The X-Box wins at Amazon!

Pfreemanevans | November 27, 2006, 06:19 PM

Big surprise. With 82 percent of the vote on Amazon’s creative door-buster campaign, the Xbox 360 Core system was a hands down favorite among Amazon’s customer base. And, in just 30 seconds, last week, Amazon sold out of all 1,000 units of the Xbox at $100. Though inventory on door-busters is usually short lived, a 30 second sell-through is pretty quick by any standard. I guess it is only a matter of time, probably days, until some creative developer makes a virtual waiting line so online buyers know what their chances are of getting one of a scarce item. This is actually something retailers should think about if they are going to feature huge discounts on limited availability items. Offline, consumers can gauge how likely they are to get one of the items. But online, this is not currently possible and customer disappointment is likely. Creating a virtual waiting room or virtual line feature is both a customer service and potentially an opportunity for online retailers to gauge the level of interest and to remarket to those customers who were too late