Skip to main content

The Rise of Indigo

Indigo is the largest and only major surviving bookstore chain in the country. The Indigo brand has been expanding like crazy lately with a lot of new stores replacing Chapters and Coles locations. They have 209 stores operating under various banners including Indigo, Chapters, Coles, and IndigoSprit. In today’s post, I’ll be going over the rise of Indigo and how they grew to be Canada’s #1 bookstore.

Brief History

Indigo Books & Music was founded in 1996 by Heather Reisman. Indigo opened their first “superstore” in 1997. Indigo then merged with Chapters in August 2001, which got them a lot of locations under the Chapters and Coles banners.

Reinventing Indigo

Indigo introduced what they call a “Cultural department store concept”. While still featuring books, this concept expands Indigo’s non-book merchandise to include home decor, toys and more.

My thoughts

It’s kind of amazing seeing Indigo thrive a little pre-covid when most book retailers around the world are struggle. I think this is in large part of them being the only major bookstore chain left in the country after many of the independent chains died. I’m also surprised to see them open many mall locations when most chains are distancing themselves from malls even thought they are located at thriving malls. I hope to see Indigo flourish for many years to come.

Until next post, Dom

Sources

  1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigo_Books_and_Music

  2. https://www.chapters.indigo.ca/en-ca/our-company/fast-facts/

Labels:

Comments

  1. Retail RetellSeptember 30, 2020 at 12:45 PM

    Indigo sounds like a neat chain. I'm surprised I'd never heard of it before. I agree with you, it's cool that they have been expanding and also opening in malls. I hope they will continue to be successful, too.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

RULES: Comments are subject to approval before showing up. Please stay on topic and be civil.

Popular posts from this blog

Lost Retail: The history of Knob Hill Farms

A picture of a Knob Hill basket. Credit: Wikipedia For today’s lost retail post I’ll be talking about an old, local chain of grocery stores called Knob Hill Farms. Knob Hill Farms was a chain of 10 warehouse-like “food terminals” in the Toronto area. These stores were pretty large for a supermarket at the time they operated ranging from 65,000 sqft to a gigantic 335,000 sqft. Due to financial issues, Knob Hill Farms closed/sold all their stores in 2000. History Knob Hill Farms was founded in 1954 by Steve Stavro as a more conventional grocery chain operating 9 markets in Toronto. It wasn’t until 1963 that Stravro opened his first 65,000 sqft “food terminal” in Markham. In 1971, Knob Hill Farms expanded into Pickering with its second terminal. Knob Hill Farms than opened their first Toronto store  in 1975 and second Toronto terminal opened in 1977. Their fifth store, which was billed as the largest food store in North America at the time, opened in 1978 in Mississauga....
2 comments
Read more

Lowe’s stores in Canada begin re-brand to Rona+

As you might know already, Lowe’s sold their Canadian division to a private equity company, Sycamore Partners, earlier this year. Rona then announced that the Lowe's stores will be gradually re-branded as Rona+. These conversions started at the end of July with 10 stores in Ontario. So far all they did was replace all the Lowe’s logos with Rona+ logos with the Lowe's decor remaining intact. What’s interesting about Rona+ is that some Lowe’s stores were converted from larger Rona stores. So in a way, this will go full circle at some locations. Hopefully this will be successful for Rona. Until the next post (hopefully it won’t be another 2 years), Dom
2 comments
Read more

Pier 1 to file for bankruptcy; close all Canadian stores

Pier 1 logo Today, Pier 1 put a notice on their website saying that they are filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy as the company pursues a sale of its US business. As a result, Pier 1 decided to cease Canadian operations and close all of their Canadian stores. There goes another retailer killed by a changing industry. :( Via C TV News
2 comments
Read more