Yeah they’ve basically become king for most of my party supplies because they are cheap. I’m not a big party designer. Sure if I needed to I would get more expensive stuff…but if it’s just like 5/6 people dollar stores suffice usually
Yea party city prices are a bit wild considering you can get the same stuff for as little as a couple bucks and probably not far from the average party city location too
Never buying wrapping papoer there again. Bought a bunch thete once & they were alk made of some weird translucent material you could not only see through, but it didn't fold well.
This is the thing. I believe people would buy stuff from there BUT everyone is pretty much broke and no one hardly has any money to buy party stuff because everything is SO expensive. We are all struggling now and can barely make ends meet. I honestly just don't think people are avoiding Party City just because party stuff can be bought at Target or Walmart. People are broke and can hardly pay bills, buy food and gas, and keep a roof over our heads.
Yupp. If the capital owners don't pay their slaves enough this is what happens. Retail is collapsing and no one feels bad. They're gonna wish they paid more
My rent just went up by $100 a month, and my pay went up by $0.10. If we have a party, we're not splurging on helium balloons or other useless decorations
When I was planning my sons 18th birthday/ graduation party, I looked at party city. But I ended up getting a lot of the plates, silverware, and decor from dollar tree. The quality was pretty similar and in a few cases, the items were exact. So why spend triple the price or more.
damn I was looking at plates online to compare before comitting to a store, am cheap, and I thought the transparent plastic plates from pc's website looked much better than any paper plates elsewhere. I'm not willing to put out real plates at parties where there'd be kids. I got some cute non tableware decor off of aliexpress and shein although I kinda regret giving them my money as it'll support the chinese government more. Dollar tree doesn't really have any special balloons, they're all circular and just have designs printed on them, even the 99 cent store doesn't do too great in this area. I'm a bit sad over their closing but I kind of understand why that is so likely to happen.
What I’m noticing more and more as the years go on is that stores seem to choose not to adapt. Walmart and Target are still existing with Amazon because they saw what people wanted and adjusted accordingly.
You can't really "adapt" here. Specialty stores like this operate and do well because they sell a niche specialization that you can't get anywhere else. Except now you can and you don't need to make that trip when Amazon has the same products but cheaper with prime overnight delivery. Just go ahead rn and think of a niche market like say comic books, or bowling balls...now imagine if you had that same selection at Walmart one day.
There is too much overhead at these specialty stores, they are too big. We still prefer to shop outside our homes so I think small stores should be the wave of the future.
Look at Micheal’s, the craft store. They are heading to a similar situation as Party City. Then again, the reason stores are dying is because we continue to transact in the exponentially devaluating dollar and not things with intrinsic value like metals.
Toys R Us is back!!!! The reason Toys R Us went out of business was was he died and didn’t want to leave the business to the dummies in his family that’s why abruptly closed right during Christmas season 🤷🏽♀️🤷🏽♀️💁🏽♀️💁🏽♀️🤦🏽♀️🤦🏽♀️!!!!! It never really went anywhere they offset their merchandise to some other big box stores and to some bookstores👀👀!!!!!
@@traceytrotter9934 well don't forget that unlike toys, party supplies don't really change that much from year to year. A party supply store can afford to keep the same items on the shelf for longer, and they probably have better scan margins.
As a dollar tree store manager who ran a store literally right next door to a party city, I can tell you, people choose US over them. Decor, party supplies BALLOONS. I was ranked number 2 in the entire company for balloons. Party city literally closed down. And it only increased our sales.
Would it be possible to give those people who lost their Party job a job at your store? I feel kinda bad for the ones who worked there and lost their jobs when the stores closed 😭
I think a lot of people look at the cost of stuff at Party City and say 'Why would I spend $3 on a bag of balloons when Dollar Tree has them for $1? Are they 'better'? Maybe. But in the end, they only need to last for 3 hours and then they get thrown away anyway. Napkins are there just to wipe your mouth. Why not save money there too? Even if it's $2 vs $1, that all still adds up and instead of $75 on party supplies, you spend $40, that's a fairly substantial savings on things that will just be thrown away.
I too have many, many memories of going to Party City during Halloween for costumes. I remember this one HUGE location that was rather dimly lit (bare in mind, could be kid vision). I remember walking down big aisles of cool looking costumes and accessories and feeling mind blown. Now, yeah, I have not bought a thing from Party City in probably over 10 years? Biggest problem is that competitors have EVERYTHING they carry.
@@boristheamerican2938 Ben Franklin, YES!! I don't have as many memories of there around Halloween, but my mom used to take us there a lot around Christmas. I remember getting holiday crafting stuff and Rudolph toys there. Also they sold these glasses that made all these snowflakes appear around lights, which was pretty cool.
@@boristheamerican2938 Nice. You know, I don't remember the old location having pets or music, but I was also quite little so there's that. Cool to know though.
Always sad to see another business file for bankruptcy. I honestly wonder how many weeks/months the economy can keep going like this before something big crashes.
last time i was in party city was in 2018 a few days after Halloween. they had a display of Halloween stuff marked 75 % off up by the cash register. there was some little animatronic mummy or something that my son wanted and it was priced at $30 so it should have been $7.50 after the discount. it rang up full price and i told the lady it was on sale. she argued with me for 2-3 minutes saying it wasn't on sale even though she could clearly see the display and signs hanging all over saying Halloween stuff was 75% off. i finally just gave up and didnt buy anything there bc the way the employee acted and treated me like i was trying to cheat the system for a couple bucks. ive never been back to party city since then but my 12 year old son still remembers it and calls it "rip off city" every time we pass one.
As a former cashier, some of them will deliberately do stuff like this to Karens to keep them from coming back. It doesn't sound like that's what you were doing, but someone else reading this might need the wakeup call
I’m a part of the haunter community which is basically a fandom of haunted house makers who buy props like that from Spirit Halloween and Party City, and this past season a lot of haunters reported that their party cities weren’t letting them have after-Halloween discounted animatronics either. Tho for me I managed to get a prop at 50% off no questions asked. So maybe it’s just certain locations are stringent and some aren’t. Either way it’s not a good look at all, and even some of them joked about their bankruptcy saying they deserved it bc of that lol.
@@MagnoliaBlackbeary what are you talking about? I swear this word “karen” is the most misused word on the planet. How is someone a Karen for demanding a store live up to its end of the deal? And why are you, a minimum wage employee, fighting so hard against giving someone a discount? Is this your store? Is the profit coming out of your pocket? No. Fuck your bosses, they pay you scraps. Give all the discounts you can.
@@cococock2418 Wow, ok, you got a lot wrong with that, so let me break it down for you princess 1. I don't work a minimum wage job, retail doesn't mean working for "scraps", dumbass 2. I was saying OP *didn't* do anything wrong and was agreeing with them 3. We often *are* disciplined out of part of our paycheck for financial mess-ups that cost the company money, like unauthorized discounts. So yes, it *is* coming out of my pocket and I don't fucking like your entitled ass enough to stick my neck out for you Go touch some grass and realize that people other than you matter too, holy shit you're spoiled
I think they could have a chance to survive if they close most of the locations and keep perhaps 1-2 locations only in major cities. For the remaining stores, expand the party and seasonal merchandise mix and once again become unique specialty destination stores. Perhaps a few extra pop-up stores during the Halloween to New Years time frame only. I hope they survive their issues.
Spirit does the best thing by not existing during non peak season. I feel like where I live, we usually only have parties during the Summer for graduation parties. Outside that, Five Below and Dollar Tree give you a better bang for your buck.
Party City worker here, can confirm not every store is getting closed down. You'd be surprised how much business some of the more popular stores can get. I work in a location that consistently makes lots of money from balloon sales, etc. Including holidays some stores make a ton. The helium shortage is also not a huge issue with most stores, as we usually have enough tanks to last weeks, and while helium is going up in price, there is no shortage in customers. Feel free to ask any more questions and I hope I can answer them since I've been working here for years.
Some other points, during covid we did still make sales through online orders and yes there is a year round costume wall where we keep up some misc costumes we would otherwise pack up.
Since the population of places like dollar tree, Walmart, target, and Amazon, they have all together, forced the closure of many many well-known businesses, everything from supermarkets, to clothing, stores, to specialty retailers, and yes, coming soon, auto stores and fast food chains
Party City is basically a year round Spirit Halloween store. Their business model just doesn’t work anymore. There’s Family Dollar stores that have cheaper party supplies, you can’t just the same stuff that discount stores are selling party supplies at lower prices!
I think people have also switched gears when it comes to parties now, especially for kids birthdays. Pinterest and Instagram have developed a market for much fancier birthday parties with higher-end executions and decorations. People don't want cheap decorations with generic images of licensed cartoon characters anymore. Nearly every kids birthday I've been to in the past 5 years has been decorated with DIY and Pinterest-type decorations that were purchased from Etsy or even done by a party planning business. This and I think a lot of parents are just opting out of birthday parties entirely. The pandemic really didn't help at all either.
That was my first thought too. The last birthday parties I went to pre pandemic were decorated with homemade decorations and themed off stuff you could feasibly craft items yourself for. One was horse themed (not mlp just actual horses lol) and the other was Minecraft. In both situations the decorations were recycled cardboard and thrifted stuff.
