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Reference documents
It's all relative
posted by Emma on October 24, 2007 02:29 PM
Sometimes I think I do a terrible job of running a publishing company.
There's the poxy, arsing, retarded, idiotic returns which I haven't figured out a way to stop. There's my hobby of getting blood out of a stone - oh, I mean getting sales out of retailers. There's the unending pile of admin that I work flat-out to keep on top of - for a measly salary (and if you're scoffing, thinking 'yeah, right, bet mine's lower,' then you are wrong. It is not.) But then I read something like this, courtesy of one lovely crow, and I feel so much better.
...In the period, Amazon sold 2.5 million copies of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows worldwide, making it the largest new product release in Amazon history. Because of the deep discounts on the title, however, Amazon did not quite breakeven on sales of Deathly.
Comments: 2
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I always thought it was the retailer that set the level of discount, therefore why on Earth would any business sell a product for less? Unless of course - like Tesco - they were hoping make up the difference on other stock...
I'm no business nor marketing brain, but I just can't see the logic.
Posted by: Chris on October 25, 2007 09:04 AM
Chris, I can only imagine it's a 'loss leader' situation, where either they consider they 'must' stock Harry Potter to be a credible bookseller and then don't want their prices to look steep compared to everyone else on what is a very visible item, or they hope that people will buy more than just the HP title, so they'll make some money on the overall transaction. Wanting to appear cheap might be particularly important if they think some of the people buying the HP title from them will be new to Amazon - i.e. it's their introduction to the brand.
I'm not saying it's a good idea, but these are the sorts of things that will have been talked about at Amazon.
Posted by: Rob on October 25, 2007 09:23 AM