Earnings call transcript: Build-A-Bear’s Q3 2025 results miss revenue target

Build-A-Bear Workshop Inc (BBW) reported its Q3 2025 earnings on December 4, 2025, posting an earnings per share (EPS) of $0.62, surpassing the forecast of $0.59. However, the company fell short of revenue expectations with $122.7 million, slightly below the forecasted $123.96 million. Following the announcement, the stock experienced a notable decline, dropping 17.3% to $50.2 in pre-market trading.

Key Takeaways

• Build-A-Bear’s EPS exceeded expectations, but revenue fell short.
• Stock price plunged 17.3% in pre-market trading.
• The company reaffirmed its full-year revenue guidance, expecting over $500 million.
• Mini Beans product line showed significant growth, with 60% increase in Q3.
• Tariff impacts negatively affected pre-tax income.

Company Performance

Build-A-Bear Workshop exhibited mixed results in Q3 2025. The company reported a 2.7% year-over-year increase in revenue, reaching $122.7 million. However, pre-tax income decreased to $10.7 million, down from $13.1 million the previous year. The company continues to expand its global presence, adding 24 new experience locations in Q3, with 70% of these outside the United States.

Financial Highlights

• Revenue: $122.7 million (+2.7% YoY)
• EPS: $0.62 (vs. $0.73 last year)
• Pre-tax income: $10.7 million (down from $13.1 million last year)
• Returned $26.1 million to shareholders through dividends and repurchases

Earnings vs. Forecast

Build-A-Bear’s EPS of $0.62 exceeded the forecast of $0.59, marking a positive surprise of 5.08%. However, revenue fell short of the $123.96 million forecast by 1.02%, indicating a revenue miss that contributed to the negative market reaction.

Market Reaction

Following the earnings announcement, Build-A-Bear’s stock price dropped 17.3% in pre-market trading, falling to $50.2. This decline reflects investor concerns over the revenue miss and the impact of tariffs on the company’s financial performance. The stock’s current price is significantly below its 52-week high of $75.85.

Outlook & Guidance

Despite the revenue miss, Build-A-Bear reaffirmed its full-year revenue guidance, expecting to surpass $500 million for the first time in the company’s history. The company is focusing on mitigating tariff impacts and continuing its digital transformation efforts. The commercial segment is projected to grow by more than 20%.

Executive Commentary

CEO Sharon John highlighted the company’s strategic initiatives, stating, "We are building on the brand’s iconic status to reach more people in more places with more types of products for more occasions." She also emphasized the success of the Mini Beans product line, which has become a significant growth driver.

Risks and Challenges

• Tariff impacts: Continued tariff issues could further affect profitability.
• Revenue growth: Falling short of revenue expectations may affect investor confidence.
• Market saturation: Expanding globally presents challenges in market penetration.
• Economic conditions: Macroeconomic challenges may impact consumer spending.
• Competition: Intense competition in the retail sector could pressure margins.

Q&A

During the earnings call, analysts focused on the company’s strategies to mitigate tariff impacts and the potential of the Mini Beans product line. The discussion also covered the company’s performance during Black Friday and its multi-location mall strategies.

Full transcript - Build-A-Bear Workshop Inc (BBW) Q3 2026:

Conference Operator: Greetings. Welcome to Build-A-Bear Workshop third quarter 2025 earnings call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. Please note this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Gary Todorovic with Investor Relations. Thank you. You may begin.

Gary Todorovic, Investor Relations, Build-A-Bear Workshop: Thank you. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Build-A-Bear’s third quarter 2025 earnings conference call. With us today are Sharon John, Build-A-Bear’s Chief Executive Officer, Chris Hurt, Chief Operating Officer, and Voin Todorovic, Chief Financial Officer. During this call, we’ll refer to forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties. Actual results could differ materially. Please refer to our Forms 10-K and 10-Q, including the risk factor section. We undertake no obligation to update any forward-looking statement. During this call, we will present both GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures. A reconciliation of non-GAAP to GAAP measures is included in today’s earnings press release, which is distributed and available to the public through our Investor Relations website, and now I’ll turn the call over to Sharon.

