Indigo Books and Music has reported that in the past three months, which they recognize as the second quarter of 2021. Their strong sales performance has resulted in double-digit revenue growth with improvements across both print and general merchandise that exceeded both last year and pre-pandemic levels. Specifically, sales were $238.8 million, a 16.3% increase over last year and a 17.4% increase over fiscal 2020.
The retail channel, which is inclusive of porters fulfilled through omni-channel store pickup increased by 16.7% to $159.6 million for the 13-week period ended October 2, 2021. Retail revenue growth was achieved through improvements in traffic, conversion and average transaction values as pandemic conditions softened and the company’s retail network performance stronger than in the same period last year.
Online channel revenue decreased by $8.4 million or 13.3% to $54.6 million for the 13-week period ended October 2, 2021. This moderated demand reflects the rebounds in retail as discussed. The online channel sustained sales levels at 85% above pre-COVID fiscal 2020, and continues to be a lever of omni-channel growth and investment focus. To offer greater connectivity to brands doing business on modern e-commerce platforms and to unlock a drop-ship opportunity to sell on indigo.ca, the company integrated with convictional as a technology partner in the second quarter. This is only the beginning of the company’s digital transformation agenda and we look forward to sharing our plans around and enhanced digital experience in future quarters.
One of the big drivers of younger people reading are the Book Tok hashtag, which has influencers talking about the books they are reading and helps drive sales. Indigo CEO Heather Reisman said “Young Canadians have said, we love to read and we love to talk about reading and we’re going to talk about reading on Tik Tok and it has just blown up, which is a great sign, right? It says, as things are evolving people are speaking about the importance of reading in their life and their joy of books. So seriously, it’s fantastic.”
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
