Party City (NYSE:PRTY) is planning to expand its business with a new type of pop-up store.
According to Party City, it is planning to set up 50 Toy City pop-up stores later this year. These stores will only be seasonal and will go up alongside the company’s Halloween City stores later this year.
This will have Party City opening the Toy City locations during early September. Unlike the Halloween City stores, these ones will remain open through the holiday season. This will have the company holding these store locations for longer than it normally does.
“The creation of a Toy City concept to complement our temporary seasonal retail strategy is a logical extension of our brand; one that will allow us to leverage our existing pop-up store capabilities and capitalize on the category whitespace that has recently been created,” James Harrison, CEO of Party City, said in a statement.
That “white space” that Harrison is talking about is Toys R Us going out of business. The chain filed for bankruptcy last year and has been dealing with the repercussions of that since. This includes holding a going out of business sale at all of its stores.
Store closings started earlier this year and it was announced the business was shutting down only a little time later. The company started its going out of business sales on March 22. Now the chain says that it will be closing down all locations by this Friday.
Party City’s Toy City locations may fare better than Toys R Us did in the market. That’s because its stores will only be open during the holiday season. This may allow it to capture those customers looking for Christmas gifts, without having to worry about lower sales the rest of the year.
PRTY stock was down 2% as of Monday morning.
As of this writing, William White did not hold a position in any of the aforementioned securities.