You're right - and Etsy for several years has become the custom birthday/party supply place. It used to be for independent/fan artists, but I can barely find fan art on Etsy anymore because of how much copy-and-paste party supplies there are. It's actually great if you need party supplies for a kid's party that wants an older/more obscure movie or tv show, but not great for the artists that the site was originally built on. Also I don't know the legality of how Etsy gets around copyrighted material, but I'd say they are way more vulnerable now that so much on their site is clip art/"key art" from kids movies cheaply printed on to party supplies.
Party City up here in Canada has inexplicably been purchased by Canadian Tire. Some of the locations are in a Canadian Tire store, but they've also kept standalone stores too. Around Halloween I had to grab a maids costume from them for...reasons...and store looked like a bomb went off. This one in AZ is amazing in comparison.
@@collegeman1988 Ok so Canadian Tire is a weird retailer in that a very small part of their business is tires. Canadian Tire is actually Canada's Target. They're the store you go to if you want a new bicycle and also an air conditioner and a box of screws and a Christmas tree...and also some tires.
I don't have kids, but if I did and I wanted to get character-themed birthday party stuff, I'd be far more likely to walk into a Canadian Tire than a standalone Party City. But, then again, I'd be far more likely to walk into a Walmart or Loblaws/Superstore than I would a Canadian Tire for party supplies. Or, of course, Dollarama because Dollarama party supplies look good enough to me, as someone who doesn't have children who will object to me buying their hypothetical birthday party supplies at Dollarama.
I do think there’s still value to Party City - there are a lot of niche things that you can’t find at target or Walmart. I also appreciate being able to find costumes outside of Halloween for theme parties and stuff. Not surprised they might be dying, but I don’t know where else I would find some of those things. Amazon maybe.
There used to be a dedicated year round costume and Halloween store in my area, and they shut down in 2020. It was the best place to get the really good Mehron face paint. A lot of people went there for stage, cosplay, and entertainer makeup and supplies. I feel like if Party City were to lean into the demographic of party entertainers (princesses for hire, professional clowns, etc) and sold some higher quality makeup and accessories, they might be able to corner that market instead of everyone going online like right now. My area also has their own party store that's been around longer and has both the retail side like party supplies, decor, fireworks and costumes, as well as a rental side with bouncy castles, carnival games, tents, outdoor advertising signs, lighting, catering equipment, and all sorts of things. But most of their money comes from rentals, which is how they support the other things, and they only have one store left. The party market really took a hit the last few years, and I'm not sure if people can justify spending the money on events like that now.
After rewatching this, in case you haven't noticed already, Party City had just made the announcement today that they will be closing all of their remaining stores after 38 years in business, unfortunately. So yeah, the party is officially over. Did I mention that Big Lots just recently announced that they will be going out of business, too?
I hate to be a spoilsport, but given my experience, "restructuring" never ends well. If they are forced to close a large percentage of their stores as part of their "restructuring" plan, they will eventually end up closing ALL of them. The Wiz in New York City closed more than half their stores on the East Coast in October 2002. Come February 2003, they were going out of business. The last store closed in late-April. CompUSA (where I worked for 6 of its last 7 months of existence) closed more than half their stores in February 2007. Come December, after they looked at their Black Friday weekend sales figures, they started their complete shutdown that lasted until the end of March 2008.
Agreed - this is a very nice one. The one near me looked much more like your old video. That one in particular is next to a DSW Shoes and I think the moms let their kids run wild in the Party City next door while they shoe shop lol.
Yes, like a H&R Block tax office 🏢 ... Some services, products are not really set up for 365/year round sales. 🛒 Big retail spots like Walmart, Super Target, Sam's Club etc cut into sales too.
Certain holidays, like Valentines, were big for balloons and/or decor, Superbowl was always busy, graduation season was HOPPING between balloons, decor, and custom announcements and invites. Friday nights and Saturday mornings were always super busy with people coming in for last minute supplies and/or picking up balloon orders. It may have changed since I left in 2015, but that was my experience.
@@laurendisney Party City stores may of seen bigger up swing in traffic during certain times BUT could this sustain hiring 40hr a week staff? Or pay for a retail space? 🛒 I'm 52 & live in a high tourist area, many party, conventions, groups. I never go into these stores.
@@DavidLLambertmobile they don't hire 40/hr staff beyond management. Few, if any, retail companies have full time floor staff. Our store had just me or the other "keyholder" on front end for the majority of the day, and closing shift had maybe 6 hours to cover depending on the day. As "keyholder" I got less than 40 hours a week despite being promised such when I was promoted, and often I'd be lucky to get 30. In my experience, they hire small numbers of very part time staff and rarely have more than 3-4 people in the store except on holidays or the busy times of Friday evening/Saturday morning. Halloween they used to hire temp staff, and while they seem to still do that the number of temp employees my store hired decreased every year, while year-round staff started doing what temp staff did. Their Halloween City stores had similar staffing practices when they existed (I was on the management team for those stores three years in a row, leaving my store for the season and returning after packup). I can't speak for retail space, beyond my store being able to move from the smallest space of any store in my area to one of the biggest retail spaces in a strip mall that remodeled specifically to get the company to rent said space. But I of course was never on the corporate side, so all I can speak to were my Party and Halloween City store's staffing practices.
When I was a kid, I'd get so excited for the Halloween section at my local Party City to open up. I remember the strong smell of mask latex through the aisles. Lots of staples from my kid days are now gone.
This store is a remodel which was a huge waste of money. They survived the pandemic because balloons and decorations were huge during the pandemic. I worked there. Everyone was doing drive by celebrations. So while maybe we sold less plates, balloons and decorations were huge. We were threatened with losing unemployment if we didn’t come back to work on Mother’s Day. We were given 2 days notice. This went directly against the CARES act for those of us with children or anyone else in our care that was at home. I told them to suck it. I eventually went back in September but quit the following year. The Halloween stuff is sold year round. Not the full selection but a small area. Halloween is where they made most of their money. They priced themselves out of being the main Halloween store in recent years.
An unfortunate sign of the times, indeed. Customers will always gravitate to the least expensive option, even if that means Amazon for those located in remote areas with no other large stores. What gets lost is the in-store shopping experience of seeing all of the merchandise in person before deciding what to buy.
My problem was that Party City never had what I wanted in stock, or on sale. Essentially I would go to look at stuff, have my daughter pick out what she wanted, then added it to my party city website shopping cart. There was no way I would ever reach the purchase threshold for whatever coupon they offered online, due to inventory. So I would order it, have it delivered for free to my house, then I would return whatever I didn’t use locally. I am pretty certain this is how they stock their stores, through returns. I’d go, and they’d have something we’d want, but never the quantity. Sure, you may have a party where only three kids showed up, but you invited 20, and have no clue how many are actually planning to show up since no one RSVPs until the last minute. I also hated how I couldn’t even buy themed invitations. If I am forced to order custom ones from Party City’s website, then I could order them from anywhere. People forget that brick and mortar stores exist for convince. You can buy an item and have it in your hands same day. You pay extra for that novelty. That’s why stock is so important. When my daughter turned 10, I could find a 1 candle in gold but not 0. I could find 0 in silver, but not 1. I ended up having to go to a different store in another town to buy what I needed. When my mom turned 70, same issue. 0 in gold, but not 7. 7 in silver, but not 0. Regretfully I couldn’t find my daughters candles, so again I had to drive to a different store in a different town.
You'd think that custom invitations would be something they could easily do in-store. Actually, I wonder if other products could be custom made in store. That would be a great way to set them apart from the competition.
I worked for Party City for a decade... and I rarely go there now because I can barely afford it without my employee discount. I love them for IP party supplies, because here Party City is still the best place for that stuff. Target and Walmart have very small party sections and few, if any, IP supplies... and Party City always has more decorations for their IP supplies than Target/Walmart. My former store (which moved to a larger location a few years back) isn't as busy as it once was, but it still seems to see regular foot traffic. Several sections and stock issues you pointed out seem to be just your location, unless mine is an anomaly. Overall, I'd like to see them shrink and become a little more focused on the things they do well, and that are sustainable: costumes and accessories, themed party supplies, specialized candies (like the color line for weddings/baby showers), custom invitations/announcements (if they still do that stuff, they used to do custom stuff, and I got my graduation announcements done through them). Things that you still generally don't find at Target, Walmart, or grocery and dollar stores and would otherwise have to hunt up from online retailers like Amazon. Hopefully they can successfully restructure, I do like being able to pop in for themed party supplies and knowing that, while they'll be pricier than elsewhere, I'm almost guaranteed to find exactly what I'm looking for.
I worked at Dollar General, and now work at another retailer you’d visit anyway, and a lot of the same stuff can be had at the same price at max somewhere your already shopping. And yes at most DGs and Walmarts I’ve been in have Pinatas. Add in Amazon for the stuff like the single color candies and Spirit eating into Halloween and Party City is going to have to seriously refocus somehow.
IIRC you can custom order single color candies (such as M&Ms and Jelly Bellies) off the manufacturer's website. You don't need to bother with Party City and their markups if you can get it direct from manufacturer!
I worked at a party city for a few years awhile back and the empty shelving and pegs are typically seasonal changeover stuff. Outside of Halloween they have fourth of July, Christmas, Hanukkah, Chinese new year, New Year, general Summer and spring stuff. But yes Halloween was always the peak season, we'd be early prepping for that in August and by mid October it was already slim pickin's.
Great video. But very depressing what’s happening to these speciality stores. Like you said, Target, Walmart, Dollar Tree and Amazon have taken over. We love your videos, please keep doing them. 👍 Still hoping for updated videos of the valley malls.