Sharon John, Chief Executive Officer, Build-A-Bear Workshop: Thank you, Gary. Good morning and thanks for joining us for Build-A-Bear’s third quarter fiscal 2025 earnings call. Today, I would like to begin by thanking the entire team for continuing to drive our positive momentum from the first half to deliver year-to-date record revenue and pre-tax income, results that reflect the many strategic and operational advancements we have been systematically executing over the past few years. Solid third-quarter results, coupled with the consistency of the underlying fundamentals, give us confidence in reaffirming our full-year guidance, inclusive of ongoing tariff headwinds. Based on this guidance, Build-A-Bear is positioned to deliver fiscal 2025 revenue of over $500 million for the first time in the company’s history. We believe our year-to-date results and positive outlook underscore the resilience of our evolved and diversified business model.

Even as we navigate a challenging macro environment, we remain on track to deliver top-tier store contribution margins for the fifth consecutive year, while our asset-like commercial segment is expected to achieve its fourth straight year of growth exceeding 20%. This strong performance reflects our continued efforts to monetize the power, positioning, and equity of the Build-A-Bear brand, such as leveraging our multi-generational appeal to expand the addressable market, with teens and adults now representing about 40% of sales, opening unique experiential retail concepts, including new co-branded locations, and scaling through initiatives designed to go beyond our workshop, like our new Mini Beans collection. Simply put, we’re building on the brand’s iconic status to reach more people in more places with more types of products for more occasions.

Specifically, for the quarter, revenue grew nearly 3% to almost $123 million, and pre-tax income declined $2 million to nearly $11 million, inclusive of about a $4 million negative tariff impact. For the first nine months, revenue grew more than 8% to over $375 million, and pre-tax income increased by 15% to almost $46 million, inclusive of about $5 million in a negative tariff impact. We also returned more than $26 million to shareholders through dividends, as well as buybacks, which contributed to more than 24% EPS growth for the first three quarters of the fiscal year. Overall, shareholders have received over $160 million since the beginning of fiscal 2021. As we look toward the final and most impactful quarter of the year, our primary focus remains on delivering strong 2025 results. At the same time, we continue to advance the long-term strategic initiatives that position us for future success.

As a reminder, these priorities have remained consistent over the last few years and include: one, expanding and evolving our experiential retail footprint; two, advancing our comprehensive digital transformation; and three, leveraging the powerful equity of the Build-A-Bear brand beyond our workshop while continuing to return capital to shareholders. Now, Chris Hurt, Build-A-Bear’s Chief Operations Officer, who has been an instrumental part of delivering our positive results over the past decade, will share more on expanding our retail footprint. Chris.

Gary Todorovic, Investor Relations, Build-A-Bear Workshop: Thanks, Sharon. We remain committed to bringing our signature workshop experience, the cornerstone of the Build-A-Bear brand, into new markets through a mix of our corporately managed, partner-operated, and franchise business model. This quarter, we made significant progress, adding 24 net new experience locations, with 70% of those openings outside the United States, bringing our total locations to 651, and extending our reach to 33 countries, underscoring the global appeal of our brand. We also expanded our corporately operated business model in North America with seven new stores, including three in Canada, three in the greater metro areas of New York and Atlanta, plus a return to Puerto Rico and the highly popular Plaza Las Américas mall, where the store openings were met with tremendous fanfare as our guests were excited to once again engage with the Build-A-Bear brand.

These openings, which vary in size and format, reinforce our commitment to high-return opportunities in new markets. Our international partners and franchisees continue to drive growth and expansion with new locations in Colombia, Denmark, Finland, Mexico, New Zealand, Panama, Qatar, South Africa, Sweden, and the UAE. This expansion by our international partners and franchisees further demonstrates the scalability of the brand and our ability to continue to grow our international presence. We entered the quarter with 375 corporately managed stores, 108 franchise locations, and 168 partner-operated locations. Since Q2 of 2023, we have doubled the number of asset-like partner-operated locations, which now represents more than 25% of our total units.

