Daily Research News Online no. 2435 - Punters Rowling Up at E-bookstores for Harry

Punters Rowling Up at E-bookstores for Harry

June 23 2003

With the 5th Harry Potter book launched at one minute past midnight on Saturday, statistics about the many records already broken by this and previous volumes have been all over the papers this weekend. But even the build-up to the launch produced massive surges in Internet traffic, according to Hitwise.

June has seen a drastic increase in traffic to Amazon. Amazon.co.uk has seen traffic to its site increase by 49% in just under 3 weeks, as the 'Order of The Phoenix' volume, three years in coming, gripped the nation's attention. It has also apparently been the prime cause of a sharp rise in overall traffic to the book sector - up 40% since the beginning of June.

The official Harry Potter website www.harrypotter.com has also benefited, with traffic increasing by over 70% in this period. And the demographics of visitors to the website confirms the well-known truth that Harry Potter is loved by children and adults alike - 33% of visitors were aged between 35 and 44.

Market Share of Most Visited Book Sites in the UK, Thursday 19th June:

1	Amazon UK	www.amazon.co.uk	67.13%
2	Amazon.com	www.amazon.com	12.20%
3	WHSmith.co.uk	www.whsmith.co.uk	2.52%
4	Books Direct	www.booksdirect.co.uk	2.49%
5	Grolier UK	www.grolier.co.uk	1.51%
6	Abebooks.com	www.abebooks.com	1.16%
7	Tesco Books Warehouse	www.tesco.com/books	1.15%
8	World Books	www.worldbooks.co.uk	0.61%
9	Books For Children	www.booksforchildren.co.uk	0.53%
10	Mango	www.mango.co.uk	0.51%

Editor's note:
Other sources suggest that Amazon took around 350,000 pre-orders for the book in the UK and more than one million worldwide. WHSmith said it had taken around 280,000 advance orders: on Saturday it estimated that 8 copies were sold every second during business hours. The same day, author JK Rowling pronounced herself well satisfied with how little of the book had leaked out in advance, after an unprecedented security and secrecy operation.

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas unless otherwise stated.