O2 has got off to the worst possible start in the run up to iPhone 3G launch day. Every single news source in the world is reporting on the fact they have been unable to cope with demand during the pre-order process today.
Apparently this morning they sent a text message to everybody who had registered an interest. Thousands of customers then descended onto the site which promptly crashed.
Presumably O2 has lots of traffic and a robust e-commerce system in place already so how can they be unable to manage what is basically a database that stores peoples details?
The Register is less than sympathetic:
Customers were told by text message that new iPhones were available to existing customers who upgrade. But they were presented this morning with error messages on the O2 upgrade site after filling in forms and told to contact customer services by telephone.
“Which I did,” said Reg reader Carol Dew, “only to be advised that they couldn’t take telephone orders until Friday, and they were very sorry for the inconvenience, but they had 2000 other people just like me calling them this morning, and their managers had advised them that the site was overwhelmed. Because they didn’t anticipate the demand. But when I asked how many iPhones were in stock, since I was afraid they’d run out before I could order mine, I was told that they’d asked customers to ‘register their interest’ on the website (did that; hence getting the text this morning). And that every time someone registered their interest, they ordered in an iPhone for them. Yet they didn’t anticipate today’s demand.”
From The Telegraph:
An O2 spokeswoman said she did not know how many people had been able to pre-order before the upgrade website was suspended. She said they were working to restore the site as soon as possible and were “pretty confident” they would have enough handsets to cope with the demand.
Patrick Altoft is Director of Search at Leeds based digital & SEO agency Branded3. Patrick also runs Blogstorm.You can get our blog posts delivered for free by email every day - simply add your email address to the box below or alternatively grab the RSS feed.
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I tried to order mine this morning and it crashed several times. When it finally let me access the site, a sign came up saying “out of stock”, check the website on Friday.
I have an Apple Iphone and it has the most useless reception at my office and at home. I deperately need to upgrade to 3G but am now stuck with my current phone for the next several weeks.
02 is the worst mobile phone provider in the UK, and I’d advise anyone against joining them.
The way people are talking about 02’s failure, you’d think not having enough iPhones to go around is a crime.
I have only ever heard good things about O2 and was thinking of moving over to them in the next few months, O2 probably had about 100,000 hits within a minute or so, no wonder their site went down, not many sites could with stand a hit like that.
I sat here all day trying to buy one.
I submitted the purchase page about 8 times with my CC details in there.
I saw everything from SQL error to MD5# encryption text.
I did have one successful transaction, although I’ve seen no email or txt confirm this.
So I’m either getting 8 iphone on Friday.
One Iphone on Friday
One iphone delivered some time in the next 2 weeks (i find that out on Thursday)
or i’m getting to work late on Friday.
Both sites are still down for me, it's 10:45 AM Eastern, I feel like the people saying they were successful are lying to frustrate those who are routinely checking every 15 minutes or so.
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