I like the fact that you state what music you're using for the soundtrack. Very helpful. Also, I used to go to Party City a lot when I was much younger, but I haven't been inside one in several years. Hard to believe Party City could actually survive the pandemic. Oh well, another thing I have a certain nostalgia for. Good episode as always.
Yeah, out of all of the retailers. I think that Party City is probably one of the most outdated. Like you said. Basically, everything that you can buy at Party City, you can buy at Walmart, target, Amazon, the dollar store, or like anywhere else.
near my party city there is stuff like 5 below and Dollar tree so I have not been there in years. also there is 2 spirit holloweens within I kid you not like feets away from each other that are near the party city during Halloween so I don't think anybody goes to my local party city anymore. kind of sad I loved that store as a kid and this video makes me want to go and just walk around
I went to Party City this past October to get some balloons for my daughter’s bday. They wanted to charge me $20 per balloon, seemed pretty steep. Besides balloons you can get some pretty cool decorations for decent prices
I used to be an Assistant Manager at a Party City, those boxes you walked past were Easter Merch. It looks like the Valentines day stuff hadn't come in yet and that's what all the bare shelving was. Planogrammed out stuff awaiting merch.
Not really, because if you have a party event you technically want your stuff now by the way every dollar store especially Dollar tree has everything you need including the helium balloons! It's been a crap excuse for over a decade to blame online retail or the internet in general! The truth is simply the reason why there's a downturn in retail at large is because well there's an income deficiency across the population, coupled with the fact many of these companies have taken on huge sums of debt! When a business takes on debt okay they in turn are expecting the customers to pay for that debt via they shop there, When the customers don't have a lot of money, Then the company is cannot pay their debt they start downsizing they pretend to restructure a little bit then comes bankruptcy restructuring and ultimately they'll be liquidated. The worst thing that a chain store could ever do is to close locations largely because you have to think about the distribution, yes it is true that a severely underperforming store you would definitely want to get rid of however a lot of the times it's not just one store here there they put together a list of stores that they would like to close. the problem is simply if those stores that remain in a certain area well they might be too far out from the distribution center so then you have a rise in shipping costs... So let's say for example you have the western region and then you have the Eastern region and your distribution center is in the center, Okay so the Southwest area is no longer viable, and then of course you noticed that the central western area is also experiencing problems, so then if you close most things in the southwestern area and if you close say half of what you have in the Central West area but you still have the Eastern area and you still have locations beyond the central western area and basically to the Northwest with a few stragglers stores still near the Old South West... Well the problem is is essentially it's going to cost you a lot more money to run so there's few stragglers stores that are left and it's also going to cost you a little more money to service even the group of stores that you would still have left beyond the central western locations because you don't have enough to make the truck run worth the money! in business it actually cost you more money to run the back end of the store than it does to to run the front end of the store, logistics is largely a big deal in retail this is why Walmart blue everybody away, they put their money in logistics and they started to do so basically in the late seventies whereas Kmart failed Kmart did not put money back into the business they did not put the money into the shipping technologies that they needed to invest in through the late 70s and 80s and most of this was because they had executives that was bleeding the company dry massive embezzlement and for most of the seventies they had to high dividend to the shareholders they didn't put anything back too many people were living off the company! So yes it makes sense to close locations however you have to do it extremely strategically and sometimes you may decide whether or not to pull out of an area altogether because of distribution!
@@American-Motors-Corporation Not sure if it's an efficient use of your time to write full essays in the TH-cam comment section where few will take the time to read them.
@@noneofyourbusiness4616 I read it, I’m not sure 100% agree, given I work in retail distribution, but they do raise some valid points, but they also seemed to go off on a rant about embezzlement towards the end.
It might be too regional, but could you cover the history/bankruptcy filing of Regal Cinemas? Our local theatre is one of 39 (?) that is being shut down next month. So many years of memories there! 😢
For some reason I remembered reading an article a few years back saying how helium is actually running out and that’s why it’s getting more and more expensive and that’s before inflation
I worked at a Party City for two years and always wondered how it stayed open. It was still running last year when I went to see my old bosses to add them to a resume but now, I don't even know.
Went to party city for the first time in ages and the a majority of the letters on the building were gone so instead of saying party city it said ' rt i ' but the dot on the i was missing as well
Dollar Tree is another great place to get party stuff if you're on a budget. I get my balloons there. I don't think I've ever even been in a Party City store.
I just love this channel. Its so fun to watch and soothing to fall asleep too. I can't be the only one that likes falling asleep to a trip through the mall like they used to when they were a kid getting pushed in a cart through the Mervyns and Belks. lol
I go to party city to NOT deal w the crowds and yelling chaos in hellmart and target. Their competition i think are the dollar stores w big party sections. But again, they have 1 cashier fighting for their life and hangry people hoarding cheap snacks
I can't help but be sad when companies like this struggle. As a kid, I loved going to party city, it felt like going to a toy store before my birthday party and I loved it!
I like the concept of Party City, but I can't tell you the last time I was inside one. You're right that basics are at Walmart or Target, and there's a much greater variety at Amazon. For Halloween, it's Spirit Halloween (although we browse more than we buy; costumes are usually put together online). I can lament the loss of places like Party City... but I'm also not doing anything to keep them around. 😞
I go to other cheaper stores first, but when i hit party city as another halloween, xmas stop, i still spend more than i do at the dollar stores. Target and walmart are last ditch effort stores and I'm usually spent out before
Really, it's amazing that Party City survived the peak pandemic years since effectively no one was having parties for the better part of two years. Also, when I worked retail in college, we'd get chewed out for leaving a giant mountain of boxes unattended on the sales floor - that's a personal injury incident waiting to happen.
I hate when we have a party for the kids, and buy crap from this place and end up with huge garbage bags - literally converting money to garbage. It’s a waste.
when i was a kid, before spirit halloween, it was IMPERITIVE that we went to party city for my costume the day they started selling them. it was always a madhouse, and the particular store we went to had not only a massive costume wall [basically all the product images plastered on a wall] but a smaller, still sizeable mask display wall. the dressing rooms always had lines, you were always trying to catch an employee to ask them to fetch your costume number from the back, you had to wait your turn to paw through the displays of accessories, and the cacaphony of animatronics/spooky screamer door mat demos drowned out the halloween music they played. they usually had some mood lighting in the back of the store by the mask display, and the further back in the store you got, the higher the shelves and the fewer the windows, blocking out so much light. i was more of a do-it-yourself kid with my costumes, but my school was strict about wearing certain things [anyone else have the bloody scream/ghostface masks banned from their elementary school?] and all of my homemade costumes were too scary/disturbing, so we had to buy a costume just for me to wear to school. i loved all the halloween decorations and the massive candy selection! i always sat outside and pretended to be a prop holding the candy bowl, scaring the hell out of anyone brave enough to traverse my house's minefield of traps and screamers, so i took special care in selecting only the most diverse, yummy candy as a reward for my victims. party city used to let you make up your own mixed bags and we'd usually assemble two or three - i can't eat almost any candy and folks always told me my individual goodie bags were weird, but other kids loved how i didn't do all chocolate or all fruity bags. i went to party city around halloween with a friend in 2017 after many years away, as they were wheelchair accessible whereas spirit was not [at the time]. it was really sad to see it so empty even back then, but it was so much fun to get to hang out with the warehouse/floor employees and chat for an hour or so about their jobs. they all really loved the halloween rush even if they had their complaints [and there are a LOT of reasons to hate working at party city], and two of them were worried the store was going to close down outside of certain seasons even back then.
Party City was also a pain to shop at. Checking out was always a chore, at least at the ones I always went to, so I just started going to other places.
It feels like yesterday that my mom and I went into a Party City to grab some halloween stuff and a costume. Then I realize that was over 10 years ago. How things change in what feels like a short time
I once in a while go there. Every couple years, estimated. If they really want to stay afloat, they should make products cheaper prices, bulk, more in season, possibly a new logo and online advertising that isnt related to costumes or parties as a starter.
This reminded me of a similar store in my country and the same thing happened to it. This was in Mexico in the early 2000s and my parents used to take me and my brother to that store because they also sold toy soldiers, furniture for dolls, hula-hoops, toy guns, toy cars and other cheap plastic toys. We loved going there, even though we never liked parties, but it was so much fun buying toys and walking around the store. It is sad seeing such a fun place going out of business, sadly big stores have killed the concept of dedicated stores.
Canadian Based retailer Canadian Tire bought Party City's Canadian Division in 2019 for $175 Million. Now they also have mini Party City stores within many of their Canadian Tire stores too!
We hit a Target in Nashville last Summer, on the very last night of July, and the store was thoroughly trashed, filthy, merchandise everywhere, with most of the employees *hiding* and working their phones. Meanwhile, inside the Party City right next door, a crew was busy cleaning and remerchandising the closed store for Halloween in what looked like would be an all-night effort. The contrast was really striking. One chain looked like it was heading for bankruptcy, but it wasn't Party City. Maybe standard retail practices aren't profitable in the US anymore. If so, the future of brick-n-mortar stores is pretty bleak.
