Just a  quick note to let interested parties know we just released two new trackers on the site today.

Hot Wheels

Those looking to get their hands on the Hot Wheels Wall Tracks Starter Set, you now can sign up for the free alerts via the Hot Wheels Tracker.

LEGO Kingdoms

If you are interested in getting a LEGO Kingdoms King’s Castle, then you will be happy to know we released the LEGO Kingdoms In Stock Tracker.

Weekly update on all that is happening around the world of hot, hard-to-find products and NowInStock.net

Amazon Cancels Pre-Orders for Transformer Prime

This is one of the most frustrating events to occur in sometime, at least for those that were eagerly awaiting their pre-ordered ASUS Transformer Prime. Amazon has decided to cancel a large portion, if not all, of the pre-orders placed for the Transformer Prime. And those that got their preorders are voicing their displeasure from commenting on the Amazon product pages of the Prime (which Amazon decided it should delete), to forums like over at TransformerForums.com to articles about the debacle on Engadget and Android and Me among others. I pre-ordered one myself and sure enough I also received the slap to the face. There is nothing more frustrating than having your anticipation squashed. What really irritates me is the canceling of the order. I expected delays on the Prime when I pre-ordered it, and I was willing to accept receiving my pre-order well into January/February. What I was not expecting was for Amazon to rip me out of line and kick me to the curb. This is what I call a failure of customer relations. Yet, I have a service representative trying to apologize to me when questioning the incident. I want whoever made the decision to rip me out of line to apologize for their failure. And I don’t care if the reasoning was ASUS is having issues with demand; I will wait in line!

But never fear, there are retailers still accepting pre-orders. They may or may not go through in the end, but at least you can try. If you are still interested in placing a Prime pre-order elsewhere, head over to our Transformer Prime In Stock Tracker to see who is still offering them.

LeapPad Explorer

LeapPad Explorer continues to shine in the sales department and there is no sign of demand letting up. We saw subscribers pouring into the site this past week. When adults have a neat toy, the kids will want one too. LeapPad is there to fill the void and give the kiddies something to play with while mommy and daddy use their own tablets. If you are going to want a LeapPad for Christmas day, you better register for our FREE in stock alerts now! If you really want a LeapPad, I suggest you sign up for a FREE account then get the Desktop or Browser Alerts running on your computer. These two methods are the fastest and most efficient at alerting you when stock is available. If you want to role the dice and see if stock is available right now, head over to our LeapPad In Stock Tracker.

Other Notables and New Items

While LeapPad is the clear dominator this holiday season, there are quite a few other products that are in demand, some were on the site last week, but we also have a few new ones:

Monster High Dolls – the Monster High Dolls strike again this year. With the hottest dolls being Toralei, Abbey, and Spectra. Holding steady near the top, but nowhere even close to LeapPad Explorer.
Angry Birds – taking the life of the party on your tablet offline was sure to be a hit. Angry Birds board game-style is selling like hotcakes. This past week interest has increased, but not much.
Lalaloopsy Dolls – Lalaloopsy is back again this year. Some interest is definitely there, but Monster High still tops them.
Doodle Bear – This cuddly little bear is not gaining anymore momentum.
Skylanders – seem to be warm, but even with a mention of shortages in inventory from Activision, interest still seems static.
Fijit Friends  – This is a new one of those dancing items. Not sure it will get any more interest, but I could be wrong. They are available fairly frequently.

What is NowInStock.net?

We are a web service that monitors the availability of hard-to-find products then alert you when those products come in stock. In order to receive these alerts, you need to register for FREE account, add items that you want alerted on to your account, then choose what types of alerts you want sent for each of these items. We offer TXT alerts, email alerts, browser alerts, and desktop alerts. Once in a while, we offer Twitter alerting (if Twitter allows us) when a product becomes really popular.

Looking for Fijit Friends this holiday season, but not having any luck finding them? Check out our newly launched Fijit Friends In Stock Tracker and maybe you will get lucky.

If you are not familiar with NowInStock.net, we are web service that tracks the availability of hot products, such as Fijit Friends, and then we alert you when we see them in stock. To start receiving alerts today, register for a free account, add the items you want alerted on to your account, then choose your delivery type (TXT, email, desktop/browser, or pre-order email) for each item. Once we see stock available for purchase, we will alert you!

It appears the word from the horse’s mouth (Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick) is there might just be a shortage on the newly released Skylanders Spyro’s Adventure video game/action figures this holiday season. And what better way to counteract this bad news than with a Skylanders In Stock Tracker!

For those of you not familiar with NowInStock.net, we are product availability tracking site. In other words, we discover when hard-to-find items are in stock at online retailers, then we alert you. The best part is the site is FREE. Register for a free account, add the items you want alerted on to your account, select the type of delivery (txt, email, desktop/browser, or pre-order email) you want for each item, then sit back and wait for in stock alerts to arrive.

Xbox 360 with Kinect still only $199.99,  BUT this is the last day to save the $100+ on the Xbox 360. This sale at Microsoft Store ends today if not sooner as it also ends when inventories are gone. Not sure where the prices will go after today, but more than likely back to $299 and $399 respectively. As of writing this post, Microsoft Store still has stock available.

