14 DAY TRIAL // One of the biggest concerns regarding the iPhone launch was that supplies would not last. A shortage of iPhones would have meant bad news for customers yearning to get their hands on one, but also for Apple who would be missing out on a lot of sales. In fact, there is only one group of people who would have profited from such a shortage, e-bay resellers.
Hoarding and reselling is a common phenomenon for highly anticipated products and it is for this reason that both AT&T and Apple decided to limit the number of iPhones that could be sold to any single customer. This measure didn't discourage the resellers though, they simply targeted the Apple stores where they could get two phones. While most of the AT&T stores ran out of iPhones within a day of the launch, supplies for the Apple stores lasted until the end of the week and although many of them did run out eventually, Apple is restocking them fast and keeping customers updated via their website.
As a result, those betting on buying two iPhones and selling one off for a nice margin on E-Bay were pretty much left out of the loop. People simply aren't buying from such online sites, when they can buy directly from Apple over the net or visit their nearest Apple Store. The grey market that was spawned by the iPhone launch seems to have had a very short reach and to be dying out. The only thing that proved to be profitable was selling your spot, which not a lot of people did and fewer yet bought. With activation being handled by iTunes, purchases of iPhones were incredibly fast and even the longest lines were resolved in record times.
It looks like Apple, a company that has traditionally had problems with meeting demand, did their numbers right and were prepared for the avalanche of sales.