• Intershop Enfinity selected as eCommerce platform by the Pottermore Shop, the exclusive retailer of the Harry Potter eBooks and digital audiobooks
• Pottermore Shop makes Harry Potter eBooks available for the first time on Sony Reader, Google Play, Amazon Kindle and NOOK® by Barnes & Noble
• Pottermore Shop delights customers and exceeds sales expectations
London, UK – 22nd May 2012 – Intershop today announced that its Enfinity e-Commerce platform has powered the launch of the Pottermore Shop (shop.pottermore.com), the exclusive retailer of Harry Potter eBooks and digital audiobooks. Intershop’s comprehensive e-commerce solution is the foundation of the Pottermore Shop, supporting the entire shopping experience. The pioneering multilingual, multicurrency website includes DRM free personalised watermarking of the eBooks and digital audiobooks, and the ability to download onto a wide choice of reading devices and platforms including Sony Reader, Google Play, Amazon Kindle, Barnes & Noble Nook, and any ePub compatible device. With Intershop’s platform, Pottermore has the capacity to deliver digital versions of the Harry Potter stories to millions of readers globally, and the future flexibility to support additional currencies, languages, products and the other retail opportunities presented by the unrivalled Harry Potter brand.
Pottermore CTO, Julian Thomas, said, “Having sold more than 450 million physical books across the world since 1997, making the Harry Potter series available as eBooks for the first time was a highly anticipated retail event. The Pottermore Shop demanded a massively scalable and innovative eCommerce solution for a phenomenal brand, especially given the unique linking to multiple leading e-reading platforms, the DRM-free watermarking approach, and the need for a multilingual and multi currency store designed to expand beyond digital books. Following an intense project involving Intershop’s professional services team the Pottermore Shop exceeded all expectations selling millions of $’s of Harry Potter eBooks through the launch period. The Intershop Enfinity solution has proved to be the right choice for Pottermore, and we are confident that we have a platform that can meet our eCommerce ambitions in the future. ”
Jochen Moll, Spokesman of the Board of Management at Intershop said, “The Harry Potter phenomenon means fans demand access to the books on all available readers and devices. We are providing the eCommerce platform that enables the Pottermore Shop to meet reader requests while also providing the agility necessary to update the site without having to re-engineer it at a grass root level every time a change is required. Our platform is also handling the thousands of orders placed and managing the commercial relationships with affiliated retailers. With Intershop, Pottermore Shop can ensure the end user experience encourages shopping and can easily change with future technological and market advances.”
All seven eBooks in the series are available from the Pottermore Shop (shop.pottermore.com) that makes the titles accessible to the widest range of readers. The eBooks are compatible with all leading e-reading platforms, including integrations with Sony Reader, Google Play, Amazon Kindle and NOOK® by Barnes & Noble. Ensuring that the stories can be read at anytime and anywhere, every eBook purchased can be downloaded for personal use on devices including personal computers, eReaders, tablets and mobile phones. The resulting website is robust and has been proven to scale to support huge numbers of concurrent users and large order volumes from Harry Potter fans worldwide.
The Pottermore Shop launched in English (US & UK) in late March 2012 and sold over $1.5m worth of Harry Potter ebooks in the first few days. Pottermore.com, the exciting online experience built around the Harry Potter stories, opened to all in early April 2012. At launch, users are able to explore and discover exclusive new writing by J.K. Rowling as well as immerse themselves in other interactive content and community activities. The site will rapidly grow and evolve with new content being added over the coming weeks and months. Later in April the French, Italian, German and Spanish versions of the Pottermore Shop opened for business, making the Harry Potter eBooks available to an ever-growing audience.