Given an emphasis on optimizing operations during the busy holiday season, we opened the vast majority of our planned expansion through the first nine months and remain on track to achieve our guidance of at least 60 net new locations this year. We are also excited to share that after a decade, the Build-A-Bear brand re-entered Germany in the first part of the fourth quarter with one of our existing European partners, Intersource. With locations now open in Berlin and Frankfurt, these openings were a tremendous success as guests were thrilled to once again experience the brand in their home market. An additional location is planned for Stuttgart later in the quarter. This marks another important step in our overall European growth strategy and further strengthens our global footprint by demonstrating international scalability.

As a reminder, we opened the first Build-A-Bear Hello Kitty and Friends workshop in the popular Century City Mall in Los Angeles in November of 2024, and it quickly became a successful destination for devoted Sanrio fans, collectors, families, kids of all ages, and even Hello Kitty herself. This one-of-a-kind collaboration made it clear that the experience deserved a broader presence, especially in unique places that attract millions of visitors both domestically and from around the world. As announced this morning, we are expanding the Build-A-Bear Hello Kitty and Friends workshop concept with corporately managed stores opening in early 2026 at two premier malls: American Dream, just outside New York City, and Mall of America in Minneapolis. These co-branded experiential stores will complement our already established Build-A-Bear workshops at both shopping destinations.

As new Build-A-Bear Workshop experience locations open around the globe, we are not only expanding our reach, we’re adding a little more heart to life in more places for more people, positioning Build-A-Bear Workshop for sustained global growth.

Sharon John, Chief Executive Officer, Build-A-Bear Workshop: Thank you, Chris. Our workshops and the emotional, memorable experiences they provide remain at the heart of the Build-A-Bear brand, and we’re excited about continuing the expansion of our global footprint, especially through our asset-light partner-operated model, which we believe offers a meaningful runway as we bring the Build-A-Bear experience to more markets and consumers around the world. As part of our digital transformation objective, which is focused on driving omnichannel growth, we recently appointed Carmen Flores as the Senior Vice President of E-commerce and Digital Experiences. Carmen, a seasoned executive having led digital evolution at companies like Montblanc and the LEGO Group, will partner closely with our brand and technology teams to strengthen consumer engagement to drive our digital business through more personalized, seamless interactions powered by technology and AI.

Because we know that some of our visitors come to Build-A-Bear.com to transact while others come to find a store and plan a visit, we believe the real unlock for the concept of e-com at Build-A-Bear is striking the right balance between e-commerce and e-communication. Over the past few years, we have built a strong infrastructure, and the next step is leveraging it through our people and processes to monetize that investment fully. Our third area is capitalizing on opportunities that leverage our 30 years of multi-generational brand equity for incremental growth. On top of our experience location expansion that Chris discussed, one example of this effort is represented by pre-stuffed branded plush that can be sold outside of our workshops in a wide variety of retail environments.

While we originally launched our proprietary Mini Beans collectibles in Build-A-Bear workshops as a pilot project, given that we are now approaching three million units sold with over 60% growth in the third quarter alone, we believe this highlights the opportunity to drive broader global reach of the brand through thousands of additional points of sale beyond the workshop. In fact, Mini Beans distribution has already expanded into a number of independent retailers. Specific third-quarter highlights include our strong Halloween collection featuring a new fan favorite, Posable Bat, that generated over three million social views, raising awareness of the entire Halloween offering.

You may recall that 2024 had been our best-selling Halloween assortment on record, but we’re pleased to share that we saw a double-digit increase in 2025, likely driven by the continued macro interest in the holiday, but also from our strong seasonal offering, including our exclusive Hello Kitty and Prince co-branded Halloween characters, further solidifying the power of that special relationship. Separately, on September 9th, once again, we positioned Build-A-Bear as the celebrated centerpiece of National Teddy Bear Day, delivering record results on top of all of those fuzzy hugs during a special acknowledgment of the importance of stuffed animals. From a fourth quarter-to-date perspective, we’re pleased to share that we delivered the best Black Friday in the company’s history, with momentum improving after a slowdown at the end of the third quarter in October.

