it had Nexus 6 replicants to churn out the 7 on a 24x7 basis.
Google and Asus have even managed to keep a secret feature hidden – an inbuilt magnet that allows a “smart cover” feature to turn the screen on and off magnetically, although Google and Asus have let the digerati figure this out for themselves, rather than shouting it from the rooftops.
All that has to happen now is for the Nexus 7 to start selling in Australia, something that is due to commence at the end of the month, while other countries no doubt await their own Nexus 7 shipments to commence, too.
Google should really take this opportunity to market the shiznit out of the Nexus 7, because its window of sales opportunity could well be severely curtailed by any Apple 7-inch iPad Mini announcement.
That’s especially so if Apple prices a 7-inch iPad in an aggressive manner, but with so many question marks over whether that will actually happen or not, no-one knows.
Still, we do know that the big predictions for big Android tablet price drops last year didn’t really come true for the big brand name models in 2011, but with Google’s Nexus 7 available at such attractive prices, it’s coming true in 2012 whether the other tablet makers want it to, or not.
So… the Nexus 7 is selling out at launch, which is just want you want a launch product to do.
Whether it will continue selling so well is yet to be seen, and how it fares against an iPad Mini is another, but like Apple, Google is a company that takes action.
Just what action YOU will take, however, is up to you, but either way – happy tablet computing!
