I suggest the following URL. This is an editorial by one of my favorite
scribes, George Will.
It tells a little about the story of the author of the Harry Potter books.
http://www.sacbee.com/voices/national/will/will_20000705.html
Kind regards,
Denys. . .
Denys Beauchemin
HICOMP
(800) 323-8863 (281) 288-7438 Fax: (281) 355-6879
denys at hicomp.com www.hicomp.com
-----Original Message-----
From: Wirt Atmar [SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Saturday, July 08, 2000 4:41 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: e-commerce in hype-rdrive
I continue to amazed by the effects of the internet and the new information
economy. Last night, the newest Harry Potter book was shipped from Amazon.com
for Saturday delivery. The following snippet is from a Reuters newservice
wire posting. What they didn't mention in this particular story is that
Amazon had 344,000 pre-orders for Saturday delivery, most of which were
required to be hand-gift-wrapped. To service that demand, Amazon pre-arranged
with FedEx to have 100 FedEx aircraft standing by overnight to ship the 53.3
tons of books to essentially every town in the United States.
You wouldn't think that a non-wartime, civilian economy could muster these
kinds of resources, especially for a single, relatively trivial event, and in
cooperation with a company so young that it celebrates only its fifth
birthday this week.
If you have the time, take a look at Amazon's bestsellers list:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/subst/lists/best/amazon-bestsellers.html/
Six of the top seven books are Harry Potter books -- and the sixth is only in
seventh position because it hasn't been published yet.
Wirt Atmar
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"There's been considerable news coverage on this, and they needed to make
sure they had a reliable delivery service -- it's as bad to get it there late
as it is to get it there early," said Dottie Berry, executive vice president
for integrated technology at FedEx.
That's meant staging something on the scale of a military operation, with
temporary phone lines, technical advisers at all Amazon distribution centers
around the country and remote support services from FedEx's Memphis,
Tennessee, headquarters.
"Logistical plans for something this large are very difficult to execute,"
said Lyn Blake, who headed Amazon's effort.
"Precision is the key word here," said Berry.
Amazon and FedEx have worked for several months on an expanded home delivery
service, and this "is a chance to show off our new product," Berry said.
FedEx began receiving copies of the 752-page book on Wednesday.
For Amazon, which has vowed to be the No. 1 seller of the book, it's a chance
to get a piece of the incredible worldwide publicity the Potter books have
generated.
But it may be hard to stand out in the hype.
"Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" is being published simultaneously in
the United States and Britain and already has set a record for U.S. first
printings of 3.8 million copies. The first three books in the series of
adventures of aspiring wizard Harry Potter have sold 30 million copies.
Potter books have spent about 100 weeks on the New York Times bestseller
list, and a Potter film is in the works.
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