Amazon is amazing and has a huge selection of almost any party theme you can think of for super cheap! I bought all of my sons 1st birthday stuff in a pack that included almost everything we needed to decorate for $16. My daughter had a turning red themed party and we got everything we needed for that party from balloons, banners, plates, cups, plastic cutlery, cake toppers, favors and more, really good quality stuff too for just under $50
you can buy most of the basic party supply stuff at any dollar tree for alot less. most of this stuff isnt worth paying more than a dollar for since half the time it gets tossed after said party/get together. only time i remember seeing party city busy was during Halloween but that has changed in the last 10 years as well
There was a Party City in Hiram, Georgia that closed about a year or two (or even before that) before the pandemic. This, in Arizona, looked like the Taj Mahal in comparison to the location that was here. Here, there were tons of items mixed in the wrong sections, soda cans/bottles/fast food cups laid down on the shelves, trash from restaurants, more shelves of empty space, boxes stacked up in multiple aisles to the point where you couldn't look at the merchandise that they blocked, and sometimes the toilets weren't clean either. It felt like a salvage store, not one that sells party supplies.
Best thing PC did was add online ordering and delivery! Most of the business comes from that now. During the off-season (Jan-April) hours are cut super short so it’s hard to keep things in stock and moving. But peak times of year the store is popping. I’d hate to see Party City go
I worked at a Party City as a Front End Supervisor for 2 years.. Awful to work for. We got more freight than we could handle and rampant shop lifting. I mean like $700 worth of stuff in a cart and charging through the fire exit away from the front. I'm surprised they didn't claim bankruptcy sooner.
We have Dollar 🌲 , and Walmart (of course). Our long defunct K Mart had a FANTASTIC Halloween selection every year. It's building is scheduled to be demolished soon. Time matches on...
The one on Estrella Parkway in Goodyear, az... Built from the ground up a new store accoss the street from the perfectly good store they closed... Looked like a waste of money
I worked at Party City during high school / college from 2011-2018 (Assistant Manager for a while towards the end of my tenure), and the most interesting thing I saw was that 90 percent on Revenue was earned during the month of October. Rest of the year margins were razor thin (mostly depending on revenue from balloon orders), and we pretty much operated as lean as we could just to get by every year. I can only imagine how things are now that most other retail stores now offer party supplies for cheaper and better quality.
The Party City I grew up near in high school was the place to get your Halloween costumes and homecoming dressup supplies. That one was in a shopping center with a Target, supermarket, and a video store. You could get all your party stuff in pretty much one stop to that shopping center.
My sister-in-law still goes to Party City to get balloons for my niece's birthday parties, but she'll buy everything else off Amazon because it's cheaper and you can pretty much guarantee you'll find the theme or color story you need, especially if it's a theme that's not Disney or superheroes.
I haven't been to Party City in YEARS. I remember going every Halloween and look at the walls of costumes, and being a bit bummed that the ones I wanted were too expensive, and my mom had to buy one for my siblings too so I would pick something cheap
My wife worked at ours little over a year ago now you would be shocked at how many people go in there just to buy balloons and how much they spend on balloons the rest of their stuff no they do not sell to much of but she would consistently come home almost every day talking about someone that spent $40-$50 on balloons I was shocked
People are having fewer kids. People with kids are doing more DIY and hand-crafted children's birthday stuff. People are having fewer themed/holiday parties besides Christmas. It's mostly economics but it also kind of just seems like the culture has outgrown Party City's cheap, tacky, commercial aesthetic. And if you want that, you can get it cheaper. They need to differentiate themselves by selling a curated style and having higher quality products. They can't keep getting away with selling the same plastic silverware now that lots of other stores have it.
Don't forget Dollar General, Dollar Tree/Family Dollar have taken a lot of Party City business, as they carry a lot of the same stuff at much cheaper prices, sometimes even cheaper than Walmart, and Target.
There was an all year Halloween store that closed in 2020 and I figured Party City would start closing, and that store catered a lot to cosplayers and princesses for hire. The problem with Party City in Canada, is that we already had places that did a lot of similar stuff before they even opened. Bulk Barn sells bulk snacks, candy, cake supplies, and used to carry pinatas and sometimes matching supplies (like Spider Man was popular then, and there'd be a spider pinata and matching party hats with Spider Man on them). Dollarama (and other mostly defunct dollar stores), Walmart, Superstore, Zellers, and I think even Michael's had similar things in terms of decor and disposable plates. Superstore, one of our main grocery chains, has a large seasonal section that often includes the party aisle where there are things like cards, seasonal gifts (currently Valentine themed plush toys and pillows), and decor, so unless you really need something specific, there often isn't a reason to go elsewhere. Even our main fabric store chain sells themed napkins, cards, and some decor stuff, as well as materials to DIY your own items. In my area, we also have a party rental store that's been here for ages. They rent out those big signs that stores use to advertise sales, bouncy castles, fair rides/games, wedding supplies, red carpets, and sell balloons, costumes, solid coloured supplied, and other such things. While they don't have a lot of physical stores, usually seasonal at Halloween like Spirit Halloween does (often alternating locations with them), they deliver stuff just about anywhere and if you're having something that's bigger than just a birthday party, everyone goes there. We did for high school graduation to get some of our decor, they do festivals, kids fun days, and all sorts of things. So while I understand the convenience of having one store for almost everything instead of going to a grocery store and a party store or dollar store, I feel like they'd do better having a corner in a bigger store. Like partner with Walmart to have a couple of the seasonal aisles year round to sell their seasonal stuff, and then fill the rest of the year in with the more generic coloured items, just keeping a base stock that people could then order what they want online if they need more.
I know it was the go to place for seasonal items, especially Halloween with their costume and masks, and for Christmas with their inflatables and animatronics. What was great about the place was that it was themed, which made searching and getting ideas easier. Have a wedding, then go to the wedding section. Baby shower, go to the baby shower section. The store was well layer out and planned.
My local Party City closed a few years ago. I used to love exploring the place because, as you said, it was a fun atmosphere. But, I rarely bought anything because either merchandise was overpriced or, more commonly, I just wasn't hosting an event.
It's not even just Walmart and Target at this point Amazon is the easiest way to get a ton of party supplies for really cheap and that way you don't have to worry about venturing to stores except if you're buying food products. Everything else you got on Amazon comes your door and you're ready. You don't have to do anything
Our local Party City closed a few years ago. The space was then occupied by Party City, another nemesis. And thanks for your social media post. Doug and I had a great laugh at seeing the “word” in the aisle.
"We tried using hydrogen instead of helium for the balloons to cut costs. Unfortunately when they inevitably popped, they either incinerated the kids or their houses. Insurance quickly told us to quietly and quickly 86 that idea." Party Pat, Party City CEO.
Party city could really appeal to college students. In college we had so many themed parties like angels vs devils for example. I was disappointed to go into party city and not find devil/angel ears.
Dollar Tree has a well earned reputation for having a great selection of party products and of course their prices are much better.
Yeah they’ve basically become king for most of my party supplies because they are cheap. I’m not a big party designer. Sure if I needed to I would get more expensive stuff…but if it’s just like 5/6 people dollar stores suffice usually
Exactly, watching this video I kept thinking I was seeing a tour of a Dollar Tree.
Yea party city prices are a bit wild considering you can get the same stuff for as little as a couple bucks and probably not far from the average party city location too
We will still lose more of our childhoods
Never buying wrapping papoer there again. Bought a bunch thete once & they were alk made of some weird translucent material you could not only see through, but it didn't fold well.
This is the thing. I believe people would buy stuff from there BUT everyone is pretty much broke and no one hardly has any money to buy party stuff because everything is SO expensive. We are all struggling now and can barely make ends meet.
I honestly just don't think people are avoiding Party City just because party stuff can be bought at Target or Walmart. People are broke and can hardly pay bills, buy food and gas, and keep a roof over our heads.
Yupp. If the capital owners don't pay their slaves enough this is what happens. Retail is collapsing and no one feels bad. They're gonna wish they paid more
Exactly. We are broke. We as a nation hit the debt ceiling. We are so screwed, it's too expensive to do anything.
My rent just went up by $100 a month, and my pay went up by $0.10. If we have a party, we're not splurging on helium balloons or other useless decorations
The Biden administration said inflation was "temporary" and even "a good thing" because people had "excess savings."
People still go to party city
When I was planning my sons 18th birthday/ graduation party, I looked at party city. But I ended up getting a lot of the plates, silverware, and decor from dollar tree. The quality was pretty similar and in a few cases, the items were exact. So why spend triple the price or more.
@spirals 73 totally does
Yep and one person even just got "insert popular cartoon character" stickers to decorate the cups and plates. Kids never knew the difference.
damn I was looking at plates online to compare before comitting to a store, am cheap, and I thought the transparent plastic plates from pc's website looked much better than any paper plates elsewhere. I'm not willing to put out real plates at parties where there'd be kids. I got some cute non tableware decor off of aliexpress and shein although I kinda regret giving them my money as it'll support the chinese government more. Dollar tree doesn't really have any special balloons, they're all circular and just have designs printed on them, even the 99 cent store doesn't do too great in this area. I'm a bit sad over their closing but I kind of understand why that is so likely to happen.
It's really dollar and 1/4 Tree now.
I went to party city to get white hair spray to look like an old man, and it looked like a ghost town
What I’m noticing more and more as the years go on is that stores seem to choose not to adapt. Walmart and Target are still existing with Amazon because they saw what people wanted and adjusted accordingly.
"Choose not to" or "don't know how to?"
Yeah it’s called one stop shopping 😅🤪 also they adapted good online features to compete.
You can't really "adapt" here. Specialty stores like this operate and do well because they sell a niche specialization that you can't get anywhere else. Except now you can and you don't need to make that trip when Amazon has the same products but cheaper with prime overnight delivery. Just go ahead rn and think of a niche market like say comic books, or bowling balls...now imagine if you had that same selection at Walmart one day.
