In what became one of the largest sales and distribution events in e-commerce history, Amazon and FedEx teamed up to get a quarter-million copies of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire into the hands of eager readers in July 2000. Amazon had promised that the first 250,000 Potter fans who pre-ordered J.K. Rowling's latest book would receive their copy on the very first day the book was available to the public.
To deliver such a large quantity of books on a Saturday, 100 regularly scheduled FedEx flights, 9,000 FedEx delivery personnel, and vehicles from 700 stations were mobilized from Amazon.com distribution centers.
Harry Potter and the amazing delivery:
- At 752 pages, the fourth installment in the popular Potter series wouldn’t fit into a mail slot or a standard mailbox. All told, FedEx delivered more than 188 million pages on doorsteps that day.
- Employees of FedEx Express, the service connected to the company's air-express network, worked later shifts that day, some until 8 p.m., but FedEx said that additional staff weren’t needed.
- The fantasy novel won a Hugo Award and was made into a film, released worldwide in November 2005. It was also adapted into a video game released by Electronic Arts.