Murray Huppin, president of Spokane-based electronics retailer Huppin's Hi-Fi, Photo and Video, has a happy look on his face, and it has nothing to do with Hoopfest.

Huppin has two stores in the Spokane area and both are doing good business in an otherwise challenging retail economy. 

The newer, North Division Huppin's store opened in October and has outsold the downtown site every month since. Huppin won't say what the share of total sales each store has.

The two Huppin's stores last year became  "Apple specialist" retailers.

As he's done when stocking other consumer products,  Huppin looks for ways to buy large volume lots to offer deals to customers. The iPad doesn't allow a lot of price cutting, but the two Huppin's stores clearly have a wide range of product choices for that popular tablet. 

Huppin said the two stores now have more than 150 iPad 2s in their inventory. He implies that's pretty impressive for a store that only started carrying Apple products seven months ago.

The stores also carry 15 of the 18 different iPad choices (covering color, memory, Wi-Fi/3G or AT&T/Verizon) that are available. 

He admits having iPads help bring in customers in an otherwise very moderate retail landscape.

"Any retailer really has to offer a compelling reason to purchase today," Huppin said.

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