There is too much overhead at these specialty stores, they are too big. We still prefer to shop outside our homes so I think small stores should be the wave of the future.
Look at Micheal’s, the craft store. They are heading to a similar situation as Party City.
Then again, the reason stores are dying is because we continue to transact in the exponentially devaluating dollar and not things with intrinsic value like metals.
They're the Blockbuster of event-themed stores. It's just a matter of time for them, an outmoded business.
Exactly
I am surprised Toys R Us went first, I thought Party City was long gone already.
Toys R Us is back!!!! The reason Toys R Us went out of business was was he died and didn’t want to leave the business to the dummies in his family that’s why abruptly closed right during Christmas season 🤷🏽♀️🤷🏽♀️💁🏽♀️💁🏽♀️🤦🏽♀️🤦🏽♀️!!!!! It never really went anywhere they offset their merchandise to some other big box stores and to some bookstores👀👀!!!!!
@@traceytrotter9934 well don't forget that unlike toys, party supplies don't really change that much from year to year. A party supply store can afford to keep the same items on the shelf for longer, and they probably have better scan margins.
The GameStop of party stuff. Haha. GameStop is doomed too.
As a dollar tree store manager who ran a store literally right next door to a party city, I can tell you, people choose US over them. Decor, party supplies BALLOONS. I was ranked number 2 in the entire company for balloons. Party city literally closed down. And it only increased our sales.
That’s not winning a competition, that’s straight murder. 😳 I hope all those people were able to get better jobs.
@@gateauxq4604 shouldve sold spongebob balloons
YOU weren’t ranked #2 for balloons. The store was. Stop personally identifying with national corporations. You aren’t part of them.
Would it be possible to give those people who lost their Party job a job at your store? I feel kinda bad for the ones who worked there and lost their jobs when the stores closed 😭
I think a lot of people look at the cost of stuff at Party City and say 'Why would I spend $3 on a bag of balloons when Dollar Tree has them for $1? Are they 'better'? Maybe. But in the end, they only need to last for 3 hours and then they get thrown away anyway. Napkins are there just to wipe your mouth. Why not save money there too? Even if it's $2 vs $1, that all still adds up and instead of $75 on party supplies, you spend $40, that's a fairly substantial savings on things that will just be thrown away.
I too have many, many memories of going to Party City during Halloween for costumes. I remember this one HUGE location that was rather dimly lit (bare in mind, could be kid vision). I remember walking down big aisles of cool looking costumes and accessories and feeling mind blown. Now, yeah, I have not bought a thing from Party City in probably over 10 years? Biggest problem is that competitors have EVERYTHING they carry.
Everything and more!
I used to go to Ben Franklin and Woolworths for my haloween costumes. Ever hear of them?
@@boristheamerican2938 Ben Franklin, YES!! I don't have as many memories of there around Halloween, but my mom used to take us there a lot around Christmas. I remember getting holiday crafting stuff and Rudolph toys there. Also they sold these glasses that made all these snowflakes appear around lights, which was pretty cool.
@@vasilevanda2248 I bought goldfish there and my family bought 2 canaries. 5 cent 45 rpm record bin, baseball cards. Lots of cool stuff.
@@boristheamerican2938 Nice. You know, I don't remember the old location having pets or music, but I was also quite little so there's that. Cool to know though.
Always sad to see another business file for bankruptcy. I honestly wonder how many weeks/months the economy can keep going like this before something big crashes.
It’s been crashing since 2008.
last time i was in party city was in 2018 a few days after Halloween. they had a display of Halloween stuff marked 75 % off up by the cash register. there was some little animatronic mummy or something that my son wanted and it was priced at $30 so it should have been $7.50 after the discount. it rang up full price and i told the lady it was on sale. she argued with me for 2-3 minutes saying it wasn't on sale even though she could clearly see the display and signs hanging all over saying Halloween stuff was 75% off. i finally just gave up and didnt buy anything there bc the way the employee acted and treated me like i was trying to cheat the system for a couple bucks. ive never been back to party city since then but my 12 year old son still remembers it and calls it "rip off city" every time we pass one.
good story, thanx
As a former cashier, some of them will deliberately do stuff like this to Karens to keep them from coming back. It doesn't sound like that's what you were doing, but someone else reading this might need the wakeup call
I’m a part of the haunter community which is basically a fandom of haunted house makers who buy props like that from Spirit Halloween and Party City, and this past season a lot of haunters reported that their party cities weren’t letting them have after-Halloween discounted animatronics either. Tho for me I managed to get a prop at 50% off no questions asked. So maybe it’s just certain locations are stringent and some aren’t. Either way it’s not a good look at all, and even some of them joked about their bankruptcy saying they deserved it bc of that lol.
@@MagnoliaBlackbeary what are you talking about? I swear this word “karen” is the most misused word on the planet. How is someone a Karen for demanding a store live up to its end of the deal? And why are you, a minimum wage employee, fighting so hard against giving someone a discount? Is this your store? Is the profit coming out of your pocket? No. Fuck your bosses, they pay you scraps. Give all the discounts you can.
@@cococock2418 Wow, ok, you got a lot wrong with that, so let me break it down for you princess
1. I don't work a minimum wage job, retail doesn't mean working for "scraps", dumbass
2. I was saying OP *didn't* do anything wrong and was agreeing with them
3. We often *are* disciplined out of part of our paycheck for financial mess-ups that cost the company money, like unauthorized discounts. So yes, it *is* coming out of my pocket and I don't fucking like your entitled ass enough to stick my neck out for you
Go touch some grass and realize that people other than you matter too, holy shit you're spoiled
I think they could have a chance to survive if they close most of the locations and keep perhaps 1-2 locations only in major cities. For the remaining stores, expand the party and seasonal merchandise mix and once again become unique specialty destination stores. Perhaps a few extra pop-up stores during the Halloween to New Years time frame only. I hope they survive their issues.
Spirit does the best thing by not existing during non peak season. I feel like where I live, we usually only have parties during the Summer for graduation parties. Outside that, Five Below and Dollar Tree give you a better bang for your buck.
Party City worker here, can confirm not every store is getting closed down. You'd be surprised how much business some of the more popular stores can get. I work in a location that consistently makes lots of money from balloon sales, etc. Including holidays some stores make a ton. The helium shortage is also not a huge issue with most stores, as we usually have enough tanks to last weeks, and while helium is going up in price, there is no shortage in customers. Feel free to ask any more questions and I hope I can answer them since I've been working here for years.
Some other points, during covid we did still make sales through online orders and yes there is a year round costume wall where we keep up some misc costumes we would otherwise pack up.
My wife worked at ours a little over a year ago and I was shocked at how many balloons I sold she was as well she was not ready for that
Have you updated your résumé that you are about to submit to Walmart or target Should you choose to stay in the retail field?
@@yell0wberry I am sticking with Party City for the time being. My store isn't going anywhere anytime soon.
@@Skylock42 lol!!!!!!!
A wise man once told me, if you don’t learn from history, you’re doomed to repeat it
Man, Party City used to be the place to shop for all our Halloween needs. Good memories, I hope they can get through this rough patch.
Holy shit Nice Profile Picture
@@solomoncumquats776 Father?
Since the population of places like dollar tree, Walmart, target, and Amazon, they have all together, forced the closure of many many well-known businesses, everything from supermarkets, to clothing, stores, to specialty retailers, and yes, coming soon, auto stores and fast food chains
Partying is such sweet sorrow...
Party City is basically a year round Spirit Halloween store. Their business model just doesn’t work anymore. There’s Family Dollar stores that have cheaper party supplies, you can’t just the same stuff that discount stores are selling party supplies at lower prices!
I think people have also switched gears when it comes to parties now, especially for kids birthdays. Pinterest and Instagram have developed a market for much fancier birthday parties with higher-end executions and decorations. People don't want cheap decorations with generic images of licensed cartoon characters anymore. Nearly every kids birthday I've been to in the past 5 years has been decorated with DIY and Pinterest-type decorations that were purchased from Etsy or even done by a party planning business. This and I think a lot of parents are just opting out of birthday parties entirely. The pandemic really didn't help at all either.
That was my first thought too. The last birthday parties I went to pre pandemic were decorated with homemade decorations and themed off stuff you could feasibly craft items yourself for. One was horse themed (not mlp just actual horses lol) and the other was Minecraft. In both situations the decorations were recycled cardboard and thrifted stuff.
that or giving the kid money to spend on what they want
You're right - and Etsy for several years has become the custom birthday/party supply place. It used to be for independent/fan artists, but I can barely find fan art on Etsy anymore because of how much copy-and-paste party supplies there are. It's actually great if you need party supplies for a kid's party that wants an older/more obscure movie or tv show, but not great for the artists that the site was originally built on. Also I don't know the legality of how Etsy gets around copyrighted material, but I'd say they are way more vulnerable now that so much on their site is clip art/"key art" from kids movies cheaply printed on to party supplies.
@@vagamer522 That too. Lots of parents would also rather skip birthday parties and take their kid to do something like Disneyland or a beach trip.
Yeah, I was wondering about this. I don't know any parents of young kids myself, but I was thinking, do parents still throw parties like this?
Party City up here in Canada has inexplicably been purchased by Canadian Tire. Some of the locations are in a Canadian Tire store, but they've also kept standalone stores too. Around Halloween I had to grab a maids costume from them for...reasons...and store looked like a bomb went off. This one in AZ is amazing in comparison.
