the holiday season and getting off to a strong start
for build a bear, the teddy bear maker posting
a record third quarter results blowing past Wall Street's expectations
has seen 1/7 straight quarter of increased sales compared to
the previous year, also raising its annual forecast.
Well, the stock certainly in the holiday mode today
up sharply, take a look, rising 22% and
joining me now is the ceo of build a bear
Sharon price, john Sharon, congratulations and happy holidays
. Happy holidays. Thanks for having me. Oh
, it's so good to see you. We have
the bears, the animals on set here. And
the third quarter was very strong for your company.
What has been working? It's very strong. We
were up 10% on revenue 25% on pretax profit.
Um, and I think that a lot of things
are working for us. We saw increased traffic,
a lot of consumers interest in build a bear coming
into the stores. I think there's some post covid
interest in reviving that trip to the mall and having
family experiences. So we were quite pleased with a
lot of the things that happened. We also had
record sales with our Halloween products and a number of
the different offerings that we have. So it was
exciting for us this quarter. We also shared that
we had a strong black friday as well as a
cyber monday, gave a little bit of insight into
the early fourth quarter with continued momentum into that quarter
, which was what gave us that confidence to raise
guidance with that record setting first nine, uh,
first nine months as well as the quarter to date
information and clearly investors are rewarding the stock today on
that boosted guidance Sharon. So yes, things are
working and we've got some amazingly outfitted bears. I
think that's a bunny. We've got a unicorn up
here in santa bear and santa. So what are
some of these unique holiday offerings that are gonna be
providing shoppers? Yeah. So we usually have the
traditional holiday bears. This, uh, that is
, listen our reindeer, she's our snow deer.
That's associated with mary mission. Mary mission has been
in our line for eight years and is often a
bestseller for the holiday season. And we actually announced
today after the earnings release that we are in the
process of creating an animated film from glisten and the
merry mission that will be released in 2023. Factor
into guidance. Do you anticipate that, that,
that will be a big money maker for you?
Well, that's not in the guidance because the guidance
was for a full year 2022 and the film won't
be out until 2023. But what it speaks to
is the evolution and transition of build a bear beyond
the mall beyond the stuffed animals. You know,
we're now a multidimensional, uh, omnichannel organization that
has this opportunity, which we've been building over the
course of years to maximize and monetize the value of
this brand. The brand has tremendous equity and we
see that every day and the love and excitement that
people come when they come to build a bear.
They keep our bears, they enjoy them for life
. It's really an amazing experience to watch that.
But that multi generation, al Itty of our product
line and our brand and our experience, which we're
now 25 years this year, it allows us to
go to places that maybe younger brands cannot go and
it gives us latitude to speak directly to that older
consumer. 40% of our sales are now two teens
and adults. Yes. And we have spaces on
our website dedicated to teens and adults are that our
age gated where the bear cave or after dark.
This is an example, one of our kind of
sassy. Yes, so she is making spirits bright
little bit of play on words here with her bare
teeny but people love this. It's a very unique
gift. You know, you get to put the
heart in the bear, you can also add a
recording which makes it an incredibly unique gift. I
mean how fun is this to get something like this
? Under the tree. Perfect under the tree,
I think for secret santa, that could be a
fun. That's a great idea. Yeah. I
also want to talk Sharon um as a ceo yourself
about this book that you have out and and how
your own story has inspired the work that you're doing
and build a bear well build a bears are really
special organization. Uh and and it does inspire many
, our founder Maxine Clark is also an inspiration to
entrepreneurs and young women. Um but beyond that,
I think that that there was an opportunity for me
when Forbes actually approached me to do this, to
talk about just stories and how those stories impacted my
life, what I did, it's not just all
the way back to childhood, just a bit of
it is about build a bear, but it's called
Stories and Heart and that is a play on the
build a bear story with that's our build a bear
heart and it's about unlocking the power personal stories to
create a life you love, which is what we're
all about it, build a bear is creating a
life you love. And I think that that is
what is unique about this company that you are helming
right now is despite a pandemic. Despite higher prices
, persistent pandemic, we should say despite supply chain
challenges, your businesses is doing better than ever.
And heart seems to be at the very root of
it. Heart is at the heart of it or
the root of it, which every word you want
to use. But I think what's super important here
is that that we're often asked if this is a
post pandemic bounce and I'm certain that there is a
portion of what we're doing that is in the changes
of the consumer shopping behavior, but we've been on
this journey for a long time of recognizing that we
could pivot this brand and that we could create a
multidimensional multi channel business diversified options that allow consumers to
engage with us when they want the way they want
, execute a digital transformation, create a robust loyalty
program, get focused on revenue from all channels.
Our goal is to drive profitable revenue and create lifetime
value. And that creation of lifetime value is not
just translated into profitable revenue streams for us, but
it's also for the guest, there's a reciprocal concept
here of lifetime value and I think that that does
make a difference with consumers over time. Well certainly
investors, many of whom I'm sure our consumers to
rewarding back today. Sharon happy holidays to you.
Always a pleasure to see you and thank you so
much for bringing the items by in your presence.
Thank you. We're delighted to be here and always
happy to speak with you. Wonderful! Alright,
Sharon Price, john Ceo build a bear. Thank
you again to Sharon for joining