While some of this shift may reflect external factors, we believe our holiday merchandising and marketing efforts have played a key role in driving our stronger conversion and higher dollars per transaction so far in the quarter. Turning to the holiday strategy this season, we are offering fun trend animals like Gingerbread Axolotl, classics like our Timeless Teddy and Santa gear, stocking stuffers, including our all-important gift cards, which are key to driving January traffic and sales, seasonal Mini Beans, and new on-trend bag charms inspired by some of our historical bestsellers, and as always, we are reinforcing Build-A-Bear as an experiential destination. A big part of this strategy is being seen as a part of our guest holiday tradition.

That is why our core messaging leverages our centerpiece, Merry Mission animated feature film, which this year celebrates the 10th anniversary of Glisten, the magical snow deer and heroine of the movie, with a limited edition version that really lights up. In closing, it’s been a delight to be here in Manhattan this week, participating in Giving Tuesday with our valued partners, Salesforce and First Book, alongside the Build-A-Bear Foundation to provide books and bears to kids in need. This week’s events culminate with today’s earnings call from the New York Stock Exchange, where we’ll also take part in the annual tree lighting ceremony this evening.

Without a doubt, I feel a genuine sense of pride and gratitude for this remarkable organization, our board, shareholders, partners, and amazing guests around the world who not only enable us, but also share in our mission to add a little more heart to life. And with that, I’ll turn the call over to Voin.

Voin Todorovic, Chief Financial Officer, Build-A-Bear Workshop: Thank you, Sharon, and good morning, everyone. I will discuss the quarterly results and then share more about our full-year outlook. We achieved the highest revenue in the company’s history for both the third quarter and the first nine months of the year. This was also the highest pre-tax income for the first nine months. And absent the impact of tariffs, it would have also been a record for third-quarter pre-tax income. These results underscored the durability of our evolved business model and the effectiveness of the strategic initiatives that we have implemented over the past several years. Moving to a more detailed review of our third-quarter results, total revenues were $122.7 million and an increase of 2.7%. As a reminder, this was on top of 11% growth last year. Net retail sales were $112.3 million, an increase of 2.5%.

Looking at our direct-to-consumer sales in more detail, we saw solid performance in August and September, followed by a decline in October around the time of the government shutdown. As Sharon mentioned, the fourth quarter-to-date has shown a positive rebound from October. For the quarter overall, store sales were up, with a slight transaction decrease driven by a 1% decline in traffic. October also faced a tougher comparison due to a new license introduction last year that benefited traffic. For the quarter, domestic store traffic outperformed the national benchmark. Also, dollars per transaction were up as selected price increases and product mix contributed to higher average unit retail prices. E-commerce demand declined 10.8%, primarily due to challenging comparisons driven by a strong license product launch last year.

The timing of web launches also shifted revenue between quarters, and as such, on a year-to-date basis, e-commerce demand is down less than 1%. Commercial revenue, which primarily represents wholesale sales to our partner operators, grew 4.2% for the quarter. The timing of shipments negatively impacted our third quarter. However, commercial revenue has increased 15.3% year-to-date. We continue to expect commercial revenue to grow by more than 20% for the year. Gross margin was 53.7%, a decline of 40 basis points compared to last year, primarily reflecting the impact of tariffs. Tariffs and related costs reduced gross profit by about $4 million in the quarter. SG&A was $55.3 million, or 45.1% of total revenues, compared to 43.3% last year. Higher store-level compensation, including medical benefits and higher minimum wage requirements, timing of marketing expenses, and general inflationary pressures contributed to the increase.

Pre-tax income of $10.7 million was $2.4 million below last year’s $13.1 million. Tariffs and associated costs reduced pre-tax income by about $4 million. EPS of $0.62 compared to $0.73 last year reflected lower pre-tax income, a slightly lower income tax rate, and a reduced share count. Although this quarter is the first to be meaningfully impacted by tariffs, for the first nine months, we delivered record revenues and profits, resulting in over 24% EPS growth versus last year. We also remained committed to returning capital to shareholders. During the quarter, we returned $13 million through dividends and share repurchases, bringing our year-to-date total to $26.1 million. We also maintained significant flexibility, with about $70 million remaining under our board-approved repurchase authorization. Turning to the balance sheet, at third quarter end, cash and cash equivalents totaled $27.7 million compared to $29 million last year.

