Sales boom for Encyclopaedia Britannica
The New York Times’s Julie Bosman reported earlier in the week that all but 1,000 sets of the last Encyclopaedia Britannica print edition have been sold. The Chicago Tribune has an update today: “Now less than 800 sets remain, and they are going fast.” Britannica president Jorge Cauz tells Robert Channick:
The speed at which the sets are going is a little surprising. It’s highly likely we will see it all depleted over the next two to three weeks. There are resellers selling it for a lot more money than what we’re selling it for. It’s an indication that people are looking at it as a collector’s item, and maybe there’s not enough information that they still can buy it from us.
The sets sell for $1,395 on the Britannica website, but Channick reports they’re being marked up by about $2,000 on eBay and Amazon, “where opportunistic entrepreneurs are apparently looking to get a jump on history.”
* Tribune: Britannica experiences run on final print edition
* NYT: Britannica’s last print edition has a sales boom
* A former Britannica editor on the print edition’s demise
At Jim,
“Now less than 800 sets remain, and they are going fast.” Britannica president Jorge Cauz
should be
“Now less [sic] than 800 sets remain, and they are going fast.” Britannica president Jorge Cauz
unless they have turned the discrete sets into a pulp slurry and a selling the encyclopedia by volume