Building the teddy bear of your dreams; US fad arrives
Build-A-Bear Workshop, the world-renowned American teddy-bear company, has entered Thailand, opening the nation's first teddy-bear boutique on the sixth floor of Central Chidlom.
The company has plans to launch another nine outlets, in the capital as well as in the provinces. The store will give shoppers a chance to create their own teddy bears using trendy costumes and accessories, starting from choosing the bear to stuffing, stitching, fluffing, naming and dressing. Customers even get a birth certificate for the cuddly critters. Yuwadee Chirathivat Bhicharnchitr, managing director of Central Department Store, the local franchisee for Build-A-Bear Workshop, said Bt20 million had been spent on decorations and stock for the first 120-square-metre store, which is expected to generate monthly sales of Bt1.5 million to Bt2 million. It offers 23 different teddy bears and more than 300 accessories. The price for each bear will range from about Bt1,250 to Bt1,500. "We and Build-A-Bear are working on the introduction of Thai classical costumes to our products, aimed at serving foreign tourists," said Yuwadee. A second 200-square-metre outlet will open in December at Zen Department Store in Central World Plaza on Rajdamri Road. Over the next five years, five more are planned for Bangkok - in the Central Bang Na, Pinklao, Lat Phrao, Rama II and Rama III branches - and three in Chiang Mai, Phuket and Pattaya. Barry Erdos, president and chief operating officer of Build-A-Bear Workshop, flew in from the US for the Thai launch. "We expect our international markets will be a larger percentage in number of stores compared to our domestic North America market in the next five years," he said. Build-A-Bear Workshop was founded in 1997 and now operates about 220 stores across the US and 10 in Canada. The company has 70 stores elsewhere in the world, including 40 in the United Kingdom alone. In Asia, five outlets have been opened in Japan, six in Australia, plus one each in Taiwan and South Korea. "We have agreements with Russia, India and Singapore to open our stores in their markets by the end of this year," said Erdos. In the next decade, it plans to open another 700 stores, half of them in North America.
Kwanchai Rungfapaisarn The Nation
|