The company finished the quarter with no borrowing under its revolving credit facility. Inventory at quarter end was $83.3 million and increased by $12.5 million. The increase was driven by the accelerated purchases to mitigate contemplated changes in tariff rates, as well as the inclusion of tariffs into the cost of inventory. In addition, a portion of the increase was made to support the growth of our commercial segment. We remain comfortable in both the level and composition of our inventory, which we believe positions us well to meet demand and execute our growth strategy for the balance of the year. Turning to the outlook, we are reaffirming our full-year guidance as shared in today’s press release. At the midpoint of our range, our annual revenue guidance implies about 2% growth in the fourth quarter.

As you know, December has historically been the most significant month of the quarter and the year for Build-A-Bear. We also continue to expect our commercial segment to grow by more than 20% for the full year, which implies at least 30% growth in the fourth quarter. Turning to our pre-tax income guidance, the midpoint implies about $20 million in fourth quarter pre-tax income. As a reminder, we guided to less than $11 million in tariffs impact for the year. For the first nine months, we recognized about $1 million in the second quarter and roughly $4 million in the third quarter, which implies a remaining tariff impact of less than $6 million for the last quarter of the year. It is important to note that tariff impact in 2025 reflects only the last seven months of the fiscal year.

Additionally, as previously mentioned on our last call, our pre-tax guidance continues to include approximately $5 million in additional medical and labor costs. Of note, these costs collectively represent a headwind of almost $60 million for the year. In closing, we are pleased with our strong year-to-date performance. As we look ahead, our focus remains on executing the company’s strategic objectives of expanding the global footprint, accelerating the digital transformation, and leveraging our strong brand equity while delivering consistent value to shareholders through disciplined capital allocation. Finally, I want to extend my sincere thanks to our store and warehouse associates, corporate team members, and valued partners around the world. Their dedication and collaboration were instrumental in delivering record first nine-month results, as we continue to be on track to achieve our fifth consecutive year of record results. This concludes our prepared remarks.

We will now turn the call back over to the operator for questions. Operator.

Conference Operator: Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please press Star 1 on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press Star 2 if you would like to remove your question from the queue. And for participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the Star keys. One moment while we pull for questions. Our first question is from Eric Beder with SCC Research. Please proceed.

Eric Beder, Analyst, SCC Research: Good morning.

Hi, Eric.

Good morning.

Hi. I’d like to button up on the tariff piece a little bit. So you’re saying tariffs is about $10 million, and a little bit of that was in Q2. When we think about next year, what are the opportunities to reduce this? Because if I sit here and just kind of extrapolate it, it’s kind of like about $18 million in tariff impact next year. How should we be thinking about this going forward and your ability to start mitigating this even further?

Voin Todorovic, Chief Financial Officer, Build-A-Bear Workshop: I’ll take that, Eric. Thank you for your question. As we mentioned on our call, yes, this year we had about seven months of tariff expenses. We believe that’s going to be less than $11 million total for seven months. As we go into next year, even though we are not providing any guidance on 2026 at this point, there is going to be additional months. Clearly, the first five months of next year will have some tougher comparison because we are going to be experiencing tariffs. We continue to work and find ways to mitigate some of the challenges that are caused by tariffs. Even as you’ve seen in our quarter, in Q4, we had $4 million of negative tariff impact, and our profits only declined at a smaller margin. So we continue to do things that are within our control.

We are working with our partners in Asia to reduce our cost. We are looking at ways to selectively increase prices where we can to mitigate the offset of this additional cost. We are managing things within our control, such as promotions and discounts, and that’s part of the reason even in Q3 we are seeing lesser negative impact of these tariffs on our financials with our strong margin results. So, there are things that we continue to do to manage from the margin perspective, as well as we are looking at things from the overall P&L perspective that are within our control to help mitigate some of those things that we are seeing. Now, one of the positive things from the tariff perspective is the administration announced that Chinese rates will go from 30%-20% next year.

So that will be a little bit of a benefit compared to the 30% that we had for a big part of this year.

