Home > Press
Room > San Francisco Business Times -
Party America Celebrating Booming Business At Its Stores
Party America
Celebrating
booming business
at its stores
By
Kristen Bole
A
little partying never hurt a business. At least that's what Marty
Allen has found in transforming a small company on a downward
spiral into the second-largest party retailer in the United States.
Alameda-based Party America has clocked 180.5 percent growth over
the past three years, not counting the $50 million in sales from
its franchises. The company listed $167.5 million in revenue last
year, up from $111.8 million the year before and a mere $59.7 million
in 2003. And that's in an industry in which shelves need to be
nearly full the day before Halloween - but that same inventory
has zero value the day after.
"Retail is hard," said Allen, Party America's President and CEO. "Trying
to keep the right products all the time in your stores is very challenging."
Clearly the company is up for the challenge.
Party
America has grown from 24 stores to nearly 300 nationwide, while
building its staff to 2,400 in the main company and another 600
in its 60 franchises. That's a far cry from the Chapter 11 bankruptcy
that Allen filed when he first bought the ailing 24-store company
a decade ago.
"The
plan was to fix the company and exit by selling to one of my
competitors," said Allen. Then the industry took a downturn: "I
ended up buying two of my competitors instead."
His
secret is threefold. First, put a good team in place. Then make
the stores a nice place to shop. And finally, make it a fun place
for employees to work.
So they started with carpet on the floor and bigger stores. They
made the aisles wider for women with strollers. They keep the bathrooms
clean, decorate them for every holiday and give a highly coveted
award for the best restroom in the company. Allen himself takes
every customer call that comes into the office and reads every
customer email.
And
for staff, they offer free popcorn and try to have fun. They
train well and hide nothing: Every staff member can know as much
about the company's goals and direction as they want to learn. 
"There's
nothing you can do today that's 100 percent better than your
competition, and if you do find something, the day after you
start it, your competition will leapfrog it. Winning in business
today is doing 100 things 1 percent better."
He
cited Nordstrom as a role model. Its products aren't that different
from the competition, but it has comfortable chairs for people
to wait, it has live music on grand pianos, and it even makes
the radical move of putting the men's restroom near the men's
department. Independently, none of those things makes Nordstrom
a success, but together, they give it an edge.
That's the kind of edge Allen strives for at Party America.
He
said that he was in one of his stores a few years ago when
he saw a customer rush out of the women's restroom. She grabbed
her friend and dragged her in to see it.
Said Allen, "I thought, 'We have arrived as a retailer'."
|
