Could this be the Trident announcement?

[2nafisher]

I don't want to type out a dissertation about importing and lead times. But it is something I deal with daily, along with the domestic sales of what we bring in. I also want to reiterate that I'm not bashing the product or anything else involved with any of the multiple others aspects of it, beyond the launch.

There are several factors that I obviously don't have knowledge of on their end. Like if they already have sufficient numbers of the sku on hand and are doling them out on a limited basis to deal with the, future, internal, issue of servicing the units. If that is the case then that's their, again internal, issue. There is over a year to figure out how to plan for that to be sure the, internal, infrastructure is in place.

If it's a shortage of product at launch problem then it's a lack of proper planning on their end. There could have been presales starting shortly after moving from Alpha to Beta testing. This would have given them much needed demand information to allow purchasing to get closer to meet the demand.

A happy customer is a good customer. There will always be a percentage that will never be happy no matter what a company does. But when you do things as a company that unintentionally alienate your target audience it's going to cost you one way or another. There are many people throughout this entire launch that have gone in another direction and there very well be many more that do so now. That's not a good thing for any company.

Am I a little miffed? Yeah I am. I wanted to support my LFS and pick one up from them but they only got one unit and it was pre-sold long ago. BRS sold their stock before the official launch time, so I'm SOL. On that note, who launches a product release at 3am to half of the countries population?

Best comment in the entire thread..

 

[road_runner]

I don't want to type out a dissertation about importing and lead times. But it is something I deal with daily, along with the domestic sales of what we bring in. I also want to reiterate that I'm not bashing the product or anything else involved with any of the multiple others aspects of it, beyond the launch.

There are several factors that I obviously don't have knowledge of on their end. Like if they already have sufficient numbers of the sku on hand and are doling them out on a limited basis to deal with the, future, internal, issue of servicing the units. If that is the case then that's their, again internal, issue. There is over a year to figure out how to plan for that to be sure the, internal, infrastructure is in place.

If it's a shortage of product at launch problem then it's a lack of proper planning on their end. There could have been presales starting shortly after moving from Alpha to Beta testing. This would have given them much needed demand information to allow purchasing to get closer to meet the demand.

A happy customer is a good customer. There will always be a percentage that will never be happy no matter what a company does. But when you do things as a company that unintentionally alienate your target audience it's going to cost you one way or another. There are many people throughout this entire launch that have gone in another direction and there very well be many more that do so now. That's not a good thing for any company.

Am I a little miffed? Yeah I am. I wanted to support my LFS and pick one up from them but they only got one unit and it was pre-sold long ago. BRS sold their stock before the official launch time, so I'm SOL. On that note, who launches a product release at 3am to half of the countries population?

Well said...truly well said.

With all the hype for 2 years, you cannot come out with 70 units at brs and call it a day.

Either you were not ready but launched anyway to keep your customers hanging.

Or you had a poor planning.

Or you think product not 100% ready hence limit the ammount of real reviews...

 

[User1]

The problem with your analogy is that if another company offered the same thing without maintenance, wouldn't you choose that product over the one requiring maintenance?

No, I wouldn't. I know my life support equipment requires routine inspections and servicing to function properly. It is used in harsh conditions (I dive cold Northern California waters so say at 114 feet depth or so the water can be as low as 45 - 49 degrees Fahrenheit) both cold, freshwater (Lake Tahoe) or saltwater. That is just my regulator and not talking about other things like my tanks, BC, etc. My life depends on it. No different than a car needing oil changes every x miles or months or new tires.

The Trident is a measuring device pulling in tank water to sample, then regents, then measure and test. At the surface it seems somewhat easy I guess but think about how you do your tests manually then try to automate that so it is repeatable, consistently, time and time again. They need to how long the tubing is, how accurate the drops of regents are, the waste line, line quality, dirt, dust, what have you. Why wouldn't you want the unit looked at periodically? It doesn't seem unreasonable to me.

How often do you replace your regents? Change the battery if you use a Hanna checker? Do regents expire? How accurate is your test if you repeat the same test back to back to back or say 4 times a day? What is your level of accuracy when done manually?

How do your vials look after say 6 months of testing? Do you clean your vials? Do you replace them? I hear when people say they are surprised about the service or scheduled maintenance or maybe even feel it wasn't mentioned. However, I really struggle when people ask why it is needed or that is a deal breaker for the unit.

