A couple of hours ago, LG slashed 50% off the price of LG Optimus phone and sold it for just P6,450. Not to be outdone Nokia Philippines sold the Nokia C6 for only P6,490– 60% off from its original price of P15,100. The catch? You could only avail of the price drop for a couple of hours (1pm to 3pm for Nokia) and 2-3pm for LG).
And as expected, a lot of cash strapped techies (yours truly included) trooped to the SM Cyberzone (Megamall, North Edsa, Cebu,) and Gaisano Mall in Davao, in the hopes of getting an early Christmas present.
Everyone knew it was going to be a long wait and came prepared with chairs, snacks, psps, books girlfriends and anything to keep them entertained.. According to the mall security at SM North Edsa there were already a lot of people in line as soon as the mall opened at 10.
What all of us didn’t expect though was that aside from the time-limit, there would also be a limit to the number of phones they were going to sell. When I called Nokia at around 11 am, the lady said there were only 60 units left. She also told me that there already was a long line. Facebook posts from techie.com.ph, also confirmed the long lines at Megamall.
Still, I went, hoping for a miracle.
I arrived at around 12:45 and true enough the entire 4th floor of the SM Annex were filled with people in line for both the Nokia and LG sale. I went to the front of the Nokia store which was blocked by people and overheard that only 60 units were left but that there could probably be more stocks arriving since the sale would officially start at 1pm. So i went back to the end of the line–which was on the opposite side of the building and waited. The line began to move by 1 pm. by 1:15 people were saying that it was already sold out and we were all just waiting for someone from nokia to confirm it. By 2 pm the lines had gotten even longer and only moved when people got tired and left their spot. I reached the half of the line by 2:45 and despite people saying that there were no stocks left the rest of us still waited for an official confirmation. At 3pm i reached the front of the Nokia store. Unfortunately, the door had already been chained and only the few people inside would be able to buy the phone.
(at 3pm the doors of the Nokia Store was chained as if they expected a frustrated crowd to force their way in)
At least the people that lined up for Nokia were less unruly than those at the LG store where there were no clear lines in front to speak of and people just bullied themselves to get in front. Again people said only 60 units were sold.
While i see nothing wrong with setting time and stock limits, LG and Nokia could have at least announced that they were just going to sell “X” number of units and could have handed out numbers to those who still qualified. Or they could have at least posted a sign on the front of their doors to inform people that they were already sold out. Instead they seemed to relish in all the publicity that a lot people still patiently stood in line hoping for their turn.
I went home– sawi. not because i wasn’t able to buy a phone, but because it felt like I was handed a ticket to a raffle where the winners had already been drawn.