2. Asda Accused Bloomsbury Of Charging Way Too Much For Harry Potter Books
There's just nothing quite as soulless as two massive corporations duking it out over profit. In 2007, Bloomsbury and Asda waged magical (and financial) war on each other over the price of the upcoming Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows book. Asda accused Bloomsbury of unfairly fixing their prices, as the supermarket wanted to sell the novel for around half of Bloomsbury's recommended retail price. According to Asda, Bloomsbury was holding children to ransom. Not only that, but Asda's press release featured plenty of cringe-worthy Harry Potter puns, including the line Bloomsbury need to do a quid-ditch as they have sent their prices up north on the Hogwarts Express. Yikes. Bloomsbury responded by accusing Asda of libel, and claiming that their prices were publishing industry standard. They wanted nothing to do with supermarket price-wars. Bloomsbury also cancelled all of Asda's orders (around five-hundred thousand copies). Asda, realising it was about to miss out on the most profitable book event in the history of literature, quickly complied, apologised, retracted their statement and essentially bowed at the lucrative statue of Harry Potter (and in turn, Bloomsbury). Good work, team.
