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SCMP Reporter

If you fancy cooking rice while shaving in front of a 50-inch  television screen, and you have a ticket for Tai Lin Radio Services' fire sale, you may still be in luck today.
But if you had your eyes on anything else, you are probably too late.
Fridges, washing machines, cameras, mobile phones, computer monitors and  televisions of more modest dimensions flew out of the bankrupt electronics chain's Jordan and Kwun Tong stores yesterday.
By the end of the first day, most popular items were out of stock, bargain hunters said, though rice cookers, shavers and giant  televisions were still in stock.
A  Mr Siu queued for three hours to be one of the first through the doors of the Jordan store. He emerged 15 minutes later having snapped up an 32-inch-screen television, 19-inch LCD monitor and mobile phone for HK$4,000. 'You have to check the stock  very carefully, but overall they are good bargains.'
Each customer was allowed 45 minutes to buy a maximum of three items.  The shops would only take cash and would not deliver or install purchases.
Provisional liquidators Ernst and Young  had also announced that Tai Lin would not be responsible for any product defects, nor guarantee items' quality or condition, and that there would be no refunds.
Ernst and Young announced the half-price clearance sale on Friday, four weeks after the 62-year-old chain collapsed under the weight of HK$100 million in debts, with the aim of clearing as much of its remaining inventory as possible.
Tickets for the sale were given away earlier at the two shop locations, with many people lining up hours beforehand. Some tickets were soon on sale on internet auction sites,
Mr Mok, a 19-year-old student at the Hong Kong Institute of Education, bid HK$800 for a ticket to  Friday night's sale and received it  just  before the sale started.
The ticket more than paid for itself. He saved nearly HK$15,000 on three notebook computers he bought on behalf of classmates. Another bargain hunter picked up an air conditioner, a fridge and an LCD  television screen for HK$8,100 for her new home.
Not everyone was happy, though. A Mrs Chan, who held a handful of Tai Lin cash coupons worth HK$30,000 rather than a ticket for admission to the sale, was turned away from Tai Lin's Jordan store.
'It is so unfair. I have paid for the coupons,' she complained. 'I fear  the worst when the stocks are sold out and I cannot claim back the  money and the coupons become waste paper.'
Ernst and Young  director Stephen Liu Yiu-keung  said those who held cash coupons were creditors of Tai Lin and would have to follow the liquidation procedures to claim back their money.
He said the clearance sale had brought in more than HK$1.6 million by last night.
Both stores would have sufficient stock to meet the demands of sale customers today, Ernst and Young said.
When Tai Lin Radio Services, the first company to sell colour televisions in Hong Kong, called in the liquidators, 260 staff working at its 13 stores lost their jobs.
Tai Lin chairman Lam Chok-lai,  the second generation of his family to run the business, said a lack of cash flow amid the financial crisis  had been a factor. The company had also been burdened by overexpansion.
The price, in HK dollars, an entry ticket to the sale fetched in an online auction: $800
The money saved by customers  who bought a rice cooker: $499
The money saved on a 50-inch  plasma high-definition TV: $16,900



Crowds cart away outsized bargains at electronics chain's liquidation sale