IPad listings on eBay’s Inc’s Web site surged fivefold over the past week as early purchasers targeted people outside the US who can’t yet get the tablet-style computer at home.
The number of iPads on the e-commerce site rose to 2,600 in the week ended April 3, the day the product reached US stores, San Jose, California-based eBay said on Monday in an e-mail. Resellers who had pre-ordered the device from Apple began listing the iPad on eBay before it went on sale.
One purchaser from the UK paid US$5,500, more than 10 times the US$499 asking price for the least-expensive iPad, eBay said. Almost 80 percent of iPad purchases on eBay came from outside the US, a sign of burgeoning international demand for a product Apple plans to introduce overseas later this month.
“This happens with nearly any hot product,” said Carl Howe, an analyst at Boston-based Yankee Group.
“Some people buy up copies and try to sell them on eBay to make a profit. There were iPhones going for US$2,000 when they first came out,” Howe said.
Apple spokeswoman Natalie Harrison declined to comment on iPad resales and reiterated that the device would ship to more markets later in the year. The Cupertino, California-based company said in a statement on Monday it sold 300,000 units on the first day, Saturday.
The average selling price for an iPad on eBay was US$777 during the week leading up to Friday last week, eBay said. The 64-gigabyte model also had multiple listings on Craigslist.org for as much as US$1,000. Apple sells the same device through its retail stores for $699.
eBay is limiting the number of iPads that sellers can list on its site. Top-rated sellers and those with a history of selling computer equipment can only list eight iPads a week, while everyone else can list just four a week, eBay said last Thursday on its site. Authorized Apple resellers have no limit.
Apple is selling three models of the iPad in the US that work via Wi-Fi. Three other models that work with both Wi-Fi and 3G mobile phone networks will debut later this month. Pricing for international versions of the device will also be available at the end of this month.
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