Best Buy pressures HP on unsold TouchPads

US retail giant wants to hand back 250,000 units, says report.

US retail giant Best Buy has pressured HP to take back its TouchPad tablets after struggling to shift 10 percent of its stock, according to a New York Times report.

Just a day ahead of HP's quarterly earnings report, sources at the retailer told the Times' All Things Digital blog that around 250,000 of HP’s Wi-Fi TouchPads were choking its warehouses. 

It was estimated that Best Buy had managed to sell 25,000 of a 270,000 stockpile of HP’s 16 GB and 32 GB wi-fi only tablets.

Sales for the device, which launched in the US to lukewarm reviews in July, have reportedly been sluggish and in a bid to accelerate them HP recently slashed its prices around the globe.

Last week HP also shaved $AU100 off the selling price ahead of its August 15 Australian launch.    

HP’s Personal Systems Group head, Todd Bradley, was en route to Best Buy’s Minneapolis headquarters to negotiate a way out of the mass return, according to the report.