Harry Potter Breaks Pre-Order Record

Two days after it was announced that ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows’ would be published on 21st July 2007, the seventh and final installment in the Harry Potter series broke the 100,000 pre-orders barrier on Amazon.co.uk.

The book, which is available on Amazon.co.uk at GBP 8.99, reached 100,000 pre-orders on Saturday 3rd February and has now surpassed all previous records for speed of pre-order sales - eclipsing the success of the sixth Harry Potter outing, ‘Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince’.

‘The response has been extraordinary,’ said Christopher North, Head of Books at Amazon.co.uk. ‘Pre-orders surged as soon as the official announcement was made on 1st February. We had orders coming in from offices and homes across the UK at an incredible rate and there was no sign of this slowing as the weekend came to an end.”

Customers who pre-order ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows’ from Amazon.co.uk will receive the book delivered directly to their door on the day of release.*

‘With a book as popular as Harry Potter, we find that many people pre-order - as they view it as a tick in a box and a job done,’ said Christopher North. ‘Once the pre-order is made, customers can relax, safe in the knowledge that they will receive the book on the day of release – no queues, no hassle, no worries about finding a copy. They can get on with enjoying the build-up to the book’s release and the excitement that will grip the UK as the 21st July approaches.’

Amazon.co.uk started taking pre-orders for ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows’ on 22nd December following a surge of customer demand on the back of the revelation of the book’s title from JK Rowling. It has been number one in the best sellers chart ever since and at one point, pre-orders for the seventh Harry Potter book were outstripping the sales of the rest of the top 20 bestsellers combined by a ratio of five to one.

‘There are literally millions of books on Amazon.co.uk and there will be thousands added to that number before 21st July but it will take something exceptional to dislodge Harry Potter from that number one spot,’ said Christopher North. ‘We will watch with interest to see if any of the big releases between now and the summer has what it takes to topple the teenage wizard.”

Over in the US, ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows’ shattered the Amazon.com day one pre-order record, with the seventh book recording a 547% increase in first day pre-orders compared to the previous Harry Potter release.

The last two Harry Potter books – ‘Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix’ and ‘Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince’ – both went on to amass in excess of 400,000 pre-orders on the Amazon.co.uk site before release.

Globally, Amazon received more than 1.5 million advance orders of the sixth book, “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” which was released in July 2005 and was Amazon’s biggest ever new product release.

A potted history of Harry Potter
- ‘Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix’ dominated Amazon.co.uk’s bestsellers list for the majority of the 2003
- Two years later, ‘Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince’ headed the bestsellers throughout 2005
- Both titles went to number one on the Amazon.co.uk Hot 100 within hours of their release and went on to amass pre-order sales in excess of 400,000 copies in the UK alone
- Amazon.co.uk has delivered millions of Harry Potter books to customers across the UK and to over 150 countries worldwide including Barbados, Nepal, Fiji and Tanzania to name a few
- Amazon received over 1 million pre-orders at its websites worldwide for both ‘Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix’ and ‘Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince’.

Pre-ordering at Amazon.co.uk

All pre-orders, including reservations made previously on Amazon.co.uk, are protected by a pre-order price guarantee, ensuring that customers are charged the lowest price offered by Amazon.co.uk from the time they order to the time the book is released.

* Copies of ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows’, to be delivered to UK addresses, should be dispatched in time for delivery on the release date, July 21, 2007. We will work closely with our delivery partners to ensure, as far as possible, delivery on July 21. However, this cannot be guaranteed as some delays may occur which are outside our control. Deliveries to addresses outside of the UK will depend on the location and the delivery method chosen and might not be delivered on this date.