I don't see the peregrine on DGX's website...I wonder if that's their punishment for blowing the street date...don't get to sell it for however long...
In all seriousness I doubt that SRI would smack them like that. It was most likely an honest mistake. From SRI's perspective, a sale is a sale is a sale. Pre-posting then pulling the details didn't hurt SRI in any way that I can fathom. Either they are waiting to have them in stock or they will be adding it today or over the weekend.
We expect our regular shipment that includes several Shearwater product purchase orders including the one for the Peregrines to arrive on Wednesday 29th. That's assuming there aren't shipping delays and it doesn't snag in customs... which has happened several times recently due to large numbers of batteries in the cartons triggering bureaucratic delays. We are also seeing transport delays due to lack of commercial air cargo space. Our focus is on experienced sport and technical divers, thus the recreational nature of the Peregrine is not going to be as important to our customer base. So no rush... in the middle of a pandemic it's not like there is intense demand right now or a shortage of inventory. Because "Express" is part of our name, we try to avoid taking orders for product that we don't actually have available to ship immediately.
Our normal process is not to post new product pages until it's in the warehouse and we have done our own photography. We don't usually do pre-orders unless requested by the vendor because more often than not some delay occurs and the customer is disappointed (or worse if they were counting on it for a dive trip.) We had started building a draft product page but it was not linked to the website, that's SOP as well. For a significant product, we don't just slap up a cut and paste of the superlative heavy but content light marketing hype. Our usual process is not to use the 'stock' photo and descriptions of significant products, but to do our own research and produce our own unique content. That's normally done behind the scenes but the product page is not linked to website navigation or sitemap until the draft of the product page has been reviewed and approved by the manufacturer.
It takes the efforts of several people to do a good job of adding a product to the curated Dive Gear Express website once we have made the decision to carry it: Kennis or Joyce adds the SKU's and a brief description with pricing to the product databases and then places the PO. Sometimes we have a product sample and other times we have to wait until the product is received but Lisa usually builds a placeholder hero shot and navigation button graphics, plus perhaps a product spotlight banner graphic. Then Mark and Keith (plus sometimes Lisa and Joyce) come behind and start adding descriptive text, bullet points, safety warnings, FAQ items, and a tektip as appropriate. All of that usually goes through several iterations, and incorporates the manufacturer feedback about the product page. Plus in this case some other existing product descriptions and FAQ's, SEO and product search indexes need updating to add reference to the Peregrine. A new product subcategory also needed to be built. We didn't have an early production sample so Lisa will have wait to do her own product photography and video. Saffron and/or Joyce might need some product training since they usually take the lead on customer service. If it's an item we plan to service in house, Ian our lead tech will need to be involved early. It's also very typical for a new product that Kennis and Detron with the shipping team need to work out issues with barcoding, warehouse logistics, and pull/pack/ship procedures unique to the product (in the case of the Peregrine we need to record the serial numbers). Everything was proceeding as normal for the Peregrine early in the week, when the 'leak' if you wish to call it that occurred and the process came to a halt.
There was no error or even 'honest mistake' on our part. Some creative individuals may have just guessed our website URL for the product (it's pretty obvious, plus Shearwater teased the name and some information has been in the FCC public database for months) then took it upon themselves to be a spoiler and publicly post information along with the unpublished deep-link to our website draft product page. The draft product page at that point contained some inaccurate information, several typos and actually had a large bold font note on it about not linking prior to the release date. But because the link was posted other than on our website, it triggered Google to index the page. Once we were made aware, I 404'd the page and we'll just keep it that way until we can ship product. As the quote mentioned... the leak didn't hurt the Peregrine product introduction for Shearwater in any way I can see, but put a full stop to our process and maybe hurt the feelings of a few small Shearwater dealers. It also wasn't an intentional 'leak' to tease interest, as is a common practice in retailing of electronics, although it certainly appears that was the net effect in this case.
As the quote above points out, in this very difficult time for ALL dive retailers and dive equipment manufacturers in general, why would SRI punish ANYONE who wants to purchase their product from the consumers' preferred channel? Does that seem like the diver first practices of the Shearwater we know? Of course not.