Huh. I was thinking that the location in this video looked barren, a fraction of the variety you'd get at the location in Brampton.
Canadian Tire - because when I’m buying new tires for my car, the first impulse buying item that comes into my mind is party supplies 🎉
@@collegeman1988 Ok so Canadian Tire is a weird retailer in that a very small part of their business is tires. Canadian Tire is actually Canada's Target. They're the store you go to if you want a new bicycle and also an air conditioner and a box of screws and a Christmas tree...and also some tires.
I don't have kids, but if I did and I wanted to get character-themed birthday party stuff, I'd be far more likely to walk into a Canadian Tire than a standalone Party City. But, then again, I'd be far more likely to walk into a Walmart or Loblaws/Superstore than I would a Canadian Tire for party supplies. Or, of course, Dollarama because Dollarama party supplies look good enough to me, as someone who doesn't have children who will object to me buying their hypothetical birthday party supplies at Dollarama.
The tire company probably bought Party City just for the helium. Floating tires, bay-bay!!
Rewatching, since Party City just announced all stores are closing after 40 years!😢
I do think there’s still value to Party City - there are a lot of niche things that you can’t find at target or Walmart. I also appreciate being able to find costumes outside of Halloween for theme parties and stuff. Not surprised they might be dying, but I don’t know where else I would find some of those things. Amazon maybe.
Yeah, I really hope Party City can update themselves and keep going. There is use for a dedicated party supply store.
There used to be a dedicated year round costume and Halloween store in my area, and they shut down in 2020. It was the best place to get the really good Mehron face paint. A lot of people went there for stage, cosplay, and entertainer makeup and supplies. I feel like if Party City were to lean into the demographic of party entertainers (princesses for hire, professional clowns, etc) and sold some higher quality makeup and accessories, they might be able to corner that market instead of everyone going online like right now. My area also has their own party store that's been around longer and has both the retail side like party supplies, decor, fireworks and costumes, as well as a rental side with bouncy castles, carnival games, tents, outdoor advertising signs, lighting, catering equipment, and all sorts of things. But most of their money comes from rentals, which is how they support the other things, and they only have one store left. The party market really took a hit the last few years, and I'm not sure if people can justify spending the money on events like that now.
After rewatching this, in case you haven't noticed already, Party City had just made the announcement today that they will be closing all of their remaining stores after 38 years in business, unfortunately. So yeah, the party is officially over. Did I mention that Big Lots just recently announced that they will be going out of business, too?
I hate to be a spoilsport, but given my experience, "restructuring" never ends well. If they are forced to close a large percentage of their stores as part of their "restructuring" plan, they will eventually end up closing ALL of them.
The Wiz in New York City closed more than half their stores on the East Coast in October 2002. Come February 2003, they were going out of business. The last store closed in late-April. CompUSA (where I worked for 6 of its last 7 months of existence) closed more than half their stores in February 2007. Come December, after they looked at their Black Friday weekend sales figures, they started their complete shutdown that lasted until the end of March 2008.
"I'm the Wiz!!"
Dude it might be just am AZ thing but this is the nicest party city I've ever seen.
Agreed - this is a very nice one. The one near me looked much more like your old video. That one in particular is next to a DSW Shoes and I think the moms let their kids run wild in the Party City next door while they shoe shop lol.
This is the 'updated/remodeled' store. They are in the process of remodeling and restructuring.
I always wondered how Party City managed to stay open. Aside from Halloween they are always dead.
Yes, like a H&R Block tax office 🏢 ... Some services, products are not really set up for 365/year round sales. 🛒 Big retail spots like Walmart, Super Target, Sam's Club etc cut into sales too.
The hardware stores such as Lowe’s and Home Depot sold some really good Halloween and Christmas decorations, often better than Party City offered.
Certain holidays, like Valentines, were big for balloons and/or decor, Superbowl was always busy, graduation season was HOPPING between balloons, decor, and custom announcements and invites. Friday nights and Saturday mornings were always super busy with people coming in for last minute supplies and/or picking up balloon orders. It may have changed since I left in 2015, but that was my experience.
@@laurendisney Party City stores may of seen bigger up swing in traffic during certain times BUT could this sustain hiring 40hr a week staff? Or pay for a retail space? 🛒 I'm 52 & live in a high tourist area, many party, conventions, groups. I never go into these stores.
@@DavidLLambertmobile they don't hire 40/hr staff beyond management. Few, if any, retail companies have full time floor staff. Our store had just me or the other "keyholder" on front end for the majority of the day, and closing shift had maybe 6 hours to cover depending on the day. As "keyholder" I got less than 40 hours a week despite being promised such when I was promoted, and often I'd be lucky to get 30. In my experience, they hire small numbers of very part time staff and rarely have more than 3-4 people in the store except on holidays or the busy times of Friday evening/Saturday morning. Halloween they used to hire temp staff, and while they seem to still do that the number of temp employees my store hired decreased every year, while year-round staff started doing what temp staff did. Their Halloween City stores had similar staffing practices when they existed (I was on the management team for those stores three years in a row, leaving my store for the season and returning after packup). I can't speak for retail space, beyond my store being able to move from the smallest space of any store in my area to one of the biggest retail spaces in a strip mall that remodeled specifically to get the company to rent said space. But I of course was never on the corporate side, so all I can speak to were my Party and Halloween City store's staffing practices.
When I was a kid, I'd get so excited for the Halloween section at my local Party City to open up. I remember the strong smell of mask latex through the aisles. Lots of staples from my kid days are now gone.
This store is a remodel which was a huge waste of money. They survived the pandemic because balloons and decorations were huge during the pandemic. I worked there. Everyone was doing drive by celebrations. So while maybe we sold less plates, balloons and decorations were huge. We were threatened with losing unemployment if we didn’t come back to work on Mother’s Day. We were given 2 days notice. This went directly against the CARES act for those of us with children or anyone else in our care that was at home. I told them to suck it. I eventually went back in September but quit the following year.
The Halloween stuff is sold year round. Not the full selection but a small area. Halloween is where they made most of their money. They priced themselves out of being the main Halloween store in recent years.
An unfortunate sign of the times, indeed. Customers will always gravitate to the least expensive option, even if that means Amazon for those located in remote areas with no other large stores. What gets lost is the in-store shopping experience of seeing all of the merchandise in person before deciding what to buy.
not always but a lot of times yes especially when it's convenient as you can buy other necessary items in less trips or purchases.
As of a day or two ago… the party is officially over… closing all locations 😢
My problem was that Party City never had what I wanted in stock, or on sale. Essentially I would go to look at stuff, have my daughter pick out what she wanted, then added it to my party city website shopping cart. There was no way I would ever reach the purchase threshold for whatever coupon they offered online, due to inventory. So I would order it, have it delivered for free to my house, then I would return whatever I didn’t use locally. I am pretty certain this is how they stock their stores, through returns. I’d go, and they’d have something we’d want, but never the quantity. Sure, you may have a party where only three kids showed up, but you invited 20, and have no clue how many are actually planning to show up since no one RSVPs until the last minute.
I also hated how I couldn’t even buy themed invitations. If I am forced to order custom ones from Party City’s website, then I could order them from anywhere. People forget that brick and mortar stores exist for convince. You can buy an item and have it in your hands same day. You pay extra for that novelty. That’s why stock is so important. When my daughter turned 10, I could find a 1 candle in gold but not 0. I could find 0 in silver, but not 1. I ended up having to go to a different store in another town to buy what I needed. When my mom turned 70, same issue. 0 in gold, but not 7. 7 in silver, but not 0. Regretfully I couldn’t find my daughters candles, so again I had to drive to a different store in a different town.
You'd think that custom invitations would be something they could easily do in-store. Actually, I wonder if other products could be custom made in store. That would be a great way to set them apart from the competition.
@@StarlightPrism You are onto something.
The war against plastic waste has won a mighty battle today.
RIP PARTY CITY your waste will live on for an eternity.
I worked for Party City for a decade... and I rarely go there now because I can barely afford it without my employee discount. I love them for IP party supplies, because here Party City is still the best place for that stuff. Target and Walmart have very small party sections and few, if any, IP supplies... and Party City always has more decorations for their IP supplies than Target/Walmart. My former store (which moved to a larger location a few years back) isn't as busy as it once was, but it still seems to see regular foot traffic. Several sections and stock issues you pointed out seem to be just your location, unless mine is an anomaly.
Overall, I'd like to see them shrink and become a little more focused on the things they do well, and that are sustainable: costumes and accessories, themed party supplies, specialized candies (like the color line for weddings/baby showers), custom invitations/announcements (if they still do that stuff, they used to do custom stuff, and I got my graduation announcements done through them). Things that you still generally don't find at Target, Walmart, or grocery and dollar stores and would otherwise have to hunt up from online retailers like Amazon. Hopefully they can successfully restructure, I do like being able to pop in for themed party supplies and knowing that, while they'll be pricier than elsewhere, I'm almost guaranteed to find exactly what I'm looking for.
I worked at Dollar General, and now work at another retailer you’d visit anyway, and a lot of the same stuff can be had at the same price at max somewhere your already shopping. And yes at most DGs and Walmarts I’ve been in have Pinatas.
Add in Amazon for the stuff like the single color candies and Spirit eating into Halloween and Party City is going to have to seriously refocus somehow.
