Snap Is Trying Again With Spectacles; No More Vending Machines
- Learning from its mistakes, Snap will control inventory
- No more bright-yellow vending machines, web-orders only now
Snapchat Spectacles
Photographer: Patrick T. Fallon/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
Snap Inc. is introducing a new version of Spectacles, the colorful sunglasses that take videos for posting on its mobile app. And this time, the company is going to be smarter about predicting demand.
The previous version of Spectacles made its debut in November 2016 and was sold, at first, through cartoonish-looking vending machines in strategic locations. That produced a lot of hype and long lines, but not a lot of demand. Snap sold 220,000 pairs of the glasses, but ordered many more, and ended up taking a $39.9 million writedown and cutting some employees.