Children's Place to Revive Gymboree With 200 In-Store Shops
by: Linda Moss | CoStar News
The Children’s Place, North America's largest purely kids’ specialty apparel retailer, plans to open Gymboree in-store shops at more than 200 Children’s Place stores as part of the relaunch of the brand early next year.
The Secaucus, New Jersey-based chain outlined more of its strategy for the "shop-in-shop" Gymborees, the children's clothing chain that filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. In tandem with selling Gymboree-branded merchandise at stores in the United States and Canada, Children's Place also plans to premiere an enhanced Gymboree website in 2020.
In March, Children's Place paid $76 million to acquire the intellectual property and related assets, including trademarks, domain names, design rights and customer databases, of competitor Gymboree and Crazy 8 from parent Gymboree Group of San Francisco. There was a liquidation of roughly 800 Gymboree and Crazy 8 stores.
Children's Place, which seeks to close 300 stores by the end of the year, now has 961 locations. In August, CEO Jane Elfers first said Children Place would be relaunching Gymboree's website and selling some of its merchandise at its own stores.
The Children's Place and Gymboree store closings are part of the wave of retail shutdowns this year as brick-and-mortar locations struggle with online competition. There have been 9,785 store closings so far this year, easily outpacing the 5,400 that closed all of last year and the 8,700 in 2017, according to CoStar data.
“We have embarked upon an exciting journey to bring this iconic brand back to the loyal Gymboree customers, who continue to voice an unrivaled passion and affinity for it," Elfers said in a statement. "We are making every effort to meet her high standards for curated and elevated product and eagerly anticipate welcoming her back to the Gymboree brand.”
Elfers said the goal is to revitalize the "bow-to-toe collections" that Gymboree had offered.
“We believe a multichannel offering combining an enhanced online shopping experience with inviting in-store locations will best serve long-standing Gymboree customers, and also welcome a new generation of moms to the iconic brand," Claudia Lima-Guinehut, Children's Place senior vice president of global merchandising, said in a statement.