For those who couldn’t wait until 5 p.m. PT to get an iPad 2 from Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) at a retail store, the company offered online sales at its website beginning at 1:00 a.m. this morning.

An iPad ordered early this morning was scheduled to ship in three to five days, according to the Faster Forward column at The Washington Post. But by 5:45 a.m., the website said that new iPads would ship in two to three weeks. That sounds like “out-of-stock.”

Analysts expect Apple to sell more than 500,000 iPads today, compared with sales of 300,000 in the first 24 hours for the first iPad.

Looks like another winner out of Cupertino.

Paul Ausick