I don't own a trident. My tank isn't ready for it. I do own an Apex. I may buy one though down the road. Based on my understanding of how it works, the cost of regents, the results so far and feedback from beta users, I am at peace with it all. It makes sense to me. It will be interesting thought to see how it does perform now with the retail launch and new users. I do think the next two weeks will be interesting on the Neptune forums which I will be reading and paying attention to. That is where all the good and more useful information will be.

 

[User1]

Well said...truly well said.

With all the hype for 2 years, you cannot come out with 70 units at brs and call it a day.

Either you were not ready but launched anyway to keep your customers hanging.

Or you had a poor planning.

Or you think product not 100% ready hence limit the ammount of real reviews...

Look back at the Cor pump launch. Similar quantities and it only took a few weeks for everything to equalize. This shouldn't be any different. If you are looking for one I'd wager within two weeks if not the end of the month you should be able to get one.

 

[road_runner]

Look back at the Cor pump launch. Similar quantities and it only took a few weeks for everything to equalize. This shouldn't be any different. If you are looking for one I'd wager within two weeks if not the end of the month you should be able to get one.

Yes and it might be a month or more..

Still the point and facts here are simple:
70 to 100 unit for north America launch....

 

[User1]

There are several factors that I obviously don't have knowledge of on their end.

You are correct. None of us know. Nor do either of us manage a product of this caliber in the hobby/industry. All we have to go on is opinions. The reason why I'm replying to this is because you should agree that making too many along with matching regents and other kits only to have in inventory makes no business sense. Especially if regents have expiration dates.

Question - did you stay up to midnight or 3:00 AM and try to order one?

 

[User1]

Yes and it might be a month or more..

Still the point and facts here are simple:
70 to 100 unit for north America launch....

And the problem is?

 

[road_runner]

You are correct. None of us know. Nor do either of us manage a product of this caliber in the hobby/industry. All we have to go on is opinions. The reason why I'm replying to this is because you should agree that making too many along with matching regents and other kits only to have in inventory makes no business sense. Especially if regents have expiration dates.

Question - did you stay up to midnight or 3:00 AM and try to order one?

All speculations aside, there is one fact. Customers are disappointed...do we agree on that or you will have a justification for this as well?

 

[User1]

All speculations aside, there is one fact. Customers are disappointed...do we agree on that or you will have a justification for this as well?

I've not read a thread that says customers are disappointed. Did you start one?

So no, there is no justification unless you are speaking for everyone. I am an Apex customer and I'm not disappointed. No I did not wait up until 2 minutes to midnight (great song) or 3:00 AM eternal (another great song) to buy one. No, I don't speak for everyone.

I do, however, agree that some people may be disappointed that they did not win the Trident lottery. That is just a way of life.

 

[TTNuge]

Yes and it might be a month or more..

Still the point and facts here are simple:
70 to 100 unit for north America launch....

Now your speculation and assumptions are facts are they? By your facts over 20% of them ended up on Ebay. I appreciate your continued posts, each one confirms exactly the type of person we are dealing with.

 

[2nafisher]

Providing 70-100 units for the entire reefing community of North America hardly seems like a product launch.

 

[2nafisher]

Now your speculation and assumptions are facts are they? By your facts over 20% of them ended up on Ebay. I appreciate your continued posts, each one confirms exactly the type of person we are dealing with.

Probably so, it would almost be foolish not to capitalize on this situation. I will buy one as soon as I find one available at a retail price, will I sell it on eBay for 3-4x’s what it’s worth? Your dang right I would. Then I’d buy some extra coral an another trident for myself and still have money in the bank. [emoji23]

 

[User1]

Providing 70-100 units for the entire reefing community of North America hardly seems like a product launch.

I may have missed this nugget but where are you getting those numbers from? Did someone working for Neptune provide them or did one of the Oracles? Serious question.

With regarding to product launches you every try to buy a Ford GT? No? How about one of those Dodge Demons? No? How about a Camaro ZL1? No? GT350? While not apples to apples what they have in common is an unrelenting fan base of collectors and hobbyists all dying to buy one of the first released only to be denied or required to fill out an application only to be denied or only to have one or two available and required to pay a huge markup (ADM).

Shall I bring up the high end video cards from Nvidia or ATI? Similar. Launch is paper with few rolling out thereafter. All supply and demand. Again not apples to apples but the point remains the same.

What is the issue other than maybe you didn't get one?

 

[road_runner]

Now your speculation and assumptions are facts are they? By your facts over 20% of them ended up on Ebay. I appreciate your continued posts, each one confirms exactly the type of person we are dealing with.

Nope not speculstion.
Data says, brs had 70 or so. Now no one has...
That's facts..isnot it?
Where can I buy more pls?

