Indigo: Gift cards vs. cash

Because I’m a loser, I read Indigo’s Q3 earnings and got all excited about their outstanding gift card balance that was somewhere around $63-million. Turns out if you add up all the different categories accountants use, it’s actually closer to $77-million on the balance sheet. 

And because I’m an even bigger loser, I imported some of the balance sheet into a spreadsheet to see what the trend was for gift card hoarding, versus how much cash the company is sitting on and the value of its inventory. 

But the important take away is this – there are an awful lot of Canadians who are sitting on gift cards. They should get reading – and if reading isn’t their thing, Indigo’s stores also sell pillows now. So they should get sleeping.