You read about the latest must-have gadget, about how it’ll revolutionize your social life. You search for days online only to realize it’s still sold out. Am I talking about the Wii? Not quite. Not even the highly coveted Louis Vuitton Limited Edition purse. I’m referring to Amazon’s Kindle and Netflix’s Web-to-TV set top box (STB).

The difference between these two gadget shortages and the Louis Vuitton purse is that Louis Vuitton knows the size of its market and can openly declare the quantity made and sold. Unfortunately, for Netflix and Amazon, it’s still not clear whether there is a sizeable market for the STB or Kindle. Their hype seems to have fizzled out in the blink of an eye. Have any of you actually heard of a friend or a co-worker who can’t stop raving about the Netflix streaming or Kindle?

There’s nothing wrong with artificially generating shortages to create hype. However, if a well-established company does not share official volume figures, it may potentially backfire by creating doubt and turning interested customers away with delays. Don’t get me wrong, the Kindle and Netflix’s STB may very well succeed in the long run as they do provide value to customers. It’ll be interesting to see how they overcome their industry-specific obstacles (pricing, download speed, net neutrality, manufacturing, etc) but until then, I’ll still be visiting the bookstore and checking my mailbox for my movie rentals.

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