Royal Mail enlists extra trucks to cope with Harry Potter launch day

LONDON – Royal Mail is planning to use more than 150 extra trucks to deliver more than 500,000 editions of the latest Harry Potter novel in preparation for its launch this Saturday.

The sixth book by JK Rowling, 'Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince', looks set to break sales records with more than a million pre-orders to become the biggest-selling single item ordered online for delivery on a single day.

The extra trucks will be used by Royal Mail to distribute the books from retailer warehouses to 1,400 delivery offices across the UK throughout Friday evening and into the early hours of Saturday morning.

Online bookseller has already taken 350,000 orders and is competing with chain stores and independent bookstores to offer the best price. The book is believed to be selling for the cheapest on Amazon at £8.95, for £9.85, with HMW charging £11.99 and Blackwells £12.99.

Richard Roche, Royal Mail's head of multichannel retail, said: "We have been planning for the Harry Potter book launch for many months and are looking forward to delivering copies ordered online to children, and adults, in all parts of the UK on Saturday."

Royal Mail insists it is used to dealing with large peaks in traffic, such as Christmas when volumes hit 140m items a day.

The sixth book in the Harry Potter series follows 'Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix', which sold 5m copies worldwide in just a day, with the latest novel expected to sell even more than the last.

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