Indigo Reports Net Loss of $31 Million

[RZetlin]

Indigo Books & Music Inc., the operator of Canada’s largest book retailing chain, reported a net loss of $31 million on Tuesday. The net loss for the year ending March 29 compares to net earnings of $4.3 million in the previous year.

Source

Indigo bet big in 2013 with their gravitational shift from selling books to peddling pillows, wine glasses and gourmet chocolate. They also devoted significant square footage in each store to Indigo Tech and made agreements with Apple, Beats and companies involved in wearables. The gambit has failed, as the largest bookseller in Canada posted a loss of over 31 million dollars last year.

Source

Having been in the Indigo bookstore myself, it is awkward seeing the dedicated tech. rep standing around by himself, with nobody visiting the tech. section.

Other than the Kobo devices and iPads, the majority of the items sold are on the lower end of the spectrum.

If somebody wants to buy an Apple product they would turn to an Apple Store not Indigo.

IMO Indigo needs to focus its core products and that is books.

[teija]

It is always sad to read things like this. More often than not, taking the "gamble" just isn't worth it. Indigo are certainly not embedded in my mind as somewhere to go looking for household sort of stuff OR electronics. They just can't compete with FutureShop or BestBuy, and even those two are suffering (how odd that you can now buy furniture at FS!)!

[rollei]

FutureShop, BestBuy, Target, Walmart etc all sell Kobo devices. They are helping Kobo (Indigo) out.

Sad that Indigo is making a loss this financial year - don't want Kobo to disappear from the market.

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by rollei

FutureShop, BestBuy, Target, Walmart etc all sell Kobo devices. They are helping Kobo (Indigo) out.

Sad that Indigo is making a loss this financial year - don't want Kobo to disappear from the market.

Kobo has been owned by Rakuten since the beginning of 2012.

[RZetlin]

Originally Posted by rollei

FutureShop, BestBuy, Target, Walmart etc all sell Kobo devices. They are helping Kobo (Indigo) out.

Sad that Indigo is making a loss this financial year - don't want Kobo to disappear from the market.

Since Kobo and Indigo are separate companies, I don't think this will impact Kobo this much.

I can understand Indigo thinking as to why setup a tech. section. People are into tablets and smartphones, so it makes sense on paper to offer more tech. orientated gadgets.

But people go to Future Shop or Best Buy to buy tech. gadgets, not to book stores.

However, I can see Indigo closing stores and laying off people due to the net loss.

Taking down the tech. section and reverting back to the way it was - a table with kobo devices is a possibility.

[HarryT]

The net loss for the year ending March 29 compares to net earnings of $4.3 million in the previous year.

This is a meaningless comparison. "Earnings" is how much revenue you've taken; it's completely unrelated to profit or loss.

[Nothingness]

I think they should have more books and mangas in French. In stores they have a small section of books and mangas in French, but in the online store much less, so I end up being forced to buy my books and mangas at Amazon.ca.