Online Public Relations Thoughts

 When retailers make a mess, what is a manufacturer to do?  That is the situation facing Sony and its PlayStation 5.  Major stores like Target, BestBuy, GameStop, and Walmart jumped the start time for preorders of the product and opened their sites to customers a day earlier than Sony expected.  The result was chaos and a torrent of "out of stock" notices.  Sony has apologized but it wasn't its fault.  Still PR damage has been done, and the company will need to labor overtime to correct the situation.  Sony needs better communications with retailers, assuring them they won't lose out with a staggered order time as happened here.  It might not make a difference until the company exerts pressure, but this will be hard to do because they are big players in the marketplace.  So what is a manufacturer to do who doesn't have a large stock of a hot product and is faced with parceling it out?  There may be no good answer to that question>