Here are the options still available and in stock at writing time:

4GB Xbox 360 with Kinect – $199.99
250GB Holiday Bundle with Kinect & 2 Games – $299.99
Ultimate Gaming Bundle – 250GB console with Kinect, 3 games, one of your choice, LIVE card, points card, memory stick, extra controller – $394.99 (Ends 1/8/12)

If you want to see if inventory is still available then head over to Microsoft Store with the links above, or check our Xbox 360 In Stock Tracker.

If you are one of those that heard about Xbox 360 with Kinect only costing $199.99, but are having a hard time finding one, we know where they are still in stock. As of writing this post, Microsoft Store still had stock available. You have two options to choose from, 4GB w/Kinect or 250GB w/Kinect, and both are a stellar deal that will not last long. In fact, the deal only lasts until November 28th or until all units are sold, which has already happened at Amazon. If you want to check if inventory is still available then head over to Microsoft Store with the links above or check our Xbox 360 In Stock Tracker.

First, Happy Thanksgiving to all of those US readers out there. And with Thanskgiving comes the true beginning of the holiday season. This is also typically our high time of the year here at NowInStock.net and marks the  beginning of Holiday Hot Item Updates.

LeapPad Explorer

With the way things have been progressing on NowInStock.net and the rest of society, I think it is safe to say tablets of all types are here to stay for some time. As a result of this hot trend, we will have to predict that LeapFrog’s LeapPad Explorer will be the hottest item this holiday season. Subscribers are flooding to the site awaiting their next FREE alert to grab one of these LeapPad Explorers without the hassle of holiday shopping in stores or racing from store to store. Typically, when you have one hot item, a subsequent item then takes up some of the slack caused by lack of inventory. Will the VTech InnoTab be this item?

ASUS Transformer Prime

For all of the grown-ups out there, your tablet needs are not to be forgotten. ASUS has recently launched the long anticipated follow-up to their highly successful Android tablet from earlier this year called the ASUS Transformer with the latest version dubbed Transformer Prime. The first tablet sporting the brand new NVIDIA Tegra 3 processor with 5 cores! Couple this with the tablet likely being one of the first tablets to land Ice Cream Sandwich, Android 4.0, this tablet is poised to be a great follow-up to the original ASUS Transformer. Pre-orders are sold out on Amazon, yet there are still other places to get your order in. The official release date is still pretty vague, but it looks like December 8th is when inventory will start hitting the shelves. If you want to pre-order the Transformer Prime, head over to the Transformer Prime tracker.

Other Notables

Monster High Dolls – the Monster High Dolls strike again this year. With the hottest dolls being Toralei, Abbey, and Spectra.
Angry Birds – taking the life of the party on your tablet offline was sure to be a hit. Angry Birds board game-style is selling like hotcakes.
Doodle Bear – This cuddly like bear your kids can decorate with markers is making a presence this year, but can it gain anymore momentum?

To those new to NowInStock.net, we are a product inventory tracking site. If there is a hard-to-find item out there, that you are dying to get your hands on but can’t find it anywhere, we will constantly monitor retailer sites online to help you find it. When we find stock available for purchase, we alert you via TXT, email, or from within you Browser or Desktop… all for FREE! Register for a FREE account today. Or, make a product suggestion if we don’t already have a tracker for the item you are looking for.

Well at least the 32GB Grey version of the Transformer Prime. Wait, it looks like, yes… Amazon is stopping all pre-order sales of a Transformer Prime in all models and color flavors. Also, along with the Transformer Prime, the Prime Docking Station in Grey is sold out as well.

Don’t fret if you are looking to pre-order a Transformer Prime, there are now plenty of other purchasing options from other retailers. See our Transformer Prime Pre-Order Tracker for all options, but you might want to make that decision now if you want your place in line.

It appears that with the release of the J&R pre-orders for the ASUS Transformer Prime, there may be 3 different color options. Previously with Amazon and TigerDirect, there were just two colors, Champagne and Amethyst Grey/Gray. But after receiving my notice that pre-orders were available for the Prime at J&R, I found it interesting that there was a new color code ‘SL’ for Silver as stated on the J&R site.

This ‘SL’ code doesn’t show on either of the other two sites, so I am wondering just what exactly is going on. After examining the photos on all the sites, I think J&R just got it wrong and marked the Champagne ‘CG’ version as Silver ‘SL’. What reinforces this thought is they are also offering the Grey model but have the color code ‘GY’ instead of ‘GR’ as used on Amazon and TigerDirect. Not to mention is appears that J&R’s drive size codes are also different than the other two stores, showing ‘A1’ instead of ‘B1’ and ‘B1’ instead of ‘C1’ for each the 32Gb and 64GB models. I guess only time will tell.

If you are looking to pre-order the ASUS Transformer Prime, then check out our Transformer Prime Tracker to see who is offering what.

If you are looking for a tablet,  you might be interested to know Blackberry has just dropped the price on the Blackberry PlayBook across all models with a $300 dollar price drop! This is very similar to what HP did this past summer with the TouchPad, but I don’t think it is completely the same as HP’s price drop was the result of an end-of-life call to the TouchPad. I believe it is more of a competitive issue at this point with so many players in the tablet space; $499 for a 16GB tablet… those days are disappearing quickly.

Models are as follows:

16GB PlayBook – $199
32GB PlayBook – $299
64GB PlayBook – $399

To get this special pricing, head over to Buy.com.