Supermarkets extend price war on Potter books

By Gavin Haycock

LONDON (Reuters) - Leading supermarkets have embarked on a last-minute price war over the final book in the Harry Potter wizard series, slashing prices to 4.99 pounds in an effort to lure shoppers to their stores.

Such aggressive discounting means the book will be sold at a loss by many supermarkets and provides a fresh headache for independent booksellers who will sell the book at or near the recommended retail price of 17.99 pounds. Many leading book retailers have priced the book closer to the 10 pound mark.

"The deep discounting of this book is so prevalent and the price competition between retailers so intense that there are many retailers who will be using this as a loss leader rather than looking to make millions," said Tim Godfray, chief executive of the Booksellers Association. "There is undeniably something crazy here and in my view the book industry has been considerable weakened by this deep discounting," he added.

Supermarket chain Asda made the book available to buy online for five pounds including delivery, and a spokeswoman said on Friday that the allotted 6,500 copies sold out within an hour.

Asda, the British unit of Wal-Mart Stores, has lined up a delivery of 500,000 copies that go on sale from Saturday.

The supermarket is limiting sales of the book to two per person to prevent bulk buying.

Supermarkets had taken pre-orders for J.K. Rowling's "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" at 8.87 pounds, but had been expected to cut this Friday, on the eve of the book's launch.

Asda said online pre-orders for the book which had been made at 8.87 will now be sold at 5 pounds.