Speaker 0: It’s also important to realize that some of our strategic initiatives that we have implemented even prior to the tariff situation have been focused on the diversification of the company. And so, as Chris noted in some of his comments, we’re growing our store count outside the United States, which are not, for the large part, impacted by the tariff situation.

Eric Beder, Analyst, SCC Research: Great. And I want to talk about something we’ve been seeing in our store visits. So one of the things in 2025 has been kind of the, I guess, diversification in pricing in the sense that the Mini Beans continue to be a great part of the business, and they’re about $10 right now. And on the flip side, we’ve also seen some higher-priced items expand, such as the Giant Furry Friends, and to your point about Glisten, I mean, the Glisten is a limited edition. If I remember correctly, it’s $100. Where are you seeing kind of the gains from doing these pieces, and how is this diversification? Is it bringing in the different customers to the business, and where should we be thinking about that going forward? Thank you.

Sharon John, Chief Executive Officer, Build-A-Bear Workshop: Yeah, Eric, I’ll start. Yeah, I mean, we’ve talked about diversification across numerous fronts over the years and rethinking beyond just what had been the standard approach to Build-A-Bear Workshop because the brand equity, in our opinion and from a research perspective, is bigger than just the location of Build-A-Bear Workshop. That’s one thing. But the second piece of the diversification is not just the global aspect that I mentioned, but yes, we have an enormous amount of opportunity, we believe, from the multi-generational aspect, which I noted in my comments, 40% of our sales are to teens and adults. That often, particularly when it is related to some of our key licensed products, allows us a lot more pricing latitude. And then we have also had partnerships in the past where we’ve been up in that $100 range before, like a Swarovski relationship that we have.

But that latitude, both on the lower end and the higher end, does bring in different types of guests. I mean, we reiterated that in that we believe that we have an opportunity to appeal to more people in more places for more products and more occasions. So while we have Mini Beans at $10, which are meant to be and in fact are manifesting themselves as a collectible, so people tend to buy more than one of those. So an individual is a $10 purchase, but you usually are buying more than one. But we also continue to offer at the lowest end our birthday treat there. So we have accessibility to consumers. But it is our, we believe that it’s an important aspect of our brand to stretch the limits on what makes sense and what is still valuable to the consumer.

People love Glisten, so we wanted to try our own collectibles this year and our own special limited edition, and thus far, so good.

Eric Beder, Analyst, SCC Research: Okay. Good luck on the rest of the holiday season.

Voin Todorovic, Chief Financial Officer, Build-A-Bear Workshop: Thanks, Eric.

Conference Operator: Our next question is from Greg Gibas with Northland Securities. Please proceed.

Greg Gibas/Steve Silver/Keegan Cox, Analysts, Northland Securities/Argus Research/D.A. Davidson: Great. Good morning. Thanks for taking the questions. Wondering if you could speak to your promotional activity in the quarter. Was it something that you leaned into a little bit more? Or I guess maybe how would you say it compared year over year?

Voin Todorovic, Chief Financial Officer, Build-A-Bear Workshop: Well, actually, our promotional activity, we have been managing our discounts and promotional activity much more stringently. And we are actually seeing lower discount rate in the quarter as we have seen over the last couple of quarters. This is one of those things that we believe it’s within our control, and this is one of the ways we are trying to help mitigate the impact of some of these additional costs that are outside of our control. And as a reminder, over many years that we’ve been with the company, we have done a tremendous job of expanding our merchandise margin, managing our margin costs, and being really focused on the experience and driving the overall ticket value versus really trying to drive growth through promotion.

Our brand, it’s very unique in a way how we are positioned, and people are coming to our stores to celebrate their special events. And we believe creating the best experience for them and upselling and doing things to really enhance that experience is the way for us to both grow the business and deliver strong margin results. This goes in line as being a destination and people are coming to celebrate these special events. And over the years, we have done, in my opinion, a really good job managing the margin and expanding over probably 1,000 points over the last decade or so.

