"Peace, joy and a book for all" summarized the holidays at Indigo, Chapters and Coles stores this season, wrapping up an exciting year of innovation and unique opportunities for Canadian booklovers in the Company's retail stores as well as online.
From launching a high profile series for Entrepreneurs and an award-winning Indigo Online Community; Indigo Books and Music also brought Harry Pottermania to life in July, and connected booklovers with the most sought after authors and relevant topics at in-store personal appearances, creating interesting experiences for customers at every opportunity.
As the busiest shopping season nears its close, the year's busiest day for Indigo, December 22, saw roughly 480,000 visitors, over 570 per minute. If Canadians are not already shopped out, they can take advantage of more great deals this Boxing Day with 30% off all hard covers and up to 50% off select books, gift products and calendars. Additionally, with a purchase during Boxing Week, customers will receive a $5 off coupon redeemable on January purchases of $35 or more in-store.
Books continued to be a great gift option this year and the top 10 best-selling titles for the 2007 holiday season were:
-Eat Pray Love, Elizabeth Gilbert
-The Innocent Man, John Grisham
-Cook with Jamie, Jamie Oliver
-The Pillars of the Earth, Ken Follett
-Blood Brothers (Sign of Seven Trilogy Book 1), Nora Roberts
-Atonement, Ian McEwan
-A Thousand Splendid Suns, Khaled Hosseini
-The Bancroft Strategy, Robert Ludlum
-I am America & So Can You, Stephen Colbert
-For One More Day, Mitch Albom
In addition to a fantastic book selection, Indigo's array of lifestyle, home and décor items topped everyone's wish list.
The top gift themes in the lifestyle category were:
-Eco-friendly bags, totes, wrap, soy candles, educational books and videos
-Metallic décor in gold, silver, and bronze
-Woodland themes, twigs, natural, birch bark, wood scented, and pine cones.
-Handcrafted products, hand-painted ornaments and hand knit scarves and throws.
-Scrapbooking and digital photo albums
-Nostalgic Christmas, vintage felt stockings, warm tones of browns, reds and greens. Snow globes, customized with personal photos.
-And Gourmet food for gifting.
Where Canadian Booklovers Connect
In 2007, Indigo launched its unique Online Community where Canadian booklovers can connect and share their passion for books, authors and reading. From recommending new reads and organizing bookshelves, to getting local book clubs on track for the New Year, this innovative new tool has something for every inspired reader.
Since its launch in mid-September, tens of thousands of members have joined the unique community, connecting at a rate of one new member every three minutes. User traffic generated to the online bookstore is up 50% over the previous year. Twice as many visitors are staying on the site longer, joining the Online Community to post reviews of their recent reads and lists of their favorite movies and must-have music.
A Picture Tells a Thousand Stories
This year, Indigo also launched Photobook, an easy-to-use photo sharing and custom scrapbooking service. Perfect to share memories for holiday gift-giving or post-holiday archiving, Photobook allows customers to create professionally bound, hardcover books filled with their favourite memories.
Harry Pottermania!
In addition to exciting new online initiatives in 2007, Indigo celebrated record book sales with the launch of the final Harry Potter novel, The Deathly Hallows in July. The farewell to everyone's favourite wizard brought in sales averaging 3 books per second, more than any other book in Indigo's history to-date.
Indigo Love of Reading Foundation
The Indigo Love of Reading Foundation continued to inspire a lifelong love of reading in children with the addition of 10 new recipient schools in 2007. With over $4.5 million donated to high need schools across Canada to date, Indigo is working to put books into the hands of all children, one library at a time. In September, the Indigo Love of Reading Foundation launched Writing on the Wall, a documentary highlighting the literary crisis in our schools, to rave reviews.
Inspired Experiences
Indigo, Chapters and Coles continued to lead the industry in cultural offerings in 2007, hosting numerous high-profile celebrities, musicians and authors for interviews and book signings. The Indigo Entrepreneur Series saw Canada's top business leaders, including Indigo CEO and Chief Booklover Heather Reisman, come together for an inspirational series on entrepreneurship.
And the winner is ... Indigo!
This was a year of achievement for Indigo as it continues to be recognized as a leader in the retail industry. In 2007, Indigo received a Maple Leaf Award for Retail Store Design by the International Council of Shopping Centres for the new Indigo store in Brossard, Quebec. Indigo was also named by Internet Retailer to the Hot 100 Internet Websites list for 2008. The list is an annual compilation prepared by editors of Internet Retailer, and their panel of industry experts who sift through thousands of internet retail sites to glean the 100 best examples of online retail in North America.
More Excitement in 2008
The excitement starts early in 2008! Pre-orders begin in January for Stephenie Meyer's highly anticipated new book, the fourth installment in her vampire love saga. Just two days after Meyer's third book, Eclipse, was released in early August, it quickly became the fastest selling kids title in Indigo history, excluding Harry Potter. Canadian fans indicate Meyer could be J.K. Rowling's heir apparent. The newest installment from John Grisham will also be released in January. -- www.cnxmarketlink.com
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