Longteng Electronics gained market access in North America half a day earlier than in Europe. Some people took advantage of this half-day time difference to hoard large quantities of iPods. By the time the European market opened in the afternoon, Amazon's online store had already announced that the devices were out of stock.
The celebration of the iPod's return to the European and American markets was not only among iPod enthusiasts, but also among scalpers and overseas resellers who secretly hoarded and speculated on the product.
Sony's reputation has suffered a serious decline after it filed a complaint against Longteng Electronics, leaving netizens with the impression of unfair competition.
Managers in Europe and North America tried to develop the online market, but many people deliberately placed orders and then returned them, causing Sony a lot of trouble.
The biggest challenge was attracting investors. When Longteng Electronics was banned from the market, Sony opened up to attract investment and attracted a large number of followers.
These investment companies invested in Sony, thinking that DragonTech was already exhausted. Unexpectedly, just ten days later, DragonTech made a comeback in the European and American markets.
Sony's IDS is now being overtaken by DragonPlay, and investors are suffering huge losses.
"Asia Travel Capital announced that it has withdrawn its investment from us."
Ichiro Yoshida, head of the Japanese headquarters, announced the news with great sorrow.
The North American and European heads exchanged a glance, realizing that this wasn't anything new.
“Our warehouses are full of goods, and the production lines have not been running for several days. The workers are sleeping in front of the machines every day.”
Marketing Manager McDillian then complained, "But Dragon's dominance has already taken over the market. Headquarters is unwilling to lower prices, and we can't sell anything in Europe and America either."
Mike is the marketing manager; he only looks at market prices. As for costs, that's something the product manager has to consider.
What he couldn't understand was why, even at this point, headquarters was still unwilling to lower the price.
"Before the emergence of Dragon, Sony's products represented industry-leading technology and design."
The president remained unmoved and, in front of several district managers, said cryptically, "Longteng Electronics, to put it bluntly, is just a speculator."
"Can they be the dark horse every time, if they can be the dark horse once?"
The heads of the European and North American regions looked at the translator and thought it was a translation error.
Longteng Electronics' previous actions, such as building online communities and generating public opinion, are clearly mature business operations and not those of speculators.
"Soon, Longteng Electronics will be overtaken by us," Yoshida Ichiro said confidently. "We have several Memory Stick patents, which can be used in MP3 players."
"The next batch of products will focus its marketing efforts on memory sticks."
Product Manager Simon and the two managers from Europe and America exchanged glances, all thinking that this was unreliable.
After leaving the meeting room, several familiar executives chatted for a few minutes.
"Do you believe Yoshida Ichiro's statement?" Simon asked.
Mike's spittle almost sprayed onto Simon's face. "What can we do if we don't believe you? We're a branch office, they're headquarters!"
"These islanders, I really don't know where their arrogance comes from."
Mike is known in the industry as a pioneer of Wall Street industry. The products he handled have never fallen out of the top ten in sales in Europe and America, unless they were discontinued.
He had never worked on such a complicated project before. The battle between Sony and Longteng almost drove him crazy, so it's normal for him to be a little emotional right now.
"The upgrades and replacements of MP3 players are nothing more than a few aspects: storage capacity, decoding chip, circuit board, and appearance design," Mike pointed out incisively.
Simon nodded and said slowly, "Longteng currently holds an absolute advantage in the European and American markets. Yoshida Ichiro's confidence in being able to beat Longteng must be due to the technical department's breakthrough in MP3 bottleneck technology."
After several rounds of protests, the cohesion among iPod enthusiasts has significantly increased, with over 100,000 active users in the online community.
In other words, even if not all of these people actually bought an iPod, they became loyal supporters of the iPod because their offline groups were very active.
A group of fanatical fans will inevitably attract a group of even more fanatical speculators.
Amazon lists 10,000 iPods daily, and they often sell out instantly.
Since people can't buy iPods on the official market, they turn to other channels, which has created a large number of professional scalpers.
They operated multiple accounts to snatch up iPods on Amazon's official website and then resold them at high prices after receiving them.
Chen Dong's office has received several complaint calls from European and American distributors.
“Europe and America are free markets. They take advantage of the time difference and information gap between oceans and manufacturers to hoard products and sell them at high prices when there is a market demand.”
Anne said to Lin Zhiyuan, "They've been using this method for centuries, and they're extremely skilled at it."
"However, if our products don't reach consumers, we can't build brand appeal. People's impression of the iPod will only be that it's expensive and there's no stock available."
Compared to purchasing iPods online, Sony MP3 players are available both online and in physical stores. If customers can't snag a product online, they can make a reservation offline.
Furthermore, for brands like Sony with a wide network of physical stores, scalpers would need to spend more on travel expenses to profit from the transaction.
“We can’t let this situation continue.” Chen Dong thought for a moment and said, “We must implement purchase restrictions.”
"Purchase restrictions?" Lin Zhiyuan and Annie asked at the same time.
E-commerce platforms are still in their infancy, and the policies and measures for product sales are still being explored.
Blindly imposing purchase restrictions could very likely cause consumers to turn away.
“Each person can only buy a maximum of two units per Amazon account,” Chen Dong suggested.
Anne raised an eyebrow and said, "That method is possible, but there's no precedent for it at Amazon."
"I need to consult with the person in charge at Amazon before I can make a decision."
E-commerce platforms have brought great convenience to the iPod, but at the same time, there is actually an agreement between Longteng Electronics and Amazon.
As a third-party platform, Amazon is willing to make concessions to large enterprises in terms of sales strategies. However, if there are any details that conflict with Amazon's platform policies, the decision must be made after consultation between the two parties.
After Annie left, Lin Zhiyuan slowly strolled over to Chen Dong.
"The competition between us and Sony is still ongoing, and I'm afraid that limiting purchases at this time would cause consumer resentment."
Sony? To be honest, when these big companies were competing for VCD sales, Chen Dong did indeed consider Sony as their number one competitor.
"No, we're using a scarcity marketing strategy. They might not be satisfied, but similarly, the purchase limit will make them realize that opportunities are limited, and their consumption will become even more frenzied," Chen Dong laughed.
......
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com