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Party City to run pilot with Amazon, ‘the world’s largest and most trafficked mall’

Written by George Anderson

Party City is the latest retailer to decide that co-opetition beats competition when it comes to Amazon.com. The nation’s largest party supplies chain announced yesterday that it will run a pilot program with the e-tail giant to offer specially selected products, primarily costumes, in advance of Halloween.

Speaking on the chain’s second quarter earnings call, CEO James Harrison called Amazon “the world’s largest and most trafficked mall.” He said moving to the online marketplace would allow Party City to expand its reach beyond its stores and website. For Halloween, Mr. Harrison said that Party City would make about 25 percent of its costumes available on Amazon.

Mr. Harrison said that the company plans to add other products for Christmas and New Year’s to Amazon should the Halloween test go well.

“We will utilize the learnings we gain over the next several quarters to form a disciplined ramping of product availability as we leverage our position as the leading manufacturer, supplier and retailer [of] consumer party goods” to grow Party City’s market share, Mr. Harrison said (via Seeking Alpha).

Party City’s decision to sell on Amazon is in line with its recent push to strategically grow its business. The retailer announced in June a pilot to open 50 Toy City temporary stores next to its Halloween City pop-ups. At the time, Mr. Harrison said the move was “a logical extension of our brand; one that will allow us to leverage our existing pop-up store capabilities and capitalize on the category whitespace that has recently been created.”

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