By TARA DESCHAMPSThe Canadian Press
\nTues., Feb. 5, 2019<\/p>\n
TORONTO – Indigo Books and Music Inc. said the one-month Canada Post strike last fall \u201cseverely hurt\u201d third-quarter earnings, contributing to a roughly 50 per cent drop in net earnings.<\/p>\n
The Toronto-based retailer revealed Tuesday that in the period ending Dec. 29 it earned $21.5 million, down from the $42.6 million it reported for the same period the year before.<\/p>\n
Indigo founder and CEO Heather Reisman told industry analysts that the company \u201cis hugely dependent on Canada Post. The strike severely hurt our ability to serve our customers in a manner that today\u2019s retail environment demands.\u201d
\nIndigo founder and CEO Heather Reisman told industry analysts that the company \u201cis hugely dependent on Canada Post. The strike severely hurt our ability to serve our customers in a manner that today\u2019s retail environment demands.\u201d (CRAIG WONG \/ THE CANADIAN PRESS FILE PHOTO)
\nIndigo\u2019s diluted earnings per share amounted to 79 cents per share, down from $1.56 per share from the year before.<\/p>\n
The company\u2019s revenue also tumbled by 1.7 per cent to $426 million from $433.3 million the year before.<\/p>\n
Indigo founder and chief executive officer Heather Reisman told industry analysts that the company had seen double-digit growth until the postal strike began Oct. 23, bringing double-digit declines with it.<\/p>\n
\u201cIndigo is hugely dependent on Canada Post. The strike severely hurt our ability to serve our customers in a manner that today\u2019s retail environment demands,\u201d Reisman said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs a result, to some extent, customers chose not to shop online or when they did shop online and we sent them to our stores to pick up the product, our cost to transfer the product was often quite high as we had to use a number of alternative carriers.\u201d<\/p>\n
Predicting the quarter would be strong, Indigo had also purchased plenty of inventory, which Reisman admitted was a struggle to clear out and often had to be sold for less than the company would have hoped.<\/p>\n
She called the conditions a \u201ctriple whammy\u201d that were made even worse by increases to minimum wages in some provinces, ongoing renovations at seven locations and the closure of two stores.<\/p>\n
Some stores, she said, had remained closed for longer than expected and it is taking some customers longer to \u201cre-acclimate\u201d to new locations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By TARA DESCHAMPSThe Canadian Press Tues., Feb. 5, 2019 TORONTO – Indigo Books and Music Inc. said the one-month Canada Post strike last fall \u201cseverely hurt\u201d third-quarter earnings, contributing to a roughly 50 per cent drop in net earnings. The Toronto-based retailer revealed Tuesday that in the period ending Dec. 29 it earned $21.5 million, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1014,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1013","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-canada-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sucantv.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1013","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sucantv.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sucantv.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sucantv.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sucantv.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1013"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sucantv.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1013\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1015,"href":"https:\/\/sucantv.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1013\/revisions\/1015"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sucantv.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1014"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sucantv.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1013"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sucantv.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1013"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sucantv.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1013"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}