HP Touchpad demand overwhelms UK retailers

shoppingfrenzy

It's been years since I've seen anything like it! Following HP's decision to bail from the tablet market, prices of the HP TouchPad have been slashed by UK and other retailers worldwide... bringing with it website failures worldwide.

Comet.co.uk for example reduced the 32GB model from £479 to £116. The 16GB model was slashed from £399 to £90. With these low prices, HP assuring customers tablet warranties would be honoured AND Stephen DeWitt's (HP) announcement that HP will continue support for the WebOS software used by the TouchPad, buying a discounted TouchPad seemed a no brainer for most.

So at 6pm UK time, sure enough, UK retailers reduced the price of their HP Touchpads. The same retailers though, hadn't prepared for the volume of traffic from eager bargain hunters and websites started to falter.

Currys.co.uk, Dixons.co.uk, PCWorld.co.uk, Comet.co.uk, BestBuy.co.uk, carphonewarehouse.co.uk all failed to cope with the buying frenzy yesterday evening and either ground to a halt, produced errors or became completely unavailable.

Looking around this morning, eager shoppers are still on the go. As at 10am UK time, the HP.co.uk shop is throwing-up errors and both Staples.co.uk and dabs.com have ground to a halt.

Now that UK stock of HP TouchPads has more of less been completely depleted, I congratulate those out there who have managed to purchase an HP TouchPad. Your tenacity (or skill) has garnered you an absolute bargain. Well done!