When Sharon Value John took over as CEO of Construct-A-Bear Workshop in 2013, the model was beloved however the enterprise was damaged. Shops have been unprofitable, overhead was out of line, and stock piled up.
“My first precedence was not about reshaping the model’s future. My first precedence was a return to profitability,” John mentioned. “The speedy actions in a turnaround scenario are two-pronged: cease doing silly stuff, adopted by begin doing good stuff.”
As soon as profitability returned, she set her deal with the model itself. “Construct-A-Bear is a sense, proper? Construct-A-Bear means reminiscences, household, hugs, hearts, heat,” she mentioned.
That reframing allowed her to place Construct-A-Bear as greater than a mall retailer, “pivoting the corporate from a retailer that by accident constructed a model to a branded mental property firm that occurs to have vertical retail as considered one of its income streams,” John defined.
One early symbolic step got here in 2013, when she pushed to place the Construct-A-Bear brand on each bear’s paw — a easy however highly effective transfer that strengthened the model’s identification past its shops.
The corporate has since expanded into ecommerce, licensing, leisure, and worldwide markets. Adults now make up a good portion of gross sales, with John pointing to initiatives just like the Bear Cave microsite. “We used and constructed out the web site to overindex with collectors and adults and reward givers, and allowed the shops to be nonetheless that have base the place we overindex with our core shopper of youngsters,” she mentioned.
After guiding Construct-A-Bear by the retail apocalypse, Brexit, and Covid-19, John takes satisfaction in its resilience. “We’re very cautious to not overstep the belief that we constructed all these years, and we hope that we might be of service in greater methods,” she mentioned. “On the finish of the day, everyone wants a teddy bear hug.” —Audrey Kemp
