"Fitbit Blaze is beating Apple Watch on Amazon"

Jennifer Booton writing for MarketWatch:

Fitbit said Thursday that it shipped more than 1 million $199.95 Fitbit Blaze devices in March, exceeding the company’s internal expectations, in what was the first full month of the product’s availability following its CES debut earlier this year.

The Blaze currently ranks as the No. 1 best-selling device in the smartwatch category of Amazon nudging ahead of the $349.99 Apple Watch Sport. It is also the best-selling device on Amazon for heart monitors, which comes as Juniper Research forecasts a nearly tripling of health monitoring device sales through 2020.

First off, Kudos to Fitbit for selling 1 million of these FitBit Blaze devices, something I didn’t think they would do. I know how great Fitbit products are for measuring health data, but good lord, haves you seen the thing? Still, selling 1 million is a hell of an accomplishment, and I would bet that many Android Wear manufactures are quite jealous.

But c’mon, lets be honest about one thing here: Apple is not selling a whole lot of Apple Watches on Amazon. There are a bunch of places that most people would rather buy an Apple Watch, not only because they get to try it on first, but because it’s also cheaper.

First off, Apple itself reduced the price of the Apple Watch Sport to start at $299. On Amazon, they’re still being listed above $300. On top of that, most Apple Watch sales are likely happening at third-party brick and mortar stores like Best Buy and Target where they are being discounted by $50 to $100 dollars.

Let’s also not forget Apple retail is likely where a huge percentage of Apple Watch sales are happening. Maybe it’s online too, but people tend to buy a lot of Apple products at the Apple Store when it’s not something that’s tied to a carrier.

Of course I’ve been wrong before, but something tells me that using Amazon as a barometer of how well the Apple Watch selling in relation to the Fitbit Blaze is not the right approach.