Nov 30th is now Dec 7th [ Edited ]

[KevMann]

According to a member of the management team in the customer service department, I will receive my "First wave" Nook on Dec 9th. Who knows if he is correct, but since my bank account still has not been charged for my order, I would tend to believe him.

I think most everyone can agree this launch has not been handled very well. From the poor communication, to the lack of training for the in-store booksellers it has just not been handled well. I know B&N is a "Bookseller", not an electronics retailer/manufacturer, but they could have learned some lessons from other companies who have tried similar strategies.

The day after the launch announcement I visited my local B&N store, I had to talk to four people before anyone was able to even tell me what a Nook was, and he just went to the website that I visited several hours earlier. Not a very good start.

Then waiting until the day it was supposed to ship, sending out a cryptic email and giving out a $10 gift card and "upgraded" shipping. That is just wrong for a company that prides itself on service. Granted they did give us $10, but I would have been more happy with honest information. The people in charge at B&N did not come back to the office from lunch today to suddenly find out they would not be able to ship out Nook until next week. This information was known for a week, if not weeks prior.

Anyway, sorry for my lil rant. I am just an impatient "gadget junkie"

I already deauthorized my Kindle 2 and authorized it to my mom for Christmas. I guess I will just have to lug around a couple paperbacks for my trip next week. And when I get back, I will (hopefully) have a new gadget to play with.

Happy reading.

[stirwise]

Thank you for this really thoughtful summary, and for calling customer service and speaking to a manager. The email was vague, saying that we'd have our nooks "by" Dec 9th, suggesting maybe some would get theirs sooner. I'm not happy about the extra week of waiting, as I ordered on Oct 20th, but at least I have a date I can put on my calendar and maybe cross my fingers for.

I have seen enough product launches in my time to know that they almost never unfold as promised. The first Kindle took months to start shipping after Amazon started taking pre-orders. I don't expect perfection from B&N, that would be silly, but I did expect a modicum of competence. B&N is one of the largest retail operation sin the nation. They have been shipping books, CDs and DVDs around the country for years. Surely they have a very good logistics department, and are accustomed to getting product to the consumer on-time. Think of the millions of Harry Potter pre-orders they must have filled over the years. 

I'm certain B&N knew that the nook was not going to be shipped today to the first wave of pre-order customers. However, my order status *still* states "expected to ship Nov 30," even though that is clearly not going to happen. Not only did we not get acceptable notice of the delay, they can't even be bothered to update our order status to reflect it.

Delays happen, especially with such hotly-anticipated products. Demand outstrips supply, warehouses can't keep up, whatever, I get it. I had just expected B&N to be honest about it, and not wait until the last possible moment to announce the delay. It seems shady and a little insulting. 

[pidgeon92]

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stirwise wrote:

I have seen enough product launches in my time to know that they almost never unfold as promised. The first Kindle took months to start shipping after Amazon started taking pre-orders. 

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This is not quite true.... The first Kindles were shipped on the day they were announced, and sold out almost immediately. It was after that that they took weeks/months to ship follow-up orders.

I do, however, think that this current nook delay is likely due to the lawsuit from Spring Design, and was not B&N's intent.

[cummings66]

But they also knew from the lawsuit which was filed before today by quite a few days what was going to happen.  It's not like it just jumped up and bit them, they knew for quite some time the status of the lawsuit and the court dates involved.  So, it's not a surprise to somebody, only us.

From what I've seen, I think B&N will win the suit, but there is no telling when that will be.  Lawsuits can take years to settle out, and I've seen them kill a product off alltogether.  So there's no guarantee if it is the lawsuit that did this that we will ever get the nook.

[AdamSelene]

> So there's no guarantee if it is the lawsuit that did this that we will ever get the nook.

Quite frankly, we'll either get the nook, or B&N will start the spiral to going out of business.  They're losing money, and they just spent a lot more money developing this device and the infrastructure for using it, and building ~a million units.  Negative numbers can't be sustained forever.  They're clearly looking to the nook to improve their sales figures, both short term and long term, and they're clearly hoping that some of the nook features will get people in stores more (but even if they don't, they still win by selling nooks and ebooks).

So, IMO, they will fight the lawsuit vigorously.  They have no choice.  And Spring Design knows that.