Indigo hopes new ‘cultural emporium’ concept will win back customers

TORONTO –

When Indigo Books & Music Inc. opens the doorways to its forthcoming location in downtown Toronto’s Well constructing this September, customers will instantly notice the area is greater than a bookstore.

A blue Citroen truck relationship again to the Fifties will sit by the doorway serving pastries, espresso, beer and wine. There might be nooks devoted to residence fragrances, crops and standard Japanese graphic novels generally known as Manga.

A listening sales space will supply up stacks of data to purchase and a jukebox to pattern jams, and different areas might be abuzz with Eighties pinball and Pac-Man machines for avid gamers.

The 16,000 square-foot retailer — the primary utilizing the retailer’s new city idea — might be a play on the corporate’s long-held technique of mixing books with way of life merchandise, however for chief government Peter Ruis, it is going to even be a check.

Indigo is getting into a brand new chapter, its first with out Heather Reisman, who constructed the retailer right into a dominant Canadian chain and mall stalwart with 171 shops and counting below the Indigo, Chapters, Coles and Indigospirit banners.

Reisman, who was chief government till 2022 and is understood for bestowing “Heather’s Pick” stickers on her favorite books, retired from the board on Aug. 22.

Her departure got here on the heels of a debilitating cyberattack that downed Indigo’s web site for weeks, forcing the corporate to ultimately rebuild its e-commerce presence, and as 4 of its 10 administrators left the board, with one attributing her resignation to a “loss of confidence in board leadership” and “mistreatment.”

While most prospects caught with the model after the February assault, which was carried out by way of ransomware software program generally known as LockBit, the corporate reported it misplaced $50 million in its final fiscal yr and put a few of the blame on the incident.

Ruis took it as an indication that “we’ve got to work a little bit harder.”

“Naturally, when you close something down for a little bit of time, you lose a few customers on the way and you have to beckon them back,” he stated.

“The good news is each week, more of them come back, but it’s definitely, I would say, still a challenge for us to get everyone back.”

The query dealing with Ruis is how he can rebuild confidence from shoppers, stated Donna Smith, the director of Toronto Metropolitan University’s School of Retail Management.

“A fancy assortment is very shiny and it’s the glitz of retailing,” Smith stated, “but building trust with your customers is the real essence and that’s what I think he has to do.”

Some of the shoppers who have not returned to Indigo aren’t essentially harbouring sick will from the hack. Many are simply price-conscious customers on the lookout for any strategy to stretch their price range as inflation stays excessive, Ruis famous.

“We can’t expect to be a choice when people are struggling to pay their mortgages, so we’re very focused on that and very conscious that we need to give them a fantastic value,” he stated.

“Everyone’s incredibly time poor and we know that the Canadian economy is not in its best place, and everyone’s a little bit depressed about interest rate rises and cost of groceries, etc., so you know you need to provide some an attractive reason to get outdoors and to get into the stores,” he stated.

It’s not the primary time he is main an organization by way of a interval of immense change. Ruis has spent 30 years within the retail sector, leaping to Indigo’s president function in 2021 from womenswear chain Anthropologie URBN Group, the place he charted a world growth.

But the Englishman’s largest plaudit got here at division retailer John Lewis, the place he served as its government shopping for and model director and reworked the chain from its traditionalist roots right into a vogue vacation spot with hovering attire gross sales, designer collaborations and buzzy Christmas adverts.

Ruis’s imaginative and prescient for Indigo centres round every retailer being a “cultural emporium,” borrowing an strategy from Tokyo shops promoting books, magazines and music.

Expanding merchandise is an efficient technique for getting individuals to spend extra time in shops and thus, make extra purchases, nevertheless it must be matched with ample staffing, stated Smith.

“One of the difficulties in retail today is that the front-line staff are shrinking and a lot of retailers are falling behind … in really giving them the training that they need to bring the customer to the finish line, to close the sale,” she stated.

“The staff they have are pleasant, but I don’t see a whole lot of them.”

More may very well be added to the infant part, the place she figures new mother and father are more than likely to want suggestions or solutions.

When customers go to the Well retailer particularly, Ruis stated the hope is that they’re going to stumble onto one thing thrilling after which wind up lingering as they purchase a espresso, browse housewares or decide up one of many hundreds of books readily available.

As many shoppers undertake e-readers and Indigo shares extra merchandise starting from bedding and Barbies to intercourse toys, toasters and nutritional vitamins, some may marvel if Indigo will go away the ebook business behind.

On that entrance, Ruis is unequivocal, even when books make up a slim majority of the business at 55 per cent in contrast with way of life merchandise at 45 per cent.

“Never, absolutely never,” he stated, when requested if he envisions a day when Indigo does not promote books.

And regardless of stocking loungewear, hats, luggage, socks and even pyjamas, which Ruis stated have been a success, he maintained “we’re not going to become a fashion store.”

The firm, he stated, is solely “making sure that as we move into lifestyle, it’s additive to our books, it doesn’t detract from our books.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first printed Aug. 30, 2023.