Jul 15, 2007

Merchants hoping to cast spells over shoppersBy Mike HouseholderPantagraph.com

Novi, Mich. — Harry Potter entered the wizard shopping district known as Diagon Alley and was amazed by what he saw.

“Harry wished he had eight more eyes,” J.K. Rowling wrote in “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone,” her first book about the boy wizard and his adventures at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. For Harry, Diagon Alley offered a cornucopia of robes, eels’ eyes, spell books, quills, potion bottles and magic wands.

If Harry jumped out of the book and entered any Borders or Barnes & Noble store these days, he might be equally overwhelmed.

A stepped-up sales blitz of Potter-themed merchandise is under way thanks to the perfect storm of the release July 21 of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” — the seventh and final book in the series — and the fifth movie, “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix,” which came out last week.

The strategy is an about-face from 2005, when book No. 6, “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,” hit shelves. Booksellers then scaled back on Potter paraphernalia, which didn’t sell as well during the lead-up to the fifth novel, 2003’s “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.”

But Ann Arbor-based Borders Group Inc. is upping the ante this time around by offering everything from calendars and journals to wall scrolls, wands and lunch boxes.

“There is much more product available this time because of the timing of the movie and book releases,” said Diane Mangan, director of children’s merchandise for Borders.

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