TiVo Elite Selling Better than TiVo Expected?

Weaknees also sold their first alotment and is waiting for their next shipment.

How many of those stores are Magnolia stores? I doubt most of them had any in stock to begin with since most stores aren't magnolia. I hope it sells well, but I doubt they issued a lot of stock initially.

rainwater said:

How many of those stores are Magnolia stores? I doubt most of them had any in stock to begin with since most stores aren't magnolia. I hope it sells well, but I doubt they issued a lot of stock initially.

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At least 3. S Tampa sold out day one, and Brandon and citrus must have sold out between yesterday and today.

Other threads said Best Buys got *2* per store. That's not many. Heck, even Zunes would've probably sold out at that # per store.

All we know for sure is that only the Magnolia stores had initial stock - other Best Buy's are "Ship to store" only.

It was also reported that the initial shipments were 2 or 3 units per store, which doesn't seem like many at all. Heck, I was personally responsible for one store selling out ...

(Of course, answering your underlying question is impossible, since we have no idea what Tivo expected or forecast).

I suspect most of the initial sales were to Tivo fans like many of us here at TCF that were waiting for the box.

rainwater said:

How many of those stores are Magnolia stores? I doubt most of them had any in stock to begin with since most stores aren't magnolia. I hope it sells well, but I doubt they issued a lot of stock initially.

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My Magnolia store in South Tampa had 7 in stock on Saturday night. I'm guessing we are talking about 25 or so boxes in the Tampa area. I agree that TiVo was very conservative about issuing the boxes but I know the Magnolia representative I spoke to didn't think they were going to sell out at $499 each. It will be interesting to see what the subscriber numbers show when TiVo announces quarterly earning in November.

jfh3 said:

I suspect most of the initial sales were to Tivo fans like many of us here at TCF that were waiting for the box.

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If you've been reading the TCF for the past year or so I think calling most of the readers fans wouldn't be correct! It seems like TiVo is finally on track to release a product that is worthy of an upgrade from the Series 3 platform.

mattack said:

Other threads said Best Buys got *2* per store. That's not many. Heck, even Zunes would've probably sold out at that # per store.

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Some stores got more. Sbiller and I both bought from S Tampa. They had at least one when I left since they brought 2 over to magnolia when I bought mine, and Sam got his before mine.

We are also talking about an item with a $500 price tag. Yeah it isn't going to make any records, but it seems to be selling better than best buy or TiVo thought it would.

innocentfreak said:

Some stores got more. Sbiller and I both bought from S Tampa. They had at least one when I left since they brought 2 over to magnolia when I bought mine, and Sam got his before mine.

We are also talking about an item with a $500 price tag. Yeah it isn't going to make any records, but it seems to be selling better than best buy or TiVo thought it would.

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Did you listen to the engadget HD podcast? I think its only a matter of time until we can convince @bjdraw to buy the Elite. He's holding out for the Preview at retail. I'm a bit puzzled why TiVo hasn't petitioned the FCC for a waiver on the Preview.

sbiller said:

Did you listen to the engadget HD podcast? I think its only a matter of time until we can convince @bjdraw to buy the Elite. He's holding out for the Preview at retail. I'm a bit puzzled why TiVo hasn't petitioned the FCC for a waiver on the Preview.

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No it was released while I was at work so I will give it a listen tomorrow.

It is interesting that stores that are now sold out show "Unavailable", rather than "Ship to Store", which tells me that the regional warehouses don't have additional stock.

jfh3 said:

It is interesting that stores that are now sold out show "Unavailable", rather than "Ship to Store", which tells me that the regional warehouses don't have additional stock.

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Yeah online actually sold out before our local stores.

sbiller said:

If you've been reading the TCF for the past year or so I think calling most of the readers fans wouldn't be correct!

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LOL! Yes, sadly, you are probably correct. Poor choice of words on my part - perhaps "Tivo optimists" would have been better.

It seems like TiVo is finally on track to release a product that is worthy of an upgrade from the Series 3 platform.

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And, as most readers would probably say - about two years too late ...

However, it appears that most of the changes that will benefit most are going to be because of the 14.9 software, rather than the Elite itself.

Anyone know how many Magnolia stores there are? There are somewhere around 1100 stores, but have no idea how many of them have Magnolia sections.

As for finding out how many Elites sold on the next conference call, Tivo has never broken down hardware sales by model (and, to be honest, even if every BB sold 25 Elites, that's not a significant number of new subs). And I would hope that the Elite has less of a hardware subsidy than the regular Premieres.

I can't tell whether or not the Elite is selling better than everybody expected but it does appear to be selling better than I expected. It looks to me to be another great TiVo product and great value, best DVR for cable users needing more than 2 tuners but the economy is so bad I wasn't sure the market would respond well.

Since the Elite has been for sale, my guess is they have sold at least 100 times more of the original Premiere. I doubt the Elite will be a major blip on the radar compared to the original Premiere which will continue to sell better. TiVo is counting on the cable companies to make the Elite a real major player.

When I bought my Premiere at Best Buy on the first day they only had one in the store.

3 of the 7 closest Best Buy stores to me have stock on the Elite. A total of 12 Best Buy stores within 40 miles of me (as the crow flies -- driving distance might be as far as about 60 miles) have stock.

The stores in the Philly area are also sold out. I know a crappy change to Comcast's DVR software for my area finally drove me to TIVO. When I had enough I started looking and found the elite for just days before the Elite release, saw quad tuners and I was in. I might not be the only one, there were a couple of other people picking up cable cards Mon when I went in for mine.