IIRC you can custom order single color candies (such as M&Ms and Jelly Bellies) off the manufacturer's website. You don't need to bother with Party City and their markups if you can get it direct from manufacturer!
Hobby Lobby also has some party/decorating stuff too and they seem to be doing good business
I worked at a party city for a few years awhile back and the empty shelving and pegs are typically seasonal changeover stuff. Outside of Halloween they have fourth of July, Christmas, Hanukkah, Chinese new year, New Year, general Summer and spring stuff. But yes Halloween was always the peak season, we'd be early prepping for that in August and by mid October it was already slim pickin's.
Great video. But very depressing what’s happening to these speciality stores. Like you said, Target, Walmart, Dollar Tree and Amazon have taken over.
We love your videos, please keep doing them. 👍
Still hoping for updated videos of the valley malls.
I like the fact that you state what music you're using for the soundtrack. Very helpful. Also, I used to go to Party City a lot when I was much younger, but I haven't been inside one in several years. Hard to believe Party City could actually survive the pandemic. Oh well, another thing I have a certain nostalgia for. Good episode as always.
They are closing all stores!
Dollar stores, Walmart, Target, online shopping, have taken all their business, plus COVID kinda stopped parties for a little while.
I barely went to Party City as a kid. I do remember going there for Halloween or two, but we usually buy them at a Walmart or Target.
Yeah, out of all of the retailers. I think that Party City is probably one of the most outdated. Like you said. Basically, everything that you can buy at Party City, you can buy at Walmart, target, Amazon, the dollar store, or like anywhere else.
UPDATE! As of Sept. 7, 2023, Party City is NO LONGER in Bankruptcy. Google It.
near my party city there is stuff like 5 below and Dollar tree so I have not been there in years. also there is 2 spirit holloweens within I kid you not like feets away from each other that are near the party city during Halloween so I don't think anybody goes to my local party city anymore. kind of sad I loved that store as a kid and this video makes me want to go and just walk around
I went to Party City this past October to get some balloons for my daughter’s bday. They wanted to charge me $20 per balloon, seemed pretty steep. Besides balloons you can get some pretty cool decorations for decent prices
I used to be an Assistant Manager at a Party City, those boxes you walked past were Easter Merch. It looks like the Valentines day stuff hadn't come in yet and that's what all the bare shelving was. Planogrammed out stuff awaiting merch.
I think one of the things that could help is to downsize the stores to a smaller footprint, and push to get a large online presence.
Not really, because if you have a party event you technically want your stuff now by the way every dollar store especially Dollar tree has everything you need including the helium balloons!
It's been a crap excuse for over a decade to blame online retail or the internet in general!
The truth is simply the reason why there's a downturn in retail at large is because well there's an income deficiency across the population, coupled with the fact many of these companies have taken on huge sums of debt!
When a business takes on debt okay they in turn are expecting the customers to pay for that debt via they shop there,
When the customers don't have a lot of money,
Then the company is cannot pay their debt they start downsizing they pretend to restructure a little bit then comes bankruptcy restructuring and ultimately they'll be liquidated.
The worst thing that a chain store could ever do is to close locations largely because you have to think about the distribution,
yes it is true that a severely underperforming store you would definitely want to get rid of however a lot of the times it's not just one store here there they put together a list of stores that they would like to close. the problem is simply if those stores that remain in a certain area well they might be too far out from the distribution center so then you have a rise in shipping costs...
So let's say for example you have the western region and then you have the Eastern region and your distribution center is in the center,
Okay so the Southwest area is no longer viable, and then of course you noticed that the central western area is also experiencing problems, so then if you close most things in the southwestern area and if you close say half of what you have in the Central West area but you still have the Eastern area and you still have locations beyond the central western area and basically to the Northwest with a few stragglers stores still near the Old South West...
Well the problem is is essentially it's going to cost you a lot more money to run so there's few stragglers stores that are left and it's also going to cost you a little more money to service even the group of stores that you would still have left beyond the central western locations because you don't have enough to make the truck run worth the money!
in business it actually cost you more money to run the back end of the store than it does to to run the front end of the store, logistics is largely a big deal in retail this is why Walmart blue everybody away, they put their money in logistics and they started to do so basically in the late seventies whereas Kmart failed Kmart did not put money back into the business they did not put the money into the shipping technologies that they needed to invest in through the late 70s and 80s and most of this was because they had executives that was bleeding the company dry massive embezzlement and for most of the seventies they had to high dividend to the shareholders they didn't put anything back too many people were living off the company!
So yes it makes sense to close locations however you have to do it extremely strategically and sometimes you may decide whether or not to pull out of an area altogether because of distribution!
@@American-Motors-Corporation Not sure if it's an efficient use of your time to write full essays in the TH-cam comment section where few will take the time to read them.
@@noneofyourbusiness4616 I read it, I’m not sure 100% agree, given I work in retail distribution, but they do raise some valid points, but they also seemed to go off on a rant about embezzlement towards the end.
@@noneofyourbusiness4616 then move on, no need to run your mouth troll.
It might be too regional, but could you cover the history/bankruptcy filing of Regal Cinemas? Our local theatre is one of 39 (?) that is being shut down next month. So many years of memories there! 😢
I actually had one open in my city just a few months ago, crazy to think they just opened another store while simultaneously selling off locations.
For some reason I remembered reading an article a few years back saying how helium is actually running out and that’s why it’s getting more and more expensive and that’s before inflation
I worked at a Party City for two years and always wondered how it stayed open. It was still running last year when I went to see my old bosses to add them to a resume but now, I don't even know.
Went to party city for the first time in ages and the a majority of the letters on the building were gone so instead of saying party city it said ' rt i ' but the dot on the i was missing as well
Dollar Tree is another great place to get party stuff if you're on a budget. I get my balloons there. I don't think I've ever even been in a Party City store.
I just love this channel. Its so fun to watch and soothing to fall asleep too. I can't be the only one that likes falling asleep to a trip through the mall like they used to when they were a kid getting pushed in a cart through the Mervyns and Belks. lol
I go to party city to NOT deal w the crowds and yelling chaos in hellmart and target. Their competition i think are the dollar stores w big party sections. But again, they have 1 cashier fighting for their life and hangry people hoarding cheap snacks
I can't help but be sad when companies like this struggle. As a kid, I loved going to party city, it felt like going to a toy store before my birthday party and I loved it!
I was surprised to find quite a few people at Party City when I went to get birthday things a few weeks ago
Some stores had labor protests here in Washington state. Some thought they were using illegal labor. I've never been in a PC store.
I like the concept of Party City, but I can't tell you the last time I was inside one. You're right that basics are at Walmart or Target, and there's a much greater variety at Amazon. For Halloween, it's Spirit Halloween (although we browse more than we buy; costumes are usually put together online).
I can lament the loss of places like Party City... but I'm also not doing anything to keep them around. 😞
I go to other cheaper stores first, but when i hit party city as another halloween, xmas stop, i still spend more than i do at the dollar stores. Target and walmart are last ditch effort stores and I'm usually spent out before
They don’t even sell greeting cards for any occasion
Really, it's amazing that Party City survived the peak pandemic years since effectively no one was having parties for the better part of two years.
Also, when I worked retail in college, we'd get chewed out for leaving a giant mountain of boxes unattended on the sales floor - that's a personal injury incident waiting to happen.
I hate when we have a party for the kids, and buy crap from this place and end up with huge garbage bags - literally converting money to garbage. It’s a waste.
when i was a kid, before spirit halloween, it was IMPERITIVE that we went to party city for my costume the day they started selling them. it was always a madhouse, and the particular store we went to had not only a massive costume wall [basically all the product images plastered on a wall] but a smaller, still sizeable mask display wall. the dressing rooms always had lines, you were always trying to catch an employee to ask them to fetch your costume number from the back, you had to wait your turn to paw through the displays of accessories, and the cacaphony of animatronics/spooky screamer door mat demos drowned out the halloween music they played. they usually had some mood lighting in the back of the store by the mask display, and the further back in the store you got, the higher the shelves and the fewer the windows, blocking out so much light. i was more of a do-it-yourself kid with my costumes, but my school was strict about wearing certain things [anyone else have the bloody scream/ghostface masks banned from their elementary school?] and all of my homemade costumes were too scary/disturbing, so we had to buy a costume just for me to wear to school.
i loved all the halloween decorations and the massive candy selection! i always sat outside and pretended to be a prop holding the candy bowl, scaring the hell out of anyone brave enough to traverse my house's minefield of traps and screamers, so i took special care in selecting only the most diverse, yummy candy as a reward for my victims. party city used to let you make up your own mixed bags and we'd usually assemble two or three - i can't eat almost any candy and folks always told me my individual goodie bags were weird, but other kids loved how i didn't do all chocolate or all fruity bags.
i went to party city around halloween with a friend in 2017 after many years away, as they were wheelchair accessible whereas spirit was not [at the time]. it was really sad to see it so empty even back then, but it was so much fun to get to hang out with the warehouse/floor employees and chat for an hour or so about their jobs. they all really loved the halloween rush even if they had their complaints [and there are a LOT of reasons to hate working at party city], and two of them were worried the store was going to close down outside of certain seasons even back then.
Party City was also a pain to shop at. Checking out was always a chore, at least at the ones I always went to, so I just started going to other places.
It feels like yesterday that my mom and I went into a Party City to grab some halloween stuff and a costume. Then I realize that was over 10 years ago. How things change in what feels like a short time
I once in a while go there. Every couple years, estimated.
