Why do apple stores always run out of stock on release-days?

Gets it in the news doesn't it? Also meeting all the initial demand will mean more of them being in the supply chain prior to launch, meaning that there is more chance of details leaking to rival manufactures and the press prior to the official announcement.

As for robbing an Apple store - any telecoms stuff is easy to block and effectively make useless - if you report a phone as stolen in the UK it's blocked from all the UK networks within 24 hours and across the EU soon after reducing it's resale value somewhat (the same would be true of the 3G ipads) - I know Amazon block stolen Kindles from accessing the Kindle store, and I would imagine Apple do something similar with iTunes too.

Shoplifters tend to nick stuff with relatively low, but easy, resale value (the two most stolen things in the UK are Gillette Mach 3 Razor blades and French cheese in boxes!) - anything lager than an Iphone doesn't really fit that model!

And anyway, Apple Stores have been robbed
Apple Store ram-raided: 23 MBPs stolen | The BEST Apple Hardware and Software Reviews
Two people held over raid on Covent Garden Apple store - Crime - UK - The Independent

Smaller "shoplifting" events don't really make the news as they are unfortunately quite common

 

Well it is just not as simple as order some more.

The manufacturing plants only have a certain capacity. You can add capacity, but that is very expensive. So it does not make sense to add that capacity for only a short surge in demand.

The other issue is that with new technology it can take a while to get the yields up, which will also initially cause shortages. Shortages with new technologies is very common, just with most things it does not get much media attention.

 

To get hype.

 

Yeah....business is funny like that. It's to induce the want of the consumer to want it more. Knowing something is sold out causes us as consumers to want it all the more, and in turn will keep coming back until they can get a copy. I did the calling thing every single day after Christmas trying to find my Nintendo Wii because I wanted it so badly. It wasn't until like close to New Years (or after?) that I called a store in the next city over (about 45 minutes away) and they just got two in. Soon as I got there I raced into the store to electronics and saw the associate getting one out, asked if there were any left. I got the second one of two, two minutes later a woman came to ask if they had any. I felt slightly guilty but I'm like thinking, I FINALLY got it, she'll have to come back sometime later. Why? Because the absence of enough stock made me want it more. It's consumer want that the lovely people at Nintendo, Sony, Apple, etc make only limited orders because it means it'll get the customers to come back, because they'll want it more. And in turn, spend more money.

 

Gotta love consumerism.

 

I'd say hype. It's all about the supply and demand...on a side note, why don't people just order it ahead of time?

 

Because the websites crash or can't satisfy the demand (says a man who launched a Raspberry Pi on launch day and won't get it until the end of April)...

That being said we pre-ordered a couple of ipad 1s at work, and got them delivered two days before the official launch day here in the UK :lol:, and were then able to launch at all the idiots camping outside the Apple stores in London a couple of days later when the news channels thought it was worth being the top story of the day :bang:

 

It's part hype, part real shortage because manufacturing isn't really revved up yet, and part the simple fact that ordering, say, 100 gizmos you're almost guaranteed to sell is safe. Buying 200 of them you may or may not sell is both bigger and riskier bet.

Imagine, you're a shop which made a huge order for 3DS... "Hey, it's Nintendo handheld, it absolutely can't tank, right?" Well, it didn't exactly tank, but its launch obviously was far less successful than Nintendo hoped. And someone got stuck with an inventory of 3DSes that were supposed to be sold for twice the price you could buy them for just a few months after. Definitely not a good business.

 

It's apple. They like to hype and disappoint....its what apple fan boys love!

 

It's so I can justify waiting until early May to buy the Ipad 3rd gen.