Best Buy employee auction site loaded up with discounted iPad 2's ahead of iPad 3 launch

It looks like Best Buy is trying to offload some iPad 2 inventory on their internal employee auction website ahead of the iPad 3 launch. Offering internal employees reduced prices isn't an uncommon practice among retailers in the lead up to product refreshes from Apple, as some retailers offered the first-gen iPad at lower prices both internally and at retail stores before Apple officially announced the iPad 2 last year.

The iPad 3, which is expected to be announced on March 7th and to ship sometime soon thereafter. Expected features include high-resolution Retina display, quad-core Apple A6 processor, and possible 4G LTE support. (We'd also dearly love better cameras.)

Along with case leaks, constrained supplies, and tons of rumors, consider this just one of the many signposts that we see along the way, alerting us to the iPad 3 event, and release, coming up ahead.

Andrew Wray is a Salt Lake City, Utah based writer who focuses on news, how-tos, and jailbreak. Andrew also enjoys running, spending time with his daughter, and jamming out on his guitar. He works in a management position for Unisys Technical Services, a subsidiary of Unisys Corporation.