In Germany, it's Harry Potter fever, with the book set to be released in local language at the end of October. In order to allow the most passionate readers to receive the book immediately on the release date, Amazon DE has setup a huge online bookcase with 350.000 copies of the book available to be pre-ordered.

The site and the mechanisms are extremely simple but effective, given the goal they have to achieve: users browse through the shelves, select their own copy, tag it with a nickname and then proceed to the purchase on Amazon's "regular" pages. Then, the reserved & personalized copy can be shared and showed to friends.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think this is the first time that Amazon, the "master" of online marketing, chooses to setup a dedicated external minisite to run a promotion. Harry Potter (and the business he's able to generate) are well worth an exception :-)

via Brainwash.