18 
Oh dear, looks like Google’s got quite a mess on its hands. It seems like Mountain View was slightly unprepared for the deluge of people ponying up their hard earned cash for the £240 flagship Android phone. Deliveries are back ordered to the tune of up to three weeks. Ouch.
According to an email sent out to lucky buyers, Google’s having trouble satisfying demand, meaning that the Nexus 4 is properly backordered, and should ship ‘within three weeks’ — not exactly what you want to hear having managed to throw down your chunk of change and get an order in before the sold-out signs went up.
Of course, that could mean it turns up tomorrow, but something tells me that if Google has to email and tell people it might take a while, a while it will take. Meanwhile, people are paying crazy money on eBay for the things, so if you do happen to have one in your possession, it might be worth turning a tidy profit on it? [Cnet]
Will Google Deliver a Nexus Tablet in the Next Six Months?
Is This the Next LG Nexus Phone?
This Is the LG Nexus 4
[ Insert JulianT rant here ]
mhatti3000 gratitude here
Ha!
You took my rant spot
Well,. I wanted to keep it warm for ya!
The person in charge of this should be fired, especially as they had a similar cock-up with other Nexus devices in the past.
If I hadn’t managed to place my order in the first 30 minutes, had a confirming email, had two conversations during which Google customer services confirmed my order was due for dispatch with 48-72 hours then I wouldn’t be surprised by a delay but I did all those and still get bumped for 3 weeks.
How frack’in difficult is it to know you have 20,000 (a guesstimate) Nexus 4 16Gb for sale and as soon as your system records 20,000 sales stop selling, start slapping shipping labels on and dispatching and then open the system for backorders?
To tell people you’ve definitely got one and then reverse that, to send out multiple handsets to people, to ensure that O2 has plenty to sell at a mark-up really sucks in my opinion. This will be my last post on this order issue.
Only 20k? I would have thought a lot more than that..
It might be a Google-LG thing. Don’t forget, LG actually makes the things. I wouldn’t be surprised if Google has nothing to do with the stock levels at O2 and the network probably deals directly with LG — hence the unsubsidised price.
The O2 thing is a tiny percentage of how badly I think this was dealt with.
I suspect the issue was this. Every order that passes through the system has to be verified by the card company (visa/mastercard/whatever) before they are marked as sold, so there is a period when the transaction is completely out of Google’s hands. If the transaction fails at the card verification stage (some people had problems with debit cards as the banks blocked what they saw as an unusual transaction) then the phone needs to be added back to stock for resale. somewhere along the way the system got so mixed up it sold more phones than it had. Frankly Google should have handled this a whole lot better and I expect them to learn lessons about this for next time.
I suspect you’re right but I think that people should have been dealt with in order of order received, no multiple orders allowed (not having a dig at you because I know it was accidental etc), and if you want to get fancy how integrated you are with their ecosystem, ie, used Google Wallet, Play, email etc for years so can be seen as ‘long standing user’ etc.
Spoken to two acquaintances who set up Wallets on Sunday/Monday, ordered 2 & 3 handsets respectively (have not been bounced 3 weeks (yet)) and already have them up for sale on eBay as they’re both Apple nuts…….
Ok those guys are CUNTS, go rage at them, not Google. I don’t think my use of Google services had anything to do with me getting my phones.
I agree and I have! I don’t think use of Google services had any part to play as I use a lot (except Google +), what I was suggesting maybe it should have, you know, reward loyal customer base first.
That would have been done and confirmed before the success screen was showed or the confirmation email was sent.
20,000 handsets is an extremely low guessimate. But I don’t think anyone needs sacking, you placed a pre-order and failed to get it as the numbers were too big, it is the game you are playing – you aren’t entitled and the world doesn’t owe you a favour. I think Google will learn from this as the process did have glitches and could have been better but Google haven’t fucked anyone over here, they are just dealing with a small issue of over demand and some will be let down in that process – for the life of me I don’t understand why you feel you are more entitled than others.
Considering Google know how to build a website to take huge traffic would lead to a simple conclusion that the numbers and demand over those minutes were big, overwhelmingly big, unlike anything that was expected.
I could have said 2 million, it was a number picked at random!
Nowhere on the Google Play site or my confirmation order email or the 2 phonecalls I had with them did the word pre-order come up.
I had (still have actually) on Google Play a shipping estimate of 15th November 2012.
I didn’t place an order that said *subject to availability, I placed an order that was accepted and then due to the ineptitude of Google that order has now been delayed 3 weeks.
I’m not more entitled than others but I am entitled not to get fucked over.
Why do I say sack the person responsible? Because it was someones job to estimate demand, to ensure the system could cope, to decide whether or not to allow pre-orders etc…. they fucked up before with other Nexus devices and they haven’t learnt a damn thing.
At the end of the day how difficult is it to know how many orders you’ve accepted and how many phones you have to send out? Surely that should have been know within hours, tell me “hard luck” after a couple of hours that’s one thing, tell me repeatedly it’s coming and then two and a half days later change your mind, yes I’m going to be pissed.
