400,000 Harry fans received books from Amazon, BarnesandNoble.com Saturday
Harry Potter kept the delivery services busy on Saturday. FedEx Corp. reports it delivered 400,000 copies of "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" for Amazon and Barnes & Noble on Saturday. "It went off without a glitch," a FedEx spokesperson says. Amazon reports 789,000 U.S. orders for the book while BarnesandNoble.com reports 100,000. Customers who paid for regular shipping received automatic upgrades to overnight delivery so they could have the book on Saturday along with all the people who bought the book in the store. The U.S. Postal Service is delivering 539,000 additional books for Amazon, with delivery scheduled for this week.
Amazon’s worldwide orders for the book totaled 1.3 million.
U.S. advance orders of the latest Potter book more than doubled Amazon’s prior record of 350,000 set by the last Potter book, "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire."
Amazon offered same-day shipping through FedEx to any U.S. customers who ordered by midnight Friday and chose to pay for standard or higher shipping (standard shipping of a single book costs $3.99 for delivery within 3 to 7 days). According to FedEx, Amazon shipped about 250,000 of "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" for same-day delivery on Saturday.
Barnes & Noble Inc., which conducts its online sales through BarnesandNoble.com, reports selling a total of 896,000 copies both online and offline on Saturday, but it declines to break out online sales. Barnes & Noble Inc. owns 38% of online retailer Barnes & Noble.com.
Like Amazon, BarnesandNoble.com is retailing the latest Potter book at $17.99, a 40% discount from the suggested retail price of $29.99, regardless of shipment method.
Amazon notes that the latest Potter book shot to No. 1 on its books best-seller list within two hours of becoming available for advance ordering on Jan. 15 and has been producing the largest number of book orders ever since.
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