While I don’t really agree to this “starve the masses, therefore they’ll want more” sales tactic, I have to hand it to Xiaomi – it seems to be paying off. Immoral as it may be from my perspective, this tactic of achieving sales did wonders in China, and it seems to be a promising start in Taiwan as well. This time around, as you may have guessed, it’s the RedMi Note that killed it.
The RedMi Note is their latest phablet and it managed to sell 10.000 unites in just one second in Taiwan, which seems downright amazing. They also boasted to have received reservations for another 40.000 RedMi Notes in circa 12 hours. Taiwan seems to be their newest target outside of China, where they managed to achieve great results in a relatively short amount of time. If Xiaomi continues on with this momentum, sooner rather than later they’ll also decide to spread to other Asian countries as well – maybe even go further.
This sales tactic, however, is somewhat dirty from my perspective. It tries to over-hype the device ( and succeeds at doing so by making them quite high-end at low-prices ) making people want it and then only releasing PARTS of the stock. It resembles starving dogs to make them one way or another and occasionally throwing them a bone to make them appreciate it even more. On paper and in statistics, this strategy is working, but many potential buyers are left out in the cold because as soon as the stock is replenished, it’s depleted instantly before the web-page even refreshes.
The disadvantages for this, from a consumer’s point of view, are that you have to RESERVE a product months ahead of it being in stock, thus paying for it, let’s say now, and getting it around a month later AT BEST. I may be just old-fashioned in thinking that this is a bad idea, but I still prefer the full-stock coming out at once instead of releasing a couple of units now and again and selling them out before people even know they exist.
