Canada’s biggest book chain has suffered what it calls a cyber incident that knocked it offline on Wednesday.
“We experienced a cybersecurity incident earlier today and are working with third-party experts to investigate and resolve the situation,” a notice on the Indigo website said.
“Our hope is to have systems back online as soon as possible. In the interim our website will remain unavailable. At this time we look forward to welcoming customers in our stores for cash transactions. We are temporarily unable to process electronic payments, or to accept gift cards or returns.”
In response to queries on its Twitter page Indigo says it is trying to understand if customer data was compromised.
Formally known as Indigo Books & Music, the publicly-traded national chain sells books and a wide range of household items such as gloves, scarves, blankets, mugs, toys and stationery. With 8,000 employees, it operates 89 superstores under the Indigo and Chapters banners as well as over 80 small format stores under the names Coles, Indigospirit, SmithBooks, and The Book Company.
At the close of Wednesday’s market the stock was trading at $2.35.
In its latest quarterly results, reported for a 13-week period ending October, 2, 2022, the company said it has revenue of $236.2 million. Merchandise sales, the total of retail and online sales and excluding other revenues, were a record high of any second quarter for the company.
