Inventory shortages at at&t agent stores..could this be the end??
I work at a long time at&t agent in the south and I notice that we are rarely getting any phones in at all. This has been going on for about 5 weeks now. Now we do get some curve's in and the occasional gold v3xx razr but that been about it.So I called other at&t agents in my area they said they are having the same issue. HOWEVER, the 3 at&t corp stores within 30 mile radius has a lot of different phones to sell. How? at&t has not given us any straight answers. Is the dealer channel being phased out. after all we are are the ones that built the at&t/cingular business before the the corp store came a long. wouldn't be more economical to close to the at&t corp stores and make all the agents excuslive any let us handle the business? I think it ...
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They will never eliminate the dealer channel. We're 70% of their activations. The phone shortage is true across the nation. Just watch what you order, find out what's available first and when you see that something is in, order them all. Today we got Nokia 6126s and Samsung a437. There are ways around it, you just have to keep an eye on your guy at the warehouse. Last week they had an abundance of Samsung Syncs, so we ordered and ran a special on Syncs. Just sell what you can get.
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NEVER say never! I have watched many agent locations close in 2007 (37 to be exact). I have been told that this is to try to lower overall costs as well as churn. I really believe that there many agents that are better than cor employees, but in reality why would they keep an indirect over a cor when they cost more?
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There is always a inventory shortage this time of year. New products come in once fall gets here to get the "i want it" attitude in customer's heads by the holidays.
Between the vendor and provider, the present models are winding down as neither wants to get stuck with a large number of clearanced product so you will see smaller numbers being ordered at a time to insure they are sold as quick as they arrive.
Between the vendor and provider, the present models are winding down as neither wants to get stuck with a large number of clearanced product so you will see smaller numbers being ordered at a time to insure they are sold as quick as they arrive.
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Yes, I would be interested in hearing this as well. How can an agent possibly cost more than a cor location. I pay all bills here and only receive a check for commission based on our activations. If the new account is turned off within 6 months it is a full charge back. I pay at&t as much or more for phones than you can buy them at your local Walmart for 2/3 of the phones we sell. Our sign our front was paid back in the day when we got a co-op based on again activations. We no longer have a co-op for ads or media. I would find it impossible to believe that a dealer can cost more to the company than a cor location. The biggest thing I know of that we get for free are the price brochures and some posters...if they is costing more than a cor ...
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I think the costs come in having RAEs and other dealer agent corporate assistance (credit and activations reps for instance). AT&T is paying those people to help agents. And yes, I miss co-op money too.
I have a question though, do corp stores ever call customer service, credit and activations, or AR?
I have a question though, do corp stores ever call customer service, credit and activations, or AR?
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Now i just know that the shortage for just consists of that our phones used to come from Tennessee, and we are in Georgia, only a couple hour trip really, so we used to get phones all the time. Now we have a shortage due to all of our phones are now coming from Texas...takes alot longer for them to get here. But i mean we sell ALOT. So we run out pretty quick. I really dont think its a shortage they just need to make them faster lol 😁
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Exactly... we took the phones we had an added MORE benefits to buying them, including an extra $25 off of the Sync for trying a higher priced media package. It actually worked well, and now we're wondering WTF to do with a shipment of 30 V3's an... and... Samsung d407's???
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LGCU400 (31,500)
A437 (26,449)
A437 RED (5,331)
A437 GOLD (7,90😎
C139 PIB (116)
V365 (7,183)
V3 BLACK (68,222)
V3 PINK (5,999)
N75 (2,342)
6126 (17,581)
2610 (13,395)
As of 7-25-07 all on back order.
A437 (26,449)
A437 RED (5,331)
A437 GOLD (7,90😎
C139 PIB (116)
V365 (7,183)
V3 BLACK (68,222)
V3 PINK (5,999)
N75 (2,342)
6126 (17,581)
2610 (13,395)
As of 7-25-07 all on back order.
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We had a lot of phones on backorder for a long time=low stock. Now we have a huge inventory.
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I also have the same feeling that at&t only wants cor stores. It seems like every month we get a new letter taking something else away from us. We can't ever cross market, do anymore exception upgrades. The cor guys cry too much and don't give that well of customer service. We can't even do NBI anymore when we are the ones that set the customers up back five years ago. Maybe Vodaphone should have bought is instead of SBC/Cingular
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That must be just your market, I can activate customers from my area (market 14) to all the way down to Miami. Plus we can do NBI accounts activations up to 50 lines and upgrades. This is just happened within the past year or so.
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Man, that sucks for me. I am in the Mountain Time Zone and I can't cross market, do NBI, can't do exception upgrades that we could until 7.1.07. Man, and we have owned this location for 11 years.
LAME!!
LAME!!
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you must not be a premier agent with cross market stores...to my knowledge thats the only way they would allow it.
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Yea, we just have one store in a little town in Colorado, near the ski towns.
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My family owns a little att dealer store in the mountains just for something to do.
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ah rock and roll, our company has some locations out in colorado just wondering if you worked at one of them.
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I'm currently working for my 4th agent for Cingular/AT&T. With the previous three, when we had inventory shortages that were persistent like what you describe, every time it was an early indication of financial trouble within the company I worked for, not Cingular. We have had a few phones recently back ordered, but always received them in a fairly reasonable time. If I were you, I would want to see the actual communication from the ISG supply department stating all these phones are actually unavailable before I assumed that the problem is with AT&T.
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Our store has shortages on the phones that are back ordered, we have tons and tons of v3xx bj all those phones, no v3 black, pink or silver. We are only short on the phones that are back ordered by att corp.
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As others have posted, this is the transitional time for at&t's handset porfolio. The problem is simply supply and demand. Also the fact that some of these handsets still have not been rebranded, i.e the N75. As of today, all of my backordered handsets have arrived. Which includes...
Moto V365's
LG CU400's - recived my last 20
Nokia 6126's
Nokia 6085's are in and out of backorder.
No more RAZR's for my locations.....good ridence!! 32 months for a handser is a long time. Probably a record for any carrier.
I don't see this to be an end for agent locations any time soon. Especially here in the Dallas and West Texas markets. Agent represent 60% of at&t Dallas business.
It is cheaper to have an agent location. Rent/Mortgage, Util...
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Moto V365's
LG CU400's - recived my last 20
Nokia 6126's
Nokia 6085's are in and out of backorder.
No more RAZR's for my locations.....good ridence!! 32 months for a handser is a long time. Probably a record for any carrier.
I don't see this to be an end for agent locations any time soon. Especially here in the Dallas and West Texas markets. Agent represent 60% of at&t Dallas business.
It is cheaper to have an agent location. Rent/Mortgage, Util...
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