Indigo vs. UPEI

by Joel MEGGS

Indigo recently opened its doors in Charlottetown to the usual fanfare that greets new megastores on PEI. There has been much specula- tion as to what Indigo’s impact will be on the retailing landscape of Charlottetown. Fears that a book superstore will put independent book- sellers like The Bookmark and The Reading Well out of business have been lingering since the original announcement of a Chapters outlet.

But what will Indigo mean to the university community? One would think that the close proximity of Indigo to the university would sug- gest they’re trying to tap into the campus economy, and that it’s possi- ble that the UPEI Bookstore would have something to fear from the arrival of Indigo. Eric Gallant, man- ager of the Bookstore, says Indigo and the Bookstore are really apples and oranges:

“TIndigo] does not pose a big threat to me or university book- stores,” Gallant said. “In fact, I wish them luck.”

There is not much overlap in the books that the UPEI Bookstore and Indigo sell. Students aren’t like- ly to find their textbooks in the Indigo store, and they aren’t likely to in the future.

“Textbooks are not a gold-

mine,” Gallant says. The industry standard on markup for textbooks is 20 percent, and since many texts are | | heavy, much of that is taken up by | shipping charges.

This may explain why you can find many of your textbooks on | Indigo’s website, for order from their | central warehouse, instead of in the store. This may be of little use to stu- | dents, as the 10 percent discount one receives by ordering one’s textbook this way will more than be eaten up by shipping charges. Also, there is a three to five week shipping period for most of these textbooks.

Gallant concedes that he may lose some of the trade book sales to Indigo, classics like Dickens or Shakespeare, but as trade books make up such a minuscule part of the Bookstore’s inventory, he doubts he will feel the loss.

Gallant says that university bookstores are pretty safe for the foreseeable future. He sees the next real threat to university bookstores coming not from book mega-stores or their online counterparts, but from e- _ texts, that is, the delivery of entire | textbooks on your computer screen for a fraction of the price of a hard- copy, but he believes it will be at least a few years before e-texts begin to catch on.

ing up space het could better be | for regular shelf space. _. sections —

They should be giving us money for this kind of product placement.

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