Fair points, but I think if the numbers are in the tens of thousands then Google should be able to deal with that without an issue, and people would need sacking regarding the numbers and site performance. But if the numbers are in the millions then I can’t recall a company that has ever taken that number of sales in a matter of minutes and they did a surprisingly good job. Don’t forget when the iPhone 5 came out that sold 5 million internationally over 3 days, that is 5 million over 72 hours = 144 half hours, 5 million / 144 = 28736, so that is how many orders Apple can take in 30 minutes – I think as a realistic number we may say Google had at least 250,000 handsets, more likely a million+. That is a crazy number of sales in a matter of minutes, probably ten times the demand that Apple have ever got in that time scale.
I understand what you’re saying but we’re guesstimating figures here and personally I can think of a few ways this could have been handled better:
1) Accepted pre-orders for a week before.
2) Opened orders at specific times for specific countries, not all at midnight San Francisco time, this would have alleviated the bottleneck.
3) Dealt faster with the issue when they realised they’d ‘sold’ more than they had.
Anyway, what’s done is done and this was the first and last time I’ll buy on the first day, normally not bothered but it’s just that my Desire is so annoying low on memory it’s all but useless to me so I wanted this quick. Ho Hum.
I just personally feel you have a good point if the unit sales are smallish (25-100k), but if it is 250,000+ in 30 minutes then I think they need commending, a few million people poking around a site in 30 minutes usually brings a site fully down – Google technically gave themselves a DDoS attack from having such a good lowcosy producy and talking about it.
* Google technically gave themselves a DDoS attack from having such a good low cost product…
I personally think that had say, 2 million devices available. The stock wasn’t removed until the customer reached the success page, but during that time more people were adding them to the cart and completing the order. So although they were sold out, the cookie on your computer e-commerce sites use to keep things in your basket had not updated quick enough and was still telling you stock was available.
and they confirmed my order was valid once by email and twice on the phone over a 2 and a half day period because……?
Except communications systems aren’t instantaneous, while in a perfect world that could happen in practice it is actually impossible to do that with todays technology with that level of traffic especially. When you are buying something from google you aren’t dealing with a single system you are dealing with multiple systems acting in concert and because they can’t be 100% synced without losing the ability to handle large traffic volumes things like units that don’t exist can be sold.
If you are going to criticise anything criticise not taking pre orders. The reason pre orders exist online is the exact reasons I mentioned, you can’t get all those systems operating together in real time without errors.
So basically when you say “how difficult is it” the answer is very difficult to being impossible. Which is where the issue is this is google, they know its impossible but there was probably some marketing nit in the equation somewhere that thought it was a good idea to do it this way.
I get what you’re saying and agree pre-orders would have been ideal although I think if they’d opened orders at specific times for specific countries, not all at midnight San Francisco time, this would have alleviated the bottleneck and they should have dealt faster with the issue when they realised they’d ‘sold’ more than they had.
As far as I’m concerned changing my order status 60 hours after my order is just too damn long.
That would make too much sense, no doubt the decision making for this came from a sales team full of people that probably couldn’t describe how a search engine worked if there lives depended on it. And the team doing the nexus 4 was probably a single centralised one rather than leaving a local group in charge of each area.
And when you consider 60 hours is 3 working days so in reality it is only 24 hours. And given the chaos that was caused they would have had to bring in people that knew what they were doing to sort it.
Other than pre orders the glaring thing that they should have done is limit the phones to one per customer. And placed a non resale within 30 days clause in the sale contract. People flogging the things on ebay and buying them for that exact purpose was half the battle.
To be honest at the rate things are going if the HTC DNA or Razr HD comes out here with a reasonable price I might end up getting one of those instead.
I agree with all you said, especially the last paragraph.
Are you encouraging people to tout phones Giz?
Yes, that is exactly it. There will be a Toutmodo website soon
With people buying the damned things for £800, we could probably turn a healthy profit
Mmmmm Kat can “tout” me anyday. Phwoarrrr!
You want Kat to be your pimp?
Well, I think I meant tout for me. Hmm. Awkward!
I’ll get me coat……
Get that coat, Kat did the deal, I’ll be pounding your ass all weekend – text ya laters.
How can a company as big as Google not know that you need more than 10 handsets on launch to meet demand?
My phone broke 2 days before the Nexus 4 launch, so I decided to wait, now I guess I’m going to be without a phone for another 3 weeks at LEAST.
I’ve got my office PC polling Google’s site every 5 minutes and sending me an email when the “SOLD OUT” tag disappears from the Nexus 4 page. That email goes into a filtered GMail box, which prompts my phone to play ‘Tired of Waiting’ by the Kinks.
I made the mistake of not setting this up on Tuesday morning. Never trusting Google again!
How do you get it to check the site ever 5minutes for that? Got a script you’d like to share?