If they really want to stay afloat, they should make products cheaper prices, bulk, more in season, possibly a new logo and online advertising that isnt related to costumes or parties as a starter.
I'm in the suburban Detroit area, dollar stores in my area have all the same supplies for 1.25.
This reminded me of a similar store in my country and the same thing happened to it. This was in Mexico in the early 2000s and my parents used to take me and my brother to that store because they also sold toy soldiers, furniture for dolls, hula-hoops, toy guns, toy cars and other cheap plastic toys. We loved going there, even though we never liked parties, but it was so much fun buying toys and walking around the store. It is sad seeing such a fun place going out of business, sadly big stores have killed the concept of dedicated stores.
Why do I need this channel so much and how did I not know I needed it
man i remember going there for halloween costumes every year as a kid, getting the halloween catalog every year was always fun for my sister and I.
Canadian Based retailer Canadian Tire bought Party City's Canadian Division in 2019 for $175 Million. Now they also have mini Party City stores within many of their Canadian Tire stores too!
I checked your social media links and can’t find it anywhere. WTF did the letters say!? 6:15
UPDATE! As of Sept. 7, 2023, Party City is NO LONGER in Bankruptcy. Google It.
We hit a Target in Nashville last Summer, on the very last night of July, and the store was thoroughly trashed, filthy, merchandise everywhere, with most of the employees *hiding* and working their phones. Meanwhile, inside the Party City right next door, a crew was busy cleaning and remerchandising the closed store for Halloween in what looked like would be an all-night effort. The contrast was really striking. One chain looked like it was heading for bankruptcy, but it wasn't Party City.
Maybe standard retail practices aren't profitable in the US anymore. If so, the future of brick-n-mortar stores is pretty bleak.
Who can afford a expensive party when eggs cost 8 bucks a dozen?
Amazon is amazing and has a huge selection of almost any party theme you can think of for super cheap! I bought all of my sons 1st birthday stuff in a pack that included almost everything we needed to decorate for $16. My daughter had a turning red themed party and we got everything we needed for that party from balloons, banners, plates, cups, plastic cutlery, cake toppers, favors and more, really good quality stuff too for just under $50
you can buy most of the basic party supply stuff at any dollar tree for alot less. most of this stuff isnt worth paying more than a dollar for since half the time it gets tossed after said party/get together. only time i remember seeing party city busy was during Halloween but that has changed in the last 10 years as well
There was a Party City in Hiram, Georgia that closed about a year or two (or even before that) before the pandemic. This, in Arizona, looked like the Taj Mahal in comparison to the location that was here. Here, there were tons of items mixed in the wrong sections, soda cans/bottles/fast food cups laid down on the shelves, trash from restaurants, more shelves of empty space, boxes stacked up in multiple aisles to the point where you couldn't look at the merchandise that they blocked, and sometimes the toilets weren't clean either. It felt like a salvage store, not one that sells party supplies.
Best thing PC did was add online ordering and delivery! Most of the business comes from that now.
During the off-season (Jan-April) hours are cut super short so it’s hard to keep things in stock and moving. But peak times of year the store is popping. I’d hate to see Party City go
I worked at a Party City as a Front End Supervisor for 2 years.. Awful to work for. We got more freight than we could handle and rampant shop lifting. I mean like $700 worth of stuff in a cart and charging through the fire exit away from the front. I'm surprised they didn't claim bankruptcy sooner.
with the current shitty condition of the whole world today it is a simple fact that NO ONE is in a party mood these days. End of story!
So, anyone know what the blurred message was?
I do not shop at Party anymore. It has been years. I can find it elsewhere for much less😢
All those boxes on the sales floor. Are you sure it wasn’t a Dollar General?
We have Dollar 🌲 , and Walmart (of course). Our long defunct K Mart had a FANTASTIC Halloween selection every year.
It's building is scheduled to be demolished soon.
Time matches on...
I worked at party city for 2years when I was younger... It can get expensive
The one on Estrella Parkway in Goodyear, az... Built from the ground up a new store accoss the street from the perfectly good store they closed... Looked like a waste of money
I worked at Party City during high school / college from 2011-2018 (Assistant Manager for a while towards the end of my tenure), and the most interesting thing I saw was that 90 percent on Revenue was earned during the month of October. Rest of the year margins were razor thin (mostly depending on revenue from balloon orders), and we pretty much operated as lean as we could just to get by every year. I can only imagine how things are now that most other retail stores now offer party supplies for cheaper and better quality.
The Party City I grew up near in high school was the place to get your Halloween costumes and homecoming dressup supplies. That one was in a shopping center with a Target, supermarket, and a video store. You could get all your party stuff in pretty much one stop to that shopping center.
My sister-in-law still goes to Party City to get balloons for my niece's birthday parties, but she'll buy everything else off Amazon because it's cheaper and you can pretty much guarantee you'll find the theme or color story you need, especially if it's a theme that's not Disney or superheroes.
Yeah, despite the size of the stores, Party City doesn't seem to have much variety when it comes to decor themes.
Party City filed for bankruptcy again and is now going out of business
I haven't been to Party City in YEARS. I remember going every Halloween and look at the walls of costumes, and being a bit bummed that the ones I wanted were too expensive, and my mom had to buy one for my siblings too so I would pick something cheap
My wife worked at ours little over a year ago now you would be shocked at how many people go in there just to buy balloons and how much they spend on balloons the rest of their stuff no they do not sell to much of but she would consistently come home almost every day talking about someone that spent $40-$50 on balloons I was shocked
People are having fewer kids. People with kids are doing more DIY and hand-crafted children's birthday stuff. People are having fewer themed/holiday parties besides Christmas. It's mostly economics but it also kind of just seems like the culture has outgrown Party City's cheap, tacky, commercial aesthetic. And if you want that, you can get it cheaper. They need to differentiate themselves by selling a curated style and having higher quality products. They can't keep getting away with selling the same plastic silverware now that lots of other stores have it.
Don't forget Dollar General, Dollar Tree/Family Dollar have taken a lot of Party City business, as they carry a lot of the same stuff at much cheaper prices, sometimes even cheaper than Walmart, and Target.
There was an all year Halloween store that closed in 2020 and I figured Party City would start closing, and that store catered a lot to cosplayers and princesses for hire. The problem with Party City in Canada, is that we already had places that did a lot of similar stuff before they even opened. Bulk Barn sells bulk snacks, candy, cake supplies, and used to carry pinatas and sometimes matching supplies (like Spider Man was popular then, and there'd be a spider pinata and matching party hats with Spider Man on them). Dollarama (and other mostly defunct dollar stores), Walmart, Superstore, Zellers, and I think even Michael's had similar things in terms of decor and disposable plates. Superstore, one of our main grocery chains, has a large seasonal section that often includes the party aisle where there are things like cards, seasonal gifts (currently Valentine themed plush toys and pillows), and decor, so unless you really need something specific, there often isn't a reason to go elsewhere. Even our main fabric store chain sells themed napkins, cards, and some decor stuff, as well as materials to DIY your own items.
In my area, we also have a party rental store that's been here for ages. They rent out those big signs that stores use to advertise sales, bouncy castles, fair rides/games, wedding supplies, red carpets, and sell balloons, costumes, solid coloured supplied, and other such things. While they don't have a lot of physical stores, usually seasonal at Halloween like Spirit Halloween does (often alternating locations with them), they deliver stuff just about anywhere and if you're having something that's bigger than just a birthday party, everyone goes there. We did for high school graduation to get some of our decor, they do festivals, kids fun days, and all sorts of things.
So while I understand the convenience of having one store for almost everything instead of going to a grocery store and a party store or dollar store, I feel like they'd do better having a corner in a bigger store. Like partner with Walmart to have a couple of the seasonal aisles year round to sell their seasonal stuff, and then fill the rest of the year in with the more generic coloured items, just keeping a base stock that people could then order what they want online if they need more.
I know it was the go to place for seasonal items, especially Halloween with their costume and masks, and for Christmas with their inflatables and animatronics. What was great about the place was that it was themed, which made searching and getting ideas easier.
Have a wedding, then go to the wedding section. Baby shower, go to the baby shower section. The store was well layer out and planned.
My local Party City closed a few years ago. I used to love exploring the place because, as you said, it was a fun atmosphere. But, I rarely bought anything because either merchandise was overpriced or, more commonly, I just wasn't hosting an event.
I'm sorry, but I always thought "party supplies only" was a dumb idea for a store. Especially one this large. Amazing they lasted this long.
It's not even just Walmart and Target at this point Amazon is the easiest way to get a ton of party supplies for really cheap and that way you don't have to worry about venturing to stores except if you're buying food products. Everything else you got on Amazon comes your door and you're ready. You don't have to do anything
Our local Party City closed a few years ago. The space was then occupied by Party City, another nemesis. And thanks for your social media post. Doug and I had a great laugh at seeing the “word” in the aisle.
A place like party city would have done well to switch to services. Party planning and hosting to take the pressure off parents.
"We tried using hydrogen instead of helium for the balloons to cut costs. Unfortunately when they inevitably popped, they either incinerated the kids or their houses. Insurance quickly told us to quietly and quickly 86 that idea." Party Pat, Party City CEO.
Party city could really appeal to college students. In college we had so many themed parties like angels vs devils for example. I was disappointed to go into party city and not find devil/angel ears.
Sad what’s happened to this company, I’ve worked their Halloween City Stores for years. It used to be a great fun company, so sad what happened to it.