OnePlus will be ending their reservation system on October 22, and focus on fulfilling those reservations by sending out invites. The system has amassed over 5 million reservations, a success by any metric. Now that production of the OnePlus 2 is ramping up, the aggressive start-up will begin to start sending out more invitations so that people can actually buy the sought after phone.
OnePlus has rightly been criticized for their invite system. It was originally put in place when the OnePlus One launched to protect the company from having too much stock at one time. If you know exactly how many phones you need, you’re never going to get stuck with inventory you can’t sell. Some phones were even being made and shipped out the same week, which led to some complaints about yellow screens from glue that hadn’t dried yet.
But, OnePlus wasn’t content to slowly make progress and fulfill orders. The company leveraged the press they were getting from the invite system, and started doing contests to jump the line and get an immediate invite. Some were dumb. Some were incredibly sexist. None of them helped the company’s image.
For the OnePlus 2, they decided to change it up. They introduced a reservation system that would again, give them an idea of how many phones they would need to produce. This time you could move further up the list by sharing links and getting your friends to sign up. Many are still annoyed with this system but, OnePlus has shipped more phones in a smaller amount of time than their last launch. Even if they didn’t launch on time.
“As production is ramping up, we want to ensure that as many people as possible who signed up get their invite, so we feel it’s in the best interest of our users to close the list and make sure that this happens. In one week (October 22), the OnePlus 2 Invite Reservation List will no longer be taking new entries. “
OnePlus
Now, that system is coming to an end. OnePlus will begin to send out more invites to those on the list. Those lucky enough to have purchased the phone already will also be getting shareable invites in the near future. If you’re looking for an invite, giveaways are often done on their social media account and in the OnePlus forums by the company and previous customers with invites to burn.
Time will tell if the invite system was a true positive for the company. While it did protect their product line, it also hurt their image and pushed some customers away for good. OnePlus shipped a surprising 1 million OnePlus One’s, but a long term future is not assured in such a volatile industry. You need only look at HTC’s current troubles for evidence.
What do you think about the invite system? Was it the right move for OnePlus? Should they have switched it up even more for the OnePlus 2? Let us know in the comments what you think.
OnePlus Two
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OnePlus 2 | SpecOut
Source: OnePlus via 9to5Google
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