When Sharon Worth John took over as CEO of Construct-A-Bear Workshop in 2013, the model was beloved however the enterprise was damaged. Shops had 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 stated. “The quick actions in a turnaround scenario are two-pronged: cease doing silly stuff, adopted by begin doing sensible stuff.”
As soon as profitability returned, she set her give attention to the model itself. “Construct-A-Bear is a sense, proper? Construct-A-Bear means reminiscences, household, hugs, hearts, heat,” she stated.
That reframing allowed her to place Construct-A-Bear as greater than a mall retailer, “pivoting the corporate from a retailer that by chance constructed a model to a branded mental property firm that occurs to have vertical retail as one among 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 client of youngsters,” she stated.
After guiding Construct-A-Bear via the retail apocalypse, Brexit, and Covid-19, John takes pleasure in its resilience. “We’re very cautious to not overstep the belief that we constructed all these years, and we hope that we will be of service in greater methods,” she stated. “On the finish of the day, everyone wants a teddy bear hug.” —Audrey Kemp
