Because I had to get a friend to buy it on my behalf (I couldn't get one into my cart for at least another hour), I won't be getting a survey. Thus, I'll provide some feedback here.
In addition to observing failure modes and then ramping up capacity (if possible), future releases could be made much simpler through pre-orders, limiting quantities, and adequate customer communication.
Pre-orders allow Google to:
- Respect your customer's time - I like many others spent hours getting up at possible release times, refreshing pages, etc. A simple pre-order several weeks in advance would have been far less painful, and would have taken me just a few minutes to complete the transaction.
- Gauge demand - Google apparently had no idea how quickly this would sell out, and wasn't prepared for the initial demand. Pre-orders would also allow Google and LG to work together to determine how to best distribute devices world-wide, etc.
- Spread load on your infrastructure - there's less of a need to scale up your store front-end or your payments infrastructure if people are buying in advance.
- Reduce support costs - aside from regular problems w/ pre-ordering, your support center wouldn't have been inundated with calls/inquiries regarding a system that couldn't complete orders.
In lieu of pre-orders, advanced communication of the exact release time (and sticking to it) would have allowed those of us who wanted a device to actually get one. Limiting quantities to 1-2 devices at initial launch reduces the predatory purchases where "scalpers" buy up a significant portion of your inventory in order to resell them at a (significant) profit, rather than allowing those buyers the actual opportunity to buy from the play store. After an initial launch period, allow customers who truly need more than two to come back and purchase more.
It's sad that the only way I managed to get a device was through a friend who managed to get a 2nd 16GB device into his cart, and offered to have me send him the money once he completed the transaction.
I was more frustrated that I had obligations that prevented me from babysitting the site at all hours and thus, when I was able to check in at the scheduled/announced time (mind you, which was leaked out via sites like this only hours prior), that the sale had started ~30 minutes before promised, and the devices were already unavailable at the actual promised time. It seemed that the premature release date rewarded those who had pager refreshers or scripts running to notify of content changes (in the same way previous contests rewarded those who could solve complex puzzles, etc.). This doesn't seem respectful of your entire customer base, and rewards a specific subset who seek truly "instant" gratification.
Between this, and pointing out the obvious need to "stress test" your entire store infrastructure end-to-end well in advance, I hope this feedback is useful in some way.