HP TouchPad mania: TouchPads selling out in U.S. at $99.99
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Hewlett-Packard’s TouchPad is finally enjoying a sales boom. All it took to move the previously slow-selling tablet was a $99 price point.
The TouchPad’s dramatic drop -- from a starting price of $499.99, to $399.99, to $99.99 -- hit Canada on Friday, resulting in ‘sold out’ listings on Best Buy Canada’s website.
On Saturday the TouchPad’s new $99.99 price hit the U.S. and, according to reports around the Web, retailers on both sides of the border are seeing sellouts in stores and online.
HP itself is selling the TouchPad in its online store at the previously Canada-only prices -- its 16 gigabyte model listed at $99.99 and the 32-gigabyte model at $149.99.
Walmart.com lists the same prices but says the item is ‘out of stock online,’ meaning that consumers will need to head to a Wal-Mart store to get the low price.
The website SlickDeals.net has rounded up a few other merchants that are listing the TouchPad at the same prices and indicating that many are already sold out. From SlickDeals.net ...
* PC Richard--Sold out * Target--Sold out * Sam’s Club--Sold out * Office Depot--Sold out * Wal-Mart--Sold out for online shipping * MicroCenter - 16 GB --Sold out; orders confirmed by email are being followed by cancellation emails, even in cases of ordering only one. * MicroCenter - 32 GB--Sold out * Fry’s--Sold out * HP Small & Medium Business [hp.com]--Still in stock. Will show up as full price. Call HP for price adjustment.
Other retailers -- such as Amazon, Fry’s Electronics, NewEgg -- haven’t taken up the price drop as of Saturday morning, but such a move could happen. According to SlickDeals, Staples is selling the TouchPad for $99.99 and $149.99 in-store only.
While the sellouts are popping up at many online retailers, it’s not clear if the same demand is taking place in stores as well. So for those out and about shopping today, let us know what you’re seeing in the comments.
And as always, sound off in the comments and let us know what you think of all this.
A few commenters from an earlier Technology blog post on the Canadian price cuts have asked why someone would want to buy a device that HP will no longer support or produce, or an operating system that has so far failed to attract developers to build up an app catalog.
Other commenters took a different view, seeing $99.99 as a bargain for a device so good at simple computing tasks such as surfing the Web and checking email.
What do you think?
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-- Nathan Olivarez-Giles