Less than six months after completing its restructuring and exiting Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, Woodcliff Lake-based Party City, a specialty retailer and leader in the party goods industry, is accelerating the introduction of its new store format from early success in pilot stores.
The innovative store design is an evolution of the retailer’s latest format, which among other distinguishing features, provides a “reinvented balloon shopping experience.” According to Party City, customers will have easy accessibility to the depth and breadth of Party City’s one-of-a-kind balloon assortment, which has a dedicated service area.
Not only does the latest store design deliver a new balloon experience, but it will bring birthday shopping to the next level, with “birthday worlds,” as Dion Miliaresis, vice president of merchandising at Party City, describes them.
“With this introduction, we have moved away from the traditional aisle experience and have developed two birthday worlds within each store. One is dedicated to kids’ birthdays, and one for general birthday celebrations. These are complete mini-shops, with everything brought together in one place — this makes it easy for the customer to find everything they need, and to hopefully discover a few surprises and fun ideas to add to their celebration along the way,” Miliaresis said.
Party City Head of Stores Bill Lanza said early indicators show customers are responding positively to this new format. As a result, Party City plans to introduce the new format in several locations across the country in the first half of this year.
“The customer is at the center of everything. This store format allows for a redefined shopping experience to help ease their celebration planning. The new merchandising approach is translating to increases in cross-sales and adjacent product categories. These factors have prompted us to look at how we can accelerate this format and bring this experience to more of our customers across the country,” Lanza said.
This new format allows for testing of new product assortments, especially focused on categories related to kids’ celebrations, such as trending favors, toys and more. Additionally, the updated queue experience allows for engaging, bold merchandising statements, with opportunities to continually adjust what is featured.
Party City shoppers can find their nearest store location by clicking here.
