‘Car cupholder expander’ sells out in minutes

A product designed to expand the size of your car's cupholder has sold out in minutes, as part of rising demand for cupholders that can accommodate large 'designer' drink bottles.

A so-called 'Car Cup Holder Expander' released online by Frank Green – a popular Melbourne-based company specialising in reusable bottles and cups – sold out within minutes of going on sale on Thursday, 23 February.

Priced at $19.95, the product comes in six colours and is designed to accommodate Frank Green's 34-ounce ceramic drink bottles – which are too big to fit in the standard cup holders and door bins of many cars.

"I was checking out and literally about to hit okay and it said my order couldn’t be fulfilled cause it was out of stock," one shopper complained on the brand's Instagram page.

"Sold out in minutes - pretty disappointing that the demand wasn’t anticipated," another added.

If you were one of the customers that missed out, one social media user has devised a cheaper – if less visually appealing – alternative for increasing the size of your car's cupholder.

In December 2022, a video posted to social media platform TikTok by user Maddy Ryan showed how a piece of PVC plumbing pipe from Bunnings Warehouse could be inserted into a car's cupholders to fit one of the trendy oversized drink bottles.

After many of Ryan's followers turned up at hardware stores in search of PVC pipe after watching the viral video – and wanting to recreate it in their own car – one Bunnings location even rebranded its display for the pipes with a sign reading "cupholder".

The product in question is the Holman PVC invert pipe measuring 100x65mm, priced at $11.05 – and at time of writing, Bunnings has plenty of stock still available.

Frank Green even gave a cheeky nod to the Bunnings hysteria in its product release announcement, joking: "It's made for drinks, not sinks (we're looking at you, TikTok pipe hacks)."

For shoppers still desperate to get their hands on the product, Frank Green says it is due to be restocked in a matter of weeks.