Exceeding Supply Again

Once again we have a camera manufacturer (Panasonic with the L10) announcing that orders for a new camera “greatly exceeds our expectations.” The actual truth: orders exceeded what they can deliver initially. Why not just say that? By using the “exceeds our expectations” wording, the Japanese are constantly saying, in essence, that they are producing cameras that that they thought wouldn’t have all that much interest initially. That they could deliver to expectations, and expectations were low. Further, this wastes early buzz for a new product, as people get in line, find they can’t get it, and then buy something else for their upcoming trip, vacation, event, whatever. There was a time in the digital era when companies announced their initial production level for a new product, and if demand exceeded that, they’d apologize that they couldn’t deliver to demand and would increase the manufacturing level. Unfortunately, as total unit volumes plummetted after 2011 and supply chain issues…