Hi to all,

Many, if not, all of those that were in front of there screens yesterday trying to reserve a ST2 “Ultraman” have experienced heavy malfunctioning of the Omega website.
Impossibility to complete the process, dead buttons, resets, error messages, freezes, you name it.

A very, disappointing and stressful experience, obliging to restart the reservation process over and over, and sadly for too many Speedmaster aficionados, with as an end result an impossibility to reserve the watch even after being allocated one many times, (now you hold it, now you don’t...). They did everything right, were in front of their screens in due time, and certainly among the first to enter the process, sometimes saw their grail number on the screen, and then were victims of a software malfunction.

My questions here to those of our community who know better about the technology is:
How does such malfunctioning happen?
Was it possible to reasonably avoid this situation?

 

5000-10000 people trying to get 2000 LE watches in 20 minutes is always going to be a issue.

Try getting one of 600 Spyderco knives in a sprint run with probably 25k people trying. Those things have the same issues and sell out in 4 minutes.

So hey not saying the order process was not clunky and a lot of people missed out. But there was always going to be a lot of people missing out when they only release 2000.
Rolex have the same people on a 5 year waiting list.

 

It sounds like Omega uses a similar system to Ticketmaster when it comes to processing transactions like this. Works fine when the system sees a moderate amount of traffic, but starts glitching as more people pile in. They probably hamdled it as well as they could with the hosting bandwidth they had. I still much prefer Omega's method to the Rolex wait-list.

 

The preannouncement did not make it easier and stuffed the action in a even shorter period.
The number picking did not make it easier as well and was prone to failure.
Split the process up.
First reserve & confirm, then clean the list, then let the holders of a confirmed reservation pick a number.

 

Even the bad news is good news for Omega.

 

Same thing happens (or used to - I don't participate anymore) with new iPhone releases.
More than half of it is luck...
If Apple hasn't figured it out in the last 10 years of iPhone releases, I'm not sure Omega will.
I realize this is not exactly an apples to apples (wow no pun intended) comparison, but I believe the premise is the same.

This one hurts more though for those who seriously wanted one of these pieces.
With the phones, if you missed out, you would still eventually be able to get one.
However with a LE item such as this, no such luck unless you are willing to pay a premium.

 

I don't think they want to avoid the "problem". Look at the hysteria it caused!!!! Forums, Instagram.... it's all press for Omega.

 

You probably took their server down, so you could order more watches for yourself.)

 

I don’t think you understand the magnitude of suffering this has caused. There will now be a seismic shift at Omegaforums. The haves vs the have nots. I hope as a have not I am able to pull through. With the help of my family and a 12 step program or two, I hope to be able to at least cope.

 

To answer your first question: Poor infrastructure planning / insuffient scaling or capacity available / poor architecture design/ poor software design/ poor coding/ poor testing. One or more of these would all contribute. It's rarely a single item that causes a system to fail (Swiss cheese model of failure).

To answer your second question: yes. I'm reasonably confident there are many sites that have successfully dealt with larger "burst" loads.

 

Many thanks for your answers and your posts.
It soothes a bit the disappointment. I hold no grudge to the brand, and I strongly support companies that try new methods.
I only hope that this was not planned to be like that and will be corrected for futur similar sales.

 

Wonder if maybe the mobile site was optimised? I had no trouble tapping the link from Instagram and filling everything out on their browser - since the Speedy Tuesday is social-media themed, maybe they put more resources towards that?

 

I'm a "Have Not" and am tickled pink to be one! I was a Have Not last year for ST#1, and have been a Have Not for my entire life as far as Speedmasters have been concerned. FREE YOUR MIND!!!!

 

Last year was worse for Americans that woke up to a sold out product. This year they took steps to avoid the west coast debacle and it was in general higher profile for a multitude of reasons.

I had issues on iPhone. Booted up on Mozilla on the PC and flew through the process. I was one of the last apparently. My problem was being unable to get to the second page with no feedback tonif the page was working.

One change I would do is allow people to pick 5 numbers at the start and then an option for a random number. Seems more fair and streamlined.

 

I only pray I can cope as well as you, the suffering is terrible.

 

Server issues?

Bots.

 

Well there's a well-known saying = Adventor semper rectus !
Customers should be important for every firm... so get to know your fanbase & regular customers
Omega could try another system with prior registration online in order to get an idea how many watch aficionados are interested to buy a certain time piece... in combination with a visit to an AD to pay a deposit.