Tablet bargain hunters hoping for a second release of HP TouchPad stock will be disappointed to learn that there's none left in the country, but those who bought one for $99 yesterday have hit eBay looking to more than double their money.
The discontinued TouchPad sparked a stampede to Harvey Norman stores around Australia yesterday afternoon after HP slashed the base price from $499 to $99.
Thanks to the power of social media, 6000 units sold in less than an hour. The TouchPad had been on sale in Australia for just four days before the discounting and Harvey Norman's general manager for computers, Ben McIntosh, said about 1000 were sold in that period.
McIntosh said HP told him it had an additional "few hundred" units to sell through its online store but "they told us yesterday at 5pm they'd sold out". Across the ditch in New Zealand, consumers weren't as lucky as stocks were extremely low and retailers were accused of allowing staff to buy up whatever was there.
McIntosh said he had hoped to get his hands on some more units hauled in by air freight but that was now impossible after BestBuy in the US moved over 200,000 of the tablets over the weekend.
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