Wal*Mart uses a 45% Discount to boost pre-sales

Clearly, the Potter book is used as a way to get customers into a store.

Target had a display offering a $10 discount card for $10.. assuring availability of the book

Wal*Mart just cuts prices.

Rather than discuss the retail fight.. let's look at the power of MILLIONS of presells... without ANY incentive. At the Target display, there were no details for pricing. One would assume that the book would be discounted as with everything else in that particular dept... Target doesn't sell full-priced books.

How could we use this for the kind of Amazon promotion popular today? Perhaps an advance coupon from Amazon (gift certificate), coupled with the bonus gifts we now use.

Imagine haveing 8 months to build up to the publication date? This alone won't beat Potter.. but it's a tool we need in our arsenal.


Bloomberg.com: U.S.: "Walmart.com is selling the Harry Potter title for $16.66 compared with $17.99 at Barnes & Noble Inc. and Borders Group Inc. Amazon.com took 1.4 million pre-orders worldwide as of Tuesday. Walmart.com declined to release its sales figure.
Advance sales of the Harry Potter book are outpacing previous installments in the series and it may become the top- selling children's title in history, said Diane Roback, children's book editor for Publishers Weekly. The record is now held by ``The Poky Little Puppy,'' which has sold more than 14.9. million copies. U.S. publisher Scholastic Inc. is printing a record 10.8 million books to prepare for demand when the novel goes on sale on July 16.
Borders Group in Ann Arbor, Michigan, estimates Harry Potter will add 2 percentage points to second-quarter sales at stores open at least a year, spokeswoman Anne Roman said. The book could contribute more than 1 percent, or $19.4 million, to Amazon.com's third-quarter revenue, according to an estimate for U.S. sales. "