It would seem that there have been some major disappointments presented to those who were able to preorder the Sony Play Station 3 game console. The biggest problem was that with the limited quantity of consoles made available to the numerous stores that ordered them were not nearly enough to go around. Retail stores were even asking that their employees, many of who got into the preorder PS3 process along with their customers, to please wait until the next batch of consoles arrived. They had hoped that this would be in plenty of time for Christmas.
The process required to preorder the PlayStation 3 console was meant to avoid an anticipated rush of people attempting to snatch up the newly released games console. This system was also set up in the hope of bringing some sort of order to the sales process of this much anticipated item. Unfortunately it looks like this process failed. It did not take long for those who tried to preorder PS3 game console to learn that despite having paid in advance for their new PS3, that it would not be be delivered to them as promised. Retail customers were being turned away with promises of getting their consoles sometime before Christmas. Therefore, many people turned to eBay as an alternative source of purchasing the PlayStation 3.
Which was the bigger surprise ? The launch of the PlayStation 3, and the immediate sellout of the four hundred thousand game consoles that were for sale, or, how fast they began to appear on Ebay. There were so many of them appearing for sale on Ebay it was obvious that many people had lined up for hours to buy one just to make a quick buck by reselling them. Fortunately, staff at Ebay reacted to this quickly and posted many unique selling rules for those who were selling PS3 consoles through the site. They demanded proof of authenticity by showing a photo with the listing of the preorder receipt. Buy-it-now sales were also not permitted, nor were one day sales and the item had to be paid via PayPal.
Ebay were being very careful to ensure that people were not listing fraudulent PS3 game consoles. They were trying their hardest only to allow sellers with good positive feedback to sell the console, as these were the sellers they could trust the most..
Unfortunately, despite Ebay introducing these restrictions, when the PlayStation 3 console was released, there were over three thousand of them listed. People who had bought them for five to six hundred dollars were able to sell them for hugely inflated prices. Supply and demand was working.