It’s just some VB.NET code. I couldn’t really share it, it’s just a console app and in the name of expediency it’s hard-coded for my needs.
However, Google something called Website Watcher. It’s not free, but it provides a generous trial.
i have my nexus 10 = just to rub it in
You lucky thing lol. Im looking to get one soon but heard that on the high graphical games it can chug a bit. Any sign of slow down?
i have played asphalt 7 and deadzone so far, and not one glitch or jump no lag, i am far more impressed with it, looks far nicer in the flesh and feels like it should cost more
i did a mini review on G+ giz circle, and here it is
weight: feels nice not too heavy nor too light, if i had to be petty then maybe just a tiny bit lighter, but its definitely not heavy
Quality: build quality is excellent,
its no where near as fat or ugly as the initial photos of it first showed
the back although smooth, is quite grippy.
Sound Quality: the stereo sound is excellent, very spatial, the sound is wider than the two tiny speaker gaps suggest, and at full volume there is no distortion,
Volume: as far as volume goes it is loud enough to be heard from another room.
Screen: screen quality is amazing, graphics are crisp and text easy to read.
Touchscreen: very responsive and feedback is subtle enough to let you know you have clicked, but not annoying enough to piss people off with the clicking
It would be while and if iPhone5 takes 6 weeks to wait for more than double the price of Nexus4 then may me it’s not that bad.
This is why that with the exception of cables, SD cards, (LED) bulbs and other ‘accessories’, I buy ALL my tangible goods in a shop in person. I could have ordered my iPad mini from Apple or a local supplier, but rather than risk waiting (I’m impatient anyway!), I phoned around until I found a dealer who had what I wanted and the second I tracked one down, I asked them to put it aside and said I would be there within the hour – and I was. It was good to support a local high street store too.
The same with the NEXUS 4, I plan to contact those phone stores (Carphone Warehouse here in the UK) who will stock it and second I find one, I’ll go get it.
All of this also has the benefit that when something goes wrong, you can walk back into the store with the device for repair, replacement etc and not have to faff around with shipping back to – well, I assume Google in this case, and if so, where exactly? Mountain View? London? Paris? Berlin?
Google is the distributor (provided OS obviously) but manufacturer is LG so the warranty would be from LG as well I guess?
Yes, I think so. I know that the warranty for the Nexus 7 is handled by Asus.
Also, the Nexus 4 isn’t your usual consumer gadget, the price from Google is dramatically less than the price you’ll get from a high street retailer (possibly because Google are selling it at cost). You’ll be paying much more for it from CPW, perhaps £100 more.
What about us poor suffering souls who have 2 Nexus 4′s en route to us right now but no idea when they are going to get here other than “before 6″. Imagine the stress and the heartache we are going through.
i feel you pain
Do I see at least £1000 coming your way thanks to panic-buying eBayers?
Nope. My Google friend MHatti3000 was unsuccessful in the scrum, while the second N4 was a complete accident (caused by the overloaded system) I couldn’t profiteer while my Bro went empty handed.
sorry that was meant to be Good Friend, though we met through our mutual love of things Google, so that works too.
Funny, I’m feeling an urge to hurt you.
Don’t you think I’m suffering enough right now without you adding physical pain?
No. More suffering, less gloating.
No more suffering, they’re here.
Enjoy
Grra.
Well Bully For You! I don’t suppose a third arrived by accident? No? Oh well.
sorry, no.
I’ve had mine for weeks!
http://reviews.carphonewarehouse.com/2486-en_gb/LG_NEXUS_4/reviews.htm?reviewID=22372496
WTF?
I do concur with this acronym.
Please mark as helpful here
:
http://www.carphonewarehouse.com/mobiles/mobile-phones/LG-NEXUS-4/MONTHLY?utm_content=Default#phonedetailstabs
CPW jumped the gun and put the page up 5 days before the official 30th Oct announcement, so myself and it seems two other like-minded individuals decided to submit reviews which they haven’t had the good sense to deny or take down.
Please mark it as helpful
So… you’re a dirty fibber then?
No matter, I have marked as helpful
I admit I’ll have to defer to the others as to the accuracy of my review, but I stand by it!
I’ll never believe a CPW user review again (faith shattered)
Got it for £399 from O2 on pay as you go from the o2 store at north greenwich and since i was 3rd in the queue since only there were like 20 or 30 people luckily, now I am getting 32” Led Smart Tv which i am selling on ebay so
399.99-300
= 99.99+10 pound top up.
109.99 for 16Gb Black, cheaper than play store
Its a better phone compared to last galaxy nexus. Though there are some bugs and optimization issue. hope an OTA will fix those issues.
But to be honest i was thinking about what happened to my nexus 7 delivery form play store last time even though I ordered it as soon as it was available on play store. So didnt take the chance and I am glad I bought it from O2 now no more delays Muhahaha !
Well done, how long did you queue?
3 hours only