The top three supermarkets have sold more than one million copies between them of the sixth instalment of JK Rowling’s boy wizard series, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, attracting shoppers with their cut-price offers.
Tesco, which cut the book from its recommended retail price of £16.99 to £7.95, said it had sold 500,000 copies since its launch on July 16.
Asda, which dropped the price to £7.96, has reported sales of 350,000 so far, while Sainsbury, selling the book at £8.96, shifted 200,000 copies.
The figures were in stark contrast to specialist high street booksellers. Ottakar’s, which rebranded itself Pottakar’s for the launch day, had hoped to sell 100,000 copies but only managed 70,000, while Waterstones and WH Smith refused to disclose sales figures.
In contrast, online bookseller Amazon remained unaffected by the supermarket price war, selling 400,000 copies.
Tesco, Asda and Sainsbury were all beaten to the lowest price by surprise contender Kwik Save, which offered the book for £4.99 as part of a “never-to-be-repeated offer”.
A spokesman for Kwik Save said that between 8am and 10am on July 16, when only children were allowed to buy the book in its stores, the group was selling copies at the rate of 250 a minute. After 10am, when sales were open to all, sales fell slightly to 200 copies per minute.
“By the end of Saturday we had sold 85% of our stock and by Monday we were sold out,” the spokesman added.
PepsiCo International has appointed South African food and beverage company Pioneer Foods as its franchisee in South Africa. Pioneer Foods’ beverage subsidiary, Ceres Fruit Juices, will bottle and distribute a range of PepsiCo soft drinks.
Tesco is to launch its own network of petrol stations in the Czech Republic. Tesco Stores CR will open its first petrol station at its new hypermarket in Karlovy Vary in West Bohemia and plans to build stations at existing and new stores across the country.
US supermarket group Safeway has raised its sales growth forecast for 2005. Safeway said that it expects a 2.5%-2.8% increase in like-for-like sales, excluding fuel over the year. It had initially forecast a range of 1.2%-1.5%.
French stock market regulator AMF has launched an investigation into the share price of French food group Danone. Shares rocketed 27% over the past month after it was linked with speculation that PepsiCo was preparing to launch a takeover bid. PepsiCo has since confirmed it is not planning a bid, causing shares in Danone to drop 10%.
Wal-Mart is planning to open 55 stores in China this year and 90 next year. The group hopes to report double-digit sales growth in the country this year and to narrow the gap on Carrefour, which dominates the market.
US supermarket chain Tops Markets, a subsidiary of Dutch retailer Ahold, is selling 31 stores located in eastern New York and the Adirondack. Supermarket chain Price Chopper is buying six of them.
n Pepsi deal
n czech fuel
n doing better
n danone probe
n china growth
n Tops sells
Tesco, which cut the book from its recommended retail price of £16.99 to £7.95, said it had sold 500,000 copies since its launch on July 16.
Asda, which dropped the price to £7.96, has reported sales of 350,000 so far, while Sainsbury, selling the book at £8.96, shifted 200,000 copies.
The figures were in stark contrast to specialist high street booksellers. Ottakar’s, which rebranded itself Pottakar’s for the launch day, had hoped to sell 100,000 copies but only managed 70,000, while Waterstones and WH Smith refused to disclose sales figures.
In contrast, online bookseller Amazon remained unaffected by the supermarket price war, selling 400,000 copies.
Tesco, Asda and Sainsbury were all beaten to the lowest price by surprise contender Kwik Save, which offered the book for £4.99 as part of a “never-to-be-repeated offer”.
A spokesman for Kwik Save said that between 8am and 10am on July 16, when only children were allowed to buy the book in its stores, the group was selling copies at the rate of 250 a minute. After 10am, when sales were open to all, sales fell slightly to 200 copies per minute.
“By the end of Saturday we had sold 85% of our stock and by Monday we were sold out,” the spokesman added.
PepsiCo International has appointed South African food and beverage company Pioneer Foods as its franchisee in South Africa. Pioneer Foods’ beverage subsidiary, Ceres Fruit Juices, will bottle and distribute a range of PepsiCo soft drinks.
Tesco is to launch its own network of petrol stations in the Czech Republic. Tesco Stores CR will open its first petrol station at its new hypermarket in Karlovy Vary in West Bohemia and plans to build stations at existing and new stores across the country.
US supermarket group Safeway has raised its sales growth forecast for 2005. Safeway said that it expects a 2.5%-2.8% increase in like-for-like sales, excluding fuel over the year. It had initially forecast a range of 1.2%-1.5%.
French stock market regulator AMF has launched an investigation into the share price of French food group Danone. Shares rocketed 27% over the past month after it was linked with speculation that PepsiCo was preparing to launch a takeover bid. PepsiCo has since confirmed it is not planning a bid, causing shares in Danone to drop 10%.
Wal-Mart is planning to open 55 stores in China this year and 90 next year. The group hopes to report double-digit sales growth in the country this year and to narrow the gap on Carrefour, which dominates the market.
US supermarket chain Tops Markets, a subsidiary of Dutch retailer Ahold, is selling 31 stores located in eastern New York and the Adirondack. Supermarket chain Price Chopper is buying six of them.
n Pepsi deal
n czech fuel
n doing better
n danone probe
n china growth
n Tops sells
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