Bah Humbug! Amazon Echo, Echo Dot Sell Out Online During Lead Up To Christmas
The Echo won’t be back in stock until December 30th for white models, and January 17th for the black variant. The battery-powered Tap won’t be in stock until December 27th, while the Echo Dot is also listed as being available on December 27th.
The devices have even disappeared from the Prime Now service, which delivers products to your home or business within one to two hours for Amazon Prime members. And finding stock at third-party retailers like Best Buy, Walmart and Staples isn’t much better. BestBuy.com tells customers to “Check Stores” — I checked the Raleigh, NC area and couldn’t find an Echo in-store within a 250-mile radius. And Staples simply says “Out of Stock.”
The dearth of Alexa-powered Amazon hardware can partly be explained by higher than expected demand following price cuts that knocked 20 percent off the price of the devices (you could pick up the entry-level Echo Dot for $39.99 after Thanksgiving).
“Due to demand, we encourage customers to purchase an Echo if they see it available,” said an Amazon spokesperson to the Wall Street Journal.
Your best bet now on getting an Echo is to check out Amazon’s brick and mortar bookstores or one of its nearly three-dozen pop-up stores in malls across the country.
