At the right price, anything and everything will sell. Just look at the rush on HP TouchPads this weekend. HP instructed retailers to lower the price on the TouchPad to $99.99 for the 16GB model, and $149.99 for the 32GB. And at those prices, the slow, cumbersome, and doomed tablet suddenly looked like the cream of the crop. Shoppers came out in droves, snapping up existing online and physical store inventories.
If you try to buy a TouchPad at that deeply discounted price--it works well for anyone who is interested in exploring a tablet but unwilling to commit the bucks required for an iPad. And at that price, you’re getting far more than you would from the little-known tablets currently offered up as “inexpensive” alternatives to the iPad. (You’d pay at least $200 for a device that's less capable than the TouchPad.) Like many other people who’ve tried, though, I’ve been unsuccessful thus far in securing an inexpensive TouchPad.
Meanwhile, the sales story was even bleaker online. As news of the TouchPad’s price drop spread across the Web like wildfire, all of the dozen-plus online retailers I tried to purchase a TouchPad from appeared to be sold out already.
Among the online stores I found on Saturday night that weren’t sold out yet--Adorama.com, BHPhoto.com, Provantage.com--none showed the price change.
Meanwhile, via Twitter, HP has said that more inventory is expected to be available via HP online. You can sign up for an email alert; as of this writing, however, HP’s servers have been slammed, and you can’t get through to the sign-up screen. Meanwhile, HP used Twitter to warn consumers that hptouchpadsale.com, which claimed to have TouchPads for sale, is a fake.
Overall, the efforts to find a TouchPad have felt like a whack-a-mole odyssey, one that requires much patience and equal parts good timing and good luck. One post on SlickDeals summarized the experience thusly: “What a waste of time.” And another, commenting on the mad rush for TouchPads, and how overwhelmed retailers appear to be: “This is crazy.”
Clearly, at a certain price, anything will find an audience and sell. In spite of the TouchPad’s weaknesses, it’s still a deal. Consumers have clearly responded to HP’s drastic price cut; even if you figure that a percentage of those buyers intend to flip the tablet for a profit on eBay, the bottom line is that the tablets are selling. At the right price.