I want one, so I went to an electronics store and asked for one. The shop assistant looked at me like I was weird. They didn’t have them in, and didn’t know when they were getting them in.

So I went to another electronics store. This one, I didn’t get approached by customer service and after looking around for a while, it was apparent that they also didn’t have any iPads.

At this point, I think I must be going crazy and the iPad isn’t released today. So I look on twitter, and there are photos of people getting their iPads in Sydney and Melbourne. So I’m not crazy (well not in this instance anyway).

So now instead of just going into the other electronics stores, I figure I might save myself some time, and call ahead to find out if they have any in. So I called all the other stores that might sell an iPad. KMart said they didn’t have them and didn’t know if they were getting them. The story was the same at Harvey Norman. Big W kept me waiting for ages before giving me the same story.

Then I rang a small store (and approved Apple reseller) Dataparts. I was told they haven’t received any, nor have they heard from Apple when they are getting them. The guy apologised, and offered to take my number and he would call me when he knew more.

Now this incredibly drawn out and boring story has a point.

I’m a customer ready to buy. I’ve made my decision, and I’m just here to make the purchase. I don’t care who I give my money to – the price is the same everywhere.

Harvey Norman, KMart, WOW, Big W, The Good Guys. They all have massive marketing budgets. They have TV ads on all the time. Yet not one of these companies is taking advantage of all the marketing they’re doing. I called them first, but they won’t get the sale.

Dataparts, the small local store, was making a list of people to call back when they get stock in. They’re helping me out by ensuring me that I’ll get an iPad, and they remove the need for me to look around. And obviously, at the same time, they’ve won themselves the sale.

They’re picking the low hanging fruit. Here I am, a customer thats ready to buy, and presumably I’m not the only one (Dataparts told me they would have already sold 30 if they had them in stock). It’s so easy to sell to me, because the last remaining ingredient in the sale is just the stock! The hard part, the decision to buy, was already made. I was low hanging fruit.

Wherever there are big companies that have cracks in their sales funnel the size of the grand canyon, there are opportunities for smaller guys to jump in, and pick the low hanging fruit.

Now if only I could get my hands on an iPad.

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