"After years spent battling a declining book market and defying prophecies of doom," Indigo Books & Music "is back in growth mode," according to founder and CEO Heather Reisman, who unveiled the Canadian chain's new store at Sherway Gardens in Toronto this week, the Star reported. This marks the first major store Indigo has opened in more than five years.
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"So many people were writing Indigo off," said Reisman. "The key is to reinvent, to create a new vision and to go to that vision with real conviction."
Noting that the company "has spent the last five years transforming from a bookstore to cultural department store for book lovers," the Star wrote that the Sherway Gardens location is "the first to fully encompass that new vision. The store is similar in size to the stores at Toronto Eaton Centre and the location at Bay and Bloor, but because of the layout, it carries 80,000 titles, the most books of any location. The new store features curated shops-within-a-shop, with books on common topics mooring a selection of related merchandise in open-concept rooms.... There are elegant chairs and a giant ottoman where guests can sit while they decide what to buy. A digital screen features an art installation of peonies by artist Diana Thater."
The location also has an American Girl boutique; a Best of Gifting Wall, which will be updated monthly with suggested books and gifts; and three digital inspiration walls, which are called Joy of the Table, A Room of Her Own and Home, showcasing Indigo's "key products and stories of the moment."
"We lived and breathed this store for over 18 months. There is not one single element that was not deliberate. That color--that particular shade of ballet pink, for example," said Reisman, pointing to the bookshelves. "I have been involved in every inch of this store--joyfully involved.... All of our stores are moving in this direction and we will, over the next couple of years, transform the entire collection of stores to be like this.... There will be other challenges. But now we have that muscle-building--the organization has built muscle in understanding challenges and how to think through them."