Greg Gibas/Steve Silver/Keegan Cox, Analysts, Northland Securities/Argus Research/D.A. Davidson: Got it. That’s very helpful. And I wanted to ask if you could share anything more about trends that you’re seeing with Mini Beans sales and I guess just overall demand with that product line and I guess progress with kind of new SKU introductions with that product line as well?

Sharon John, Chief Executive Officer, Build-A-Bear Workshop: Yeah. Well, we’re really excited about Mini Beans for a number of reasons. And I did share in the comments that we’re approaching 3 million in sales. And just in this last quarter, we saw a 60% increase. And we are now, as I mentioned as well, in the early stages, but we’re selling Mini Beans in different retailers outside of the workshop, but also to a lot of our partners where we have partner-operated relationships. So it’s got the masthead of a Build-A-Bear, but it’s like at Great Wolf Lodge, for example. So many also outside of the United States and some of our partnerships in Europe. But we see this as we create variety with the Mini Beans. They are collectibles. They are seasonal. We bring out new characters. Some of them are based on our favorites from the Build-A-Bear historical collection.

We also bring out what we call takedowns of some of the seasonal products that we’re doing, and people like to buy those together, but we’re also just recently created things with partners, so we’re starting to have Mini Beans with some of our licenses, which has been extremely successful and very exciting, so Sanrio, as an example, which we mentioned a number of times in the prepared remarks with Hello Kitty and Friends, just again, a tremendous multidimensional partnership for us, whether that’s us creating seasonal products with them or Mini Beans with them or even new locations with that partnership. It’s been wonderful, and they have such great fans, and the fan base overlaps tremendously with Build-A-Bear, so it makes a lot of sense, but we see Mini Beans as just it’s a proof point in many ways of how we can extend beyond the make-your-own plush.

While we will never remove the destination aspect from the centerpiece and the heart of our company, it’s how people are often introduced to our brand, and it’s where that halo effect comes from. It is important for us to recognize that there is potential beyond that.

Greg Gibas/Steve Silver/Keegan Cox, Analysts, Northland Securities/Argus Research/D.A. Davidson: Yep. That’s good to hear. Thanks very much, Sharon, and congrats on the Black Friday.

Sharon John, Chief Executive Officer, Build-A-Bear Workshop: Thank you.

Conference Operator: Our next question is from Steve Silver with Argus Research. Please proceed.

Greg Gibas/Steve Silver/Keegan Cox, Analysts, Northland Securities/Argus Research/D.A. Davidson: Thanks, operator, and thanks for taking my questions as well. I had a question about the tie-ins. I know you guys mentioned that you had a presence around the Wicked movie coming out, which came out right around Thanksgiving, which may have contributed to the strong results on Black Friday. But I’m just trying to get a sense as to, just broadly speaking, whenever Build-A-Bear is involved with a high-profile movie launch and it’s high-end kind of thing, whether the sales that those products generate are really more concentrated around the launch of those movies or really what the tail looks like for how long beyond the launch marketing tends to go toward these products and how long the contributions extend.

Sharon John, Chief Executive Officer, Build-A-Bear Workshop: Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. So this is actually our second year of Wicked. We had Wicked with the original movie and because we knew, as did many of the partners, that that would be a two-year event, successive years. So it’s been great because Wicked was more successful than we expected in the first year, so we were able to prepare a little bit better for this year. And while it is the tremendous partnership, I really can’t look at it and say, "That’s the reason why we drove Black Friday," or, "That’s the reason why we’re seeing the decreases." Our November trend is based on a much broader assortment than that.

But of course, all of these licenses and everything that we do to appeal to different consumer groups for different purposes and even our growth outside the United States is helpful in the achievement of those objectives. And Black Friday. In fact, one of the interesting things about Black Friday is, I believe Eric mentioned earlier, is these jumbos. We had a really great—we did do a promotion as we just walked through, like, "Why can we?" But we don’t. But I mean, clearly, you have to participate in what the consumer expects on a Black Friday, but very limited promotion on that in some ways to introduce people to the aspect of these jumbos. And that was a big success for us on Black Friday. But the tail, to your question of licensed products, particularly related to films, I’m going to apologize upfront. It’s such a wide variety.

