Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Quick Takes Tim Stinovic on Bloomberg Radio. So if you're
Speaker 1: looking for an out performer, you've got to check out
Speaker 1: Chairs and Build a Bear Workshop, because the stock, at
Speaker 1: least heading into today's session was up almost this year.
Speaker 1: UH company today reported record revenues, a special cash dividend,
Speaker 1: plus a twenty five million dollar share buy back. And
Speaker 1: I gotta say we had a fair share of the
Speaker 1: company stuffed animals in our home and my daughter was growing. Hey,
Speaker 1: you know what after today's twenty seven after today's twenty
Speaker 1: seven increase in the share price, one of my gainers
Speaker 1: of the day. It's up fo seven percent this year, Carol. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's been on such a run. So let's get to it.
Speaker 1: Joining us from the New York Stock Exchange is Sharon
Speaker 1: Price John. She is Build a Bear Workshops President and CEO.
Speaker 1: Sharon is so nice to have you here with Tim
Speaker 1: and myself. Um, sounds like things are going really well.
Speaker 1: Give us some color on the quarter that was and
Speaker 1: the outlook that you expected to be. Yeah, thank you
Speaker 1: so much and really appreciate you being a customer of ours.
Speaker 1: Over the years. I always love to hear that. But
Speaker 1: we did announce this morning record revenues and pretext income
Speaker 1: for physical quarter. UM. As you mentioned, we declared a
Speaker 1: special dividend and authorized that dot by that program, but
Speaker 1: also raised the annual guidance. And UM, you know it's
Speaker 1: really we're we're looking at a revenue long number that's
Speaker 1: the best in about a decade, as well as that
Speaker 1: pretext income that I was speaking of. UM, that's the
Speaker 1: best in our corporate history for the first the third quarter,
Speaker 1: in the first three quarters of the year. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: you know one thing I just wanted to ask you, Sharon,
Speaker 1: is is why the buyback? Why the special dividend? Is
Speaker 1: that the best way to use some of your cash
Speaker 1: on hand? Well, it's one way to use our cash
Speaker 1: on hand. We have a robust capital plan, UM, and
Speaker 1: a portion of that we felt with these record earnings
Speaker 1: is just a great opportunity for two directly and immediately
Speaker 1: returned some of that value you to our shareholders. Of course,
Speaker 1: the stock buyback has a much different purpose. Uh. It's
Speaker 1: more of a recognition of the board noting and believing
Speaker 1: in the future of the company. UM. But we also
Speaker 1: outlined some strategic objectives and opportunities for the future and
Speaker 1: how we're investing, and that's inclusive of continued and acceleration
Speaker 1: of our digital transformation as well as the evolution of
Speaker 1: our retail footprints and the way we go to market
Speaker 1: and continue to push into uh more robust approach to
Speaker 1: omni channel. I know that people don't always recognize the
Speaker 1: Bill to Bear as an online retailer, but as with
Speaker 1: many through the COVID experience, we really did lean heavily
Speaker 1: into e commerce. We had already been on that road
Speaker 1: from a strategic perspective for a number of years. How
Speaker 1: much of your business is e commerce versus store? Because
Speaker 1: they're going to the store such an experience. I know
Speaker 1: it was something that my daughter are left to do well,
Speaker 1: you know, but Build the Bears now, which is important
Speaker 1: to understand. Build Bears now multi generational. So we're coming
Speaker 1: up on our twenty fifth year. Don't let that make
Speaker 1: you feel old. We've just been around for a while,
Speaker 1: and that's okay because not only do parents of kids
Speaker 1: and want parents now want to take their kids, they
Speaker 1: actually want to experience Build the Bear again. And some
Speaker 1: of that is our collectibles product like Pokemon or Harry
Speaker 1: Potter and they go online. So our business, uh, just
Speaker 1: a few years ago was more in the four or
Speaker 1: five percent range of total sales and now it's up
Speaker 1: to And what's the goal? How high do you want
Speaker 1: to get that? Well, we're really the key is to
Speaker 1: grow total revenue. And because e commerce for us is
Speaker 1: um on par from a profitability perspective to the rest
Speaker 1: of our revenue in stores, we just want to be
Speaker 1: there the way guts want to interact with us. If
Speaker 1: they want to go online and purchase, they can do that.
Speaker 1: If they like to come in store and have that
Speaker 1: very special retail tainment experience that we're famous for, they
Speaker 1: can do that too. And it's really servicing different needs
Speaker 1: for different types of gifts. Clearly, if you're a gift giver,
Speaker 1: you might want to go online because we'll send it
Speaker 1: directly to the ind recipients. Hey, you gotta ask you, um,
Speaker 1: which we ask every leader of an institution or organization
Speaker 1: or company supply chain issues. How rough is it for
Speaker 1: you guys? Yeah? You know, we like so many toy
Speaker 1: industry people, we do source from Southeast Asia and it
Speaker 1: has been a challenge and um, you know, we're we're
Speaker 1: juggling containers and products and re prioritizing on a regular basis.
Speaker 1: We did make a special note though in the call
Speaker 1: this morning, that we believe we have a robust, are
Speaker 1: a really strong inventory position for the remainder of the
Speaker 1: holiday season. UM. We feel like that we have done
Speaker 1: our projections appropriately and really importantly, particularly for that special
Speaker 1: experience in memory that people want to make in our wars.
Speaker 1: We actually have enough bear builders, which would be our
Speaker 1: sales associate UM, to make sure, to the best of
Speaker 1: our ability, that everybody has that that great build a
Speaker 1: bear moment. So not worried about the holiday season? Right?
Speaker 1: Was that it now? Probably you know? There's all we're
Speaker 1: always worried about the holiday seas. It's our biggest season,
Speaker 1: it's the biggest month of our biggest quarter. UM. But
Speaker 1: we feel as good as we can about what we've done.
Speaker 1: The team has been really strong and planning. We were
Speaker 1: way out ahead of this. We ordered a lot of
Speaker 1: products on we forward our Christmas orders, and we're actually
Speaker 1: in an increased inventory position versus last year same time.
Speaker 1: All Right, Sharon very briefly raised wages for these sales associates.
Speaker 1: How much trouble are you having getting labor ten seconds
Speaker 1: actually ten seconds, Well that was my point. Um, we
Speaker 1: actually have been able to hold onto our labor force.
Speaker 1: We don't have as much turn as a lot of
Speaker 1: other people, and it's probably because it's fun to work
Speaker 1: at build. There is there a Build a Bear movie
Speaker 1: coming real quickly. Um, we have all kinds of movies,
Speaker 1: but that's going to take another interview. Apparently you're gonna
Speaker 1: have to come back Build a Bear Entertainment. You guys
Speaker 1: are creating content, so I want to talk a little
Speaker 1: bit more about that. Do come back. Have a good
Speaker 1: and safe holiday season. We've been talking with Sharon Price
Speaker 1: John she's Build a Bear Workshops president CEO. That's stock,
Speaker 1: as we mentioned, up four hundred and seven percent this year.
Speaker 1: You're listening to Bloomberg and yes, you heard it right