It was only a year ago that New Yorkers were lining up 150 deep to buy Spectacles out of a vending machine. The glasses, which record video for the Snapchat app, had attracted so much buzz that the five-hour line stretched around the block and down into the subway. One tech journalist advised packing “snacks or a thermos of hot cocoa.”
So as far as stunts in artificial scarcity go, it went great. But Spectacles are now readily available online—directly from the company or from, um, Brookstone—and demand for the $129.99 glasses has not kept up. Not even close.
In fact, the glasses sold so poorly compared to expectations that Snap—which shortened its company name but still runs the Snapchat app—admitted this week to spending $39.9 million on “excess inventory reserves and inventory-purchase commitment cancellation charges” for Spectacles. Last month, The Informationreported that “hundreds of thousands” of Spectacles, assembled and unassembled, are sitting unsold in warehouses. Which naturally leads us to the question: What is going to happen, like physically happen, to all those Spectacles?
Snap was not forthcoming. As in, they ignored my interview request.
For more read the full of article at The Atlantic
