Chapters Indigo are planning on renovating almost every single bookstore in Canada within the next two years. The bookseller is pleased with their new Sherway Gardens location in Toronto and it is basically billed as a cultural department store. Indigo now plans on adopting this model in almost every major market in Canada.
The Sherway Gardens location is a new concept store that opened up in May to smashing reviews by local media. It includes a large book section and seven “shops” within the store separated by partial walls: the Art Shop features prints and art books; Joy of the Table contains cookbooks and a range of tabletop products; Home includes design books and home décor items such as pillows and throw blankets.
CEO Reisman is particularly proud of an 1,100-square-foot section dubbed A Room of her Own, a nod to Virginia Woolf, which features everything from cozy “reading socks” to wedding and engagement gifts, and “by women, for women” book titles.
Toys at the location are focused on education and early childhood development. For the most part, everything is a little more expensive, as there is lots of upper-income families in this part of Toronto.
Indigo is basically planning on cloning the Sherway Gardens concept all over Canada, but won’t be cookie-cutter, reflecting instead the idiosyncrasies of each market.
“The fleet is old now, most have not had investment in a long time, so now we’re going to be investing all across the board,” said Reisman.
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.