 

[anit77]

You are correct. None of us know. Nor do either of us manage a product of this caliber in the hobby/industry. All we have to go on is opinions. The reason why I'm replying to this is because you should agree that making too many along with matching regents and other kits only to have in inventory makes no business sense. Especially if regents have expiration dates.

Question - did you stay up to midnight or 3:00 AM and try to order one?

No, none of us outside the company do know. What I do know is there seems to be a plethora of people that are unhappy about not getting one and probably wouldn't be had there been more info given out a few weeks ahead of the launch stating that when it finally does get released there will be limited supply for x number of weeks.

Yes, I did try to get one from BRS a few minutes before 3am and they were showing a couple on hand. Within 20 seconds when I clicked place order they were gone. 3am came and went with no stock. Just as I was falling back to sleep I get an email at 3:30ish that stock was available from their auto-notify... insult to injury...

I'm not just trying to get one to have the latest and greatest thing out there either. In addition to being colorblind, I have quite a few other things going on that are requiring a lot of my time and it would really help me to have more time to get these other things done. I didn't get one during the NSI but I was inadvertently given access to the forums when the second round went out. I read a good bit for an hour or so before I notified Russ what had happened so he could remove my access and I kept what I read to myself.

My system isn't quite as advanced as the guy that just posted a review, but I'm not far off.

 

[User1]

No, none of us outside the company do know. What I do know is there seems to be a plethora of people that are unhappy about not getting one and probably wouldn't be had there been more info given out a few weeks ahead of the launch stating that when it finally does get released there will be limited supply for x number of weeks.

Yes, I did try to get one from BRS a few minutes before 3am and they were showing a couple on hand. Within 20 seconds when I clicked place order they were gone. 3am came and went with no stock. Just as I was falling back to sleep I get an email at 3:30ish that stock was available from their auto-notify... insult to injury...

I'm not just trying to get one to have the latest and greatest thing out there either. In addition to being colorblind, I have quite a few other things going on that are requiring a lot of my time and it would really help me to have more time to get these other things done. I didn't get one during the NSI but I was inadvertently given access to the forums when the second round went out. I read a good bit for an hour or so before I notified Russ what had happened so he could remove my access and I kept what I read to myself.

My system isn't quite as advanced as the guy that just posted a review, but I'm not far off.

I like your post and understand why you would be frustrated. I did not try for a couple reasons but again I can't speak for numbers available or how people feel. All I have been asking in some of the negative posts is to try and put it into business and common sense with regards to availability and try not to be biased or speak for everyone.

Your post above is great - lays it out there and if I was Neptune and had a post mortem of the launch I'd take note to try and improve on if possible.

 

[Potatohead]

Surely Neptune knows how many 2016 Apex brains are out in the wild. I would think having enough Tridents at launch for 10% of those would be a good starting point, and obviously they were not close.

 

[anit77]

I like your post and understand why you would be frustrated. I did not try for a couple reasons but again I can't speak for numbers available or how people feel. All I have been asking in some of the negative posts is to try and put it into business and common sense with regards to availability and try not to be biased or speak for everyone.

Your post above is great - lays it out there and if I was Neptune and had a post mortem of the launch I'd take note to try and improve on if possible.

Between my job taking up more time, I'm in the final stages of working on my house prepping it for sale. I'm also in the final stages of signing a contract on a new house we're going to build. Annnddd I have a business trip coming up next week. Sure would be nice to get things closer to being on autopilot.

You gave many items for comparisons above that have limited launches. I especially like the video card one. I view it somewhere between that an Android or Apple phone launch. But like I said I fully understand the import process and there's no bin sorting of high end SOC's with this product.

 

[ca1ore]

Providing 70-100 units for the entire reefing community of North America hardly seems like a product launch.

How do you know it was 70-100 units - other than parroting other uninformed claims? From folks that bought them from BRS it seems that they got 60. While I suppose it’s possible the entire remainder of NA got only 10-40 more, that seems unlikely doesn’t it! Checked with my LFS and they got ‘around 5’ .....

If the COR launch is any guide, most will get a T if they want one within a month or two. All the handwringing seems unnecessary.

 

[ca1ore]

Surely Neptune knows how many 2016 Apex brains are out in the wild. I would think having enough Tridents at launch for 10% of those would be a good starting point, and obviously they were not close.

Do you have a sense of the installed base of trident-capable apex brains (I do not)? I argued a while back that using this number as a way to forecast trident demand would be a good idea. Maybe they did and 10% was too low?