Vanishing BlackBerry stocks leave partners in distress

Was it a
marketing gimmick? Was it a desperate attempt for stock clearance? Or
a smartly
conceived New Year gift? Whatsoever be the case, the authorized
partners as well as multi-brand resellers of BlackBerry are unhappy.
This raises
the question with regard to the intention of the company. The Indian
IT resellers ran out of their Playbook stocks after the Canada based
Research In Motion (RIM) slashed its prices by 50%. The market
scenario post this disastrous gimmick has left everybody in a state
of annoyance as the partners were rendered stockless or with minimal
stock.

The offer
was
made in the last week of December valid till December 31, but owing
to the huge response from the customers, RIM decided to extend the
offer for a week till January 7, 2012. The discounted prices of the
Playbooks are Rs 13,490 for 16GB, Rs 15,990 for 32GB, and Rs 24,490
for 64GB. In addition to the price-cut, multi- tasking features as
well as dual core processor of the tablets might also have pumped the
sales.

This move in
return saw a tremendous response from consumers to an extent that
there is no stock available with IT partners throughout India as
replenishment from the company never came to them.

Speaking to
The DQ Week, George Thomas, CEO, Aldous Glare Trade and
Exports (AGTE), BlackBerry tablets reseller from Kerala said, “We
ran out of stock in 3 days after the offer was released. There was a
huge demand from the consumers but BlackBerry did not release any
further stock.” Voicing similar opinion, Dinesh Nair, VP, AGTE,
Bengaluru said, “The offer provided by BlackBerry saw tremendous
response and 16GB and 32GB versions were sold out quickly and now
there are no stock available in Bengaluru.”

Ahmedabad
based, Harvinder Singh Bagga, owner of BlackBerry Experience Stores,
said, “The sales definitely boomed up ten times after the offer but
due to unavailability of the stocks just after 3 days we were not
able to capitalize. There was no point extending the offer to another
week as vendors are not supplying the Playbook in the market. Due to
the quality of the features of Black- Berry, consumers still ask for
more but we are helpless.”

The
annoyance
was to an extent that a reseller received 700 calls since the time
the offer released in the market. Some resellers also feel that the
offer was just a brand pull before launching its upgraded playbook in
February.

Delhi based
reseller, Rajeev Mehta CEO, Zest Systems, said, “After the offer,
the company gave me only 2 playbooks though I have 3 stores; and I
was unable to meet the demands of the consumers. I think it might be
some kind of brand image creation before the launch.”

This move
may
be attributed to RIM's global loss of around $485 mn and also the
fact that tablet sales did not meet the expectation. More or less, it
was considered as a failed product by many in the industry. In such a
scenario, a move of announcing a lucrative scheme for end-users is
now raising several speculations. Whatever it be, the truth is this
'New Year Gift' from the company has only left the partners
annoyed.