We said this weeks ago. Asus needed to deliver on getting phones into the hands of the India consumers because the demand was going to be massive. If you believe Asus, they are saying “1st 30K sold in 2 minutes”. So that means in two minutes they sold 30,000 ZenFone Max Pro phones during the two dates in India when orders went live on Flipkart.
We aren’t sure if or when Asus will let the India consumers know about the reasons for the “sold out” listings on Flipkart, but they should certainly get out ahead of this. People are ANGRY in the India market. There is rampant skepticism about this being a flash sale, a marketing scheme or just some misleading trick by Asus.
We checked out the sale yesterday which went live at 12pm India time. We refreshed and we did often but the page didn’t really show stock available for us but at moments following 12pm, we did see the “out of stock” notice removed, but still had problems seeing them available to buy. If we consider the numbers Asus has provided, then some of the odd Flipkart behavior is understandable. The sheer volume of people trying to get into the product listings obviously created some issue.
The next Asus sale for the ZenFone Max Pro on Flipkart is May 17th. If you’re from India and are upset, consider the situation. We don’t believe there was intentional misleading going on. We do believe in the sincerity that Asus is suggesting regarding being humbled by the overwhelming demand for the ZenFone Max Pro.
We will say this. Asus better be transparent about sales numbers with the India consumers otherwise they risk a lot of bad PR. The trust in the Asus brand could be tarnished if they don’t communicate and explain sales numbers to help people understand just how remarkable the demand has been. India consumers are intelligent and clearly they are tired of flash sales and other manipulation show by other brands.
The 17th is going to be a critical day for Asus. People getting shut out three times is a row could be potentially disastrous especially considering the role social media plays regarding people’s perception.
