Apple Japan appears to be pushing consumers to the Apple Store. Waits for iMacs in retail stores are 3-5 weeks. Orders over the internet are filled within the week. Apple may be slowly altering it's hybrid direct/indirect distribution system.
nikkeibp.asiabiztech.com
Retail Customers Waiting 5 Weeks to Get Apple iMac PCs
April 8, 1999 (TOKYO) -- Individual customers who want to buy Apple Japan Inc.'s iMac personal computers must wait about five weeks to get their machines.
"Customers must wait five weeks for the blueberry model, the most popular one," said a worker at a T-Zone annex shop dedicated to Apple PCs in Tokyo's Akihabara district. He must often apologize to shoppers who seek to buy iMac PCs.
At other retailers, customers must wait three to five weeks to obtain the most popular model.
Many stores have complained that they are not receiving sufficient shipments from Apple Japan.
On the other hand, Naohisa Fukuda, Apple Japan's director of business operations, asserted that Apple can boost production if it wants to do so.
If that is true, then what's behind the shortage of iMac PCs following the introduction of the five colors of iMac PCs in late January?
A clue to the question may be found in a new distribution system adopted by Apple Japan upon its release of iMac PCs in August 1998.
Apple's alteration of its distribution system was aimed to cut excess inventories and raise the inventory turnover rate. The new distribution system provided a mechanism for collecting daily data on inventory and sales volume from retailers to keep only a one-week inventory at shops.
Customers ordering an iMac machine from Apple Store, a direct sales service offered by the firm on the Internet since mid February can get their PC within a few days of placing the order.
Apple Japan said that customers who buy a PC at a retailer are put on long waiting lists and that this is due to improper processing of orders and problems with the retail distribution system on the retailers' side. However, PC retailers have said that Apple's new distribution system is not working properly.
"Japanese retailers must strive to build more effective distribution systems in order to survive in the PC industry," Fukuda said.
(Nikkei Personal Computing)
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