Series 3 TiVos not shipping?

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Series 3 TiVos not shipping?

I ordered a Series 3 TiVo off tivo.com Tuesday morning fully expecting to get it by Friday. It said it would ship in a day or two, and I had overnight shipping. Thursday night, I got an email saying there was "excessive demand" and it would definitely ship Friday (and they'd waive the shipping charges) and I should expect an email. Friday came and went, and there's no email.

Turns out, lots of other people have had the same experience. Gear Live has a good wrap-up of TiVoCommunity threads and an HDbeat editor had the same experience I did. It's looking like no one that ordered online has gotten their new TiVo yet.

It's great to see TiVo have such demand for a high-end product, but I'm shocked at how poorly it is being handled. Everything in business is about managing customer expectations. From the outset, the expectation was set at 1-2 day for shipment and even as the orders poured in, you'd think a dynamic website could be programmed to shift that as the day wore on. Apple is a company that deals with high demand online sales and they're fantastic about estimating when something will be in your hands.

I would have skipped the TiVo.com route and bought one at my local BestBuy, but when I called them last weekend, they said they were only getting a couple units 1-2 weeks later. I'm really surprised to hear the TiVo.com online orders can't be canceled, as that seems borderline illegal for an unshipped unit.

I'm hopeful TiVo turns this all around next week. With all the people calling customer service, they must have gotten the message that they have thousands of disgruntled superfans on their hands, so I'd like to see an honest, accurate email Monday letting me know when I could really expect a unit. I'm glad I didn't schedule any cablecard installers yet, but I did buy a TiVo wireless g adapter from Amazon that is sitting here unused.

by Matt Haughey September 16, 2006 in News

Comments

Went to my local electronics store, ABT Electronics in the Chicago area. They have them in stock and I purchased one.

http://www.abtelectronics.com/scripts/site/site_product.php3?id=25513

Posted by: Kesey at Sep 16, 2006 10:25:17 PM

I'm still waiting on my S3 TiVo as well. I actually called Customer Service on Friday and they transferred me to Sales who said they'd be shipping that day and I'd get an e-mail - instead I got the "excessive order volumes" apology e-mail.

I'm waiting on my new 42" Panasonic commercial plasma anyway so I don't mind if they all come next week, but it does seem like bad corporate practise.

Posted by: nicwolff at Sep 16, 2006 11:42:41 PM

The orders can be cancelled...you just need the right CSR. I cancelled and reordered from Circuit Shitty and already have received and gotten Comcast to bring cablecards.

Posted by: a geek at Sep 17, 2006 2:56:13 AM

It's not like they haven't had years to prepare for this launch..! They've even had actual units around for months. I can't believe they weren't expecting a big demand for this.
Be aware that if you want to use the $199 Lifetime Sub 'transfer' you have to buy the S3 from tivo.com and not retail channels.

Posted by: GadgetGav at Sep 17, 2006 6:19:28 AM

I ordered my S3 from TiVo around noon central time on Tuesday. Saturday night I received a shipping confirmation e-mail that had my UPS tracking number.

According to UPS, my TiVo was shipped Thursday, scheduled to arrive Monday (Sept. 18).

I'm sorry to say there doesn't appear to be rhyme or reason how the orders are being fulfilled. I never got the "excessive demand" email everyone else talks about.

If you check TiVoCommunity, there are a lot of others who also received shipping confirmations.

Posted by: SuppleMonkey at Sep 17, 2006 9:19:52 AM

Demand is good. How soon we forget that, until recently, Apple was THE company that had supply chain snafus up the wazoo.

It's the sign of a growing company.

Posted by: demandisgood at Sep 17, 2006 9:44:52 AM

I just got a "your order shipped" email with a tracking number this morning, I ordered Tuesday afternoon. They are making progress!

Posted by: Ken at Sep 17, 2006 10:19:46 AM

still no order shipped email for me.

Posted by: Matt Haughey at Sep 17, 2006 4:57:17 PM

Ack. I got an order confirmation email, but no shipment notice. PLUS, tivo magically pulled up an address of mine that is three years out of date, I guess based on my email address, even though I never used the old address on my order form.

Posted by: Matt Haughey at Sep 17, 2006 7:12:07 PM

Matt, that address thing happened to me, too. Luckily, when I called Tivo to see what happened, the rep confirmed that they did have my correct information (though he didn't know why the addresses got messed up in the email).

Posted by: frank kolodziej at Sep 17, 2006 8:28:45 PM

Yeah, same thing happened here. The rep said they had my new address.

I suspect it's a bug in their webapp. I threw in my email that I used the last time I had a TiVo account, three years ago, which had an old home address associated with it.

I bet their webapp is trying to be smart and automatically pulling the original address from my associated email instead of the one I used when I placed the order.

Posted by: Matt Haughey at Sep 17, 2006 11:03:14 PM

I don't know, I've still had a horrible time trying to get my Series 3 (even though some of you seem to be justifying something to yourselves).

http://www.synthesisstudios.com/whiteboard/2006/09/18/dear-tivo-inc/

Just like Matt, however, they screwed up my address! Now UPS has it, and I won't be getting it until Wednesday.

Sigh.

Posted by: Raffi Krikorian at Sep 18, 2006 6:44:00 PM

I got mine today (Monday) after ordering online on Thursday. Fry's in Indianapolis has them in stock.

Posted by: Jeff at Sep 18, 2006 7:50:30 PM

My Series 3, ordered 9/14 and supposed to ship overnight, is scheduled to arrive today.

I received no shipment confirmation from TiVo, but a phone operator at TiVo sales confirmed shipment and gave me a UPS tracking number.

UPS says the shipment was delayed because of incorrect postal code for shipping address. Looking at the TiVo purchase confirmation email, I see that they swapped my billing and shipping addresses in the email, and left off part of the office address (which is supposed ot be my shipping address). Not sure exactly which address was given to UPS, but the UPS site says they're delivering to the city in which I work, not where I live, so that's cool.

TiVo operator acknowledged that the online sales software was confusing or corrupting the shipping and billing address, and said I should get a shipment charge refund.

Oh, well. Maybe I'll have the box before the end of this week. TiVo look very much the online sales amateurs now.

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