Indigo Financial Statement

Introduction Indigo Books and Music Inc. (Indigo) is Canada’s largest book retailer and first cultural department store which operates in all ten provinces with the goal of inspiring their customers and the ones they care about with life-enriching products and experiences. The purpose of this report is to analyze the attainments of Indigo in the domain of promotional marketing, specifically pinpointing their competence in public relations. Furthermore, underlining how Indigo and several bookstores across North America have successfully adapted to the trend of continuously diversifying in-store products in response to the public’s dynamic attitudes and requests.

Company Topic Application
Indigo is continuously competing in an emerging
Although book sales have progressively decreased over the years (over 11 percent in 2016), the income statement has been overall unaffected, raking in an 8.3 percent increase in their non-book item sales during the first quarter of this fiscal year, resulting in a profit. In order for companies to stay in relevance, they must constantly study the behaviour of the public (i.e. the consumers) in order to appoint their current needs and desires to a tangible good. Public relations is a strategic outlet for businesses to build a solid relationship that is beneficial to both the producer and consumer by having the consumers voicing what they wish to see from suppliers. It increases a company’s credibility as it uses gathered information to their advantage, listening and catering to the public’s needs, in order to strengthen the business-consumer relationship. Furthermore, public relations has established the ability of obtaining the greatest return on investment, as it requires using less costly methods, such as advertising, that ultimately benefits companies in reducing expenses, all while making a greater impact to its mass audience.
Correspondingly, there has been a considerable decline in book sales which has had a significant impact on bookstores, forcing these companies to restructure their store's business model in order to quickly adapt to the changes in market and consumer trends. Currently, in order to combat the decrease in sales, bookstores across North America have managed to redefine themselves by introducing the addition of various departments integrated into their stores. In these departments, several products are sold ranging from children's toys, home decor, artisanal snacks, stationery items, and even clothes. The eighteen months immediately following the rise of the digital era, general merchandise was experiencing a constant decline. However, the succeeding eighteen months yielded high-profit margins. General merchandise now accounts for 40 percent of sales, up from 25 percent in 2012. This extension has allowed for multiple companies in the book industry to regain profits they had otherwise lost. As a result, the introduction of numerous departments including a large variety of merchandise has increased the revenue for bookstores, and helped these stores stay competitive with alternative service providers such as online stores and e-books. The introduction of general