Pi Zero (un) availability

[mikronauts]

I came "that" close!

Adafruit sent me a notification that Pi Zero's were back in stock.

Adafruit is one of my favourite places to shop for Pi gear I do not make

I went to the computer I use for banking, and went to the Adafruit site... shows 20 Zero's in stock.

I add it to my cart... shows 19 in stock.

I quickly go to the Pi category, figuring that if I was paying shipping to Canada, I should buy some more stuff.

I add a $29.99 Pi Zero basic kit (as the bare Zero was limited to one per customer)

I add a couple of more items.

I go to my cart to check out.... AAARRRGGHHH!

Shows the bare Zero out of stock. I would think if it was in my cart they would keep it there for at least 10-20min...

The $29.95 kits are still in stock. As are the $59.95 kits.

So I abandon the whole transaction.

After thinking about it, I think:

- a limit of one Zero at $5 per customer makes sense at such low stock volumes

- perhaps there should also be a limit of only one zero kit sale per one bare zero?

In my case, today I was going to order about $100USD of gear from Adafruit (Zero, Basic Zero kit, sense hat, and probably an Rpi display). I ended up ordering nothing.

Food for thought.

I put myself back on the notification list - perhaps they will dribble out another 20 tomorrow...

[yoosi]

I wish they would allow customers to place and order and have it fulfilled when they get inventory. I was fortunate enough to snag one today but just barely. I didn't feel comfortable shopping around for accessories because I was afraid I'd lose the product if I didn't complete the transaction quickly. (It turns out I made the right decision.)

[Saahilj]

Well if they let you pre-order, then they would get less web traffic, which leads to less sales.

[Laurens-wuyts]

I was lucky enough to get 2 of them in the first hour of the release.
I'm glad now, that I did it.
Hope it comes soon back in stock with more quantities.

Laurens

[mikronauts]

I think I'll prepare a shopping cart of accessories, or perhaps a text file with links to the accessories I want.

Then, next time I get a notification, I'll jump on it

[Jednorozec]

I didn't see the email until a bit over an hour after it was sent. The website kept going down and by the time I got to the single Pi Zero page they were out of stock. I certainly don't want to spend $30 on their cheaper kit since I don't need any of the extra stuff. I'm getting rather annoyed at the way they're trying to make money on the kits rather than selling the single board.

[W. H. Heydt]

I've already mentioned this source, so I may as well do so again... Ameridroid will let you place an order to be filled when they get stock. At present, they say they are expecting stock to come in during February, so your order may sit there for a while. I placed an order with them in early December. At that time, they were expecting stock in January, so I don't know if their supplies have been delayed or if they have orders for everything they're expecting in January and new orders will be filled in February.