They’re almost like snowflakes. I mean, there isn’t that much of a predictability on exactly how the consumer will react. Now, we have a lot more information when it’s a sequel like we did with Wicked, and that’s a known entity. So that one, we expect we have a little more latitude, and those are a little more stretchy. But literally, unless the film’s a big hit, if it’s an unknown, you try to calculate and manage your risk on that. We do a pretty good job.

Greg Gibas/Steve Silver/Keegan Cox, Analysts, Northland Securities/Argus Research/D.A. Davidson: Okay. I appreciate the color. And one more, if I may. It was a very interesting concept, the idea of expanding to a second Build-A-Bear location in these initial malls. I think you’d mentioned American Dream and Mall of America. So given the fact that Build-A-Bear would then have a multiple presence in some of these large malls, I’m curious as to whether that plays into any leverage from Build-A-Bear just in terms of lease terms given the existing presence and the contribution that Build-A-Bear is already making to some of these locations.

Sharon John, Chief Executive Officer, Build-A-Bear Workshop: Yeah. That’s a great question. I mean, obviously, the more revenue you’re driving and the more foot traffic you participate or create with any of our great mall partners, it does create another bullet point of communication and possible leverage, if you want to call it that. But our biggest, I would say, opportunity there is just continuing to work with these partners, particularly given that 60, 70, up to 80%, depending on how you think about it or some of our research, of our guests are coming to Build-A-Bear that happens to be in a mall versus coming to the mall and stumbling into a Build-A-Bear. That destination-driven marketing and the experience that we provide is now the hallmark of what most retailers are looking for.

We are often credited with being a pioneer in that space, and that’s a big asset for us as an organization, as a company. And we realize that, and so do our partners. So that’s probably our largest contribution. And many of the discussions that we have with malls is that we believe we’re part of the solution of people returning to in-person shopping and mall shopping, as do our partners, which is why we are getting a second location into the biggest destination-based retail concepts in the United States.

Greg Gibas/Steve Silver/Keegan Cox, Analysts, Northland Securities/Argus Research/D.A. Davidson: Great. Sounds exciting. And best of luck as well for the rest of the holiday season.

Sharon John, Chief Executive Officer, Build-A-Bear Workshop: Thank you.

Conference Operator: As a reminder, it is Star One on your telephone keypad if you would like to ask a question. Our next question is from Keegan Cox with D.A. Davidson. Please proceed.

Speaker 7: Good morning.

Sharon John, Chief Executive Officer, Build-A-Bear Workshop: Morning.

Speaker 7: Morning. Yeah. I was just curious on what you guys said with respect to the slowdown you saw with the government shutdown. I’m just wondering, did you see a trade-down from your customer, like a makeshift towards lower price point products like Mini Beans? And then kind of continuing on that theme, how that spend shaped on kids versus kind of your adult customer?

Voin Todorovic, Chief Financial Officer, Build-A-Bear Workshop: Yeah. So thanks, Keegan, for the question. And as I mentioned in my prepared remarks, definitely, we saw some strength in our business the first two months of the quarter. Then October, we had a little bit of a slowdown in traffic. And there are a few things that were happening at that time. Definitely, there was some noise related to the government shutdown. In addition to that, last year, we had an introduction of, for us at that time, new licensed Bluey that performed really well for us and did help drive traffic last year. So that compounded some of the traffic challenges that we were facing this time around. And as we talked about, we had a softer finish to the Q3, but we rebounded in November, and we are seeing some positive momentum. As Sharon talked about, best Black Friday in our history.

So some of those things, it is really difficult to point out specifically what’s happening. But we are seeing growth in Mini Beans sold over 3 million units sold or, sorry, approaching 3 million units sold with that particular property. But in addition to that, we are selling these giants to our consumer at over $100 price point. So we are getting to a lot of different consumers. And I don’t think that’s necessarily impacting us in a negative way. Our dollar per transactions continue to grow, and we are pleased with that. Our conversion is strong. So those are things that we believe are within our control. But definitely, there are concerns and challenges when we think from the macro environment and things that we always say, things that are outside of our control. We are trying to mitigate. We are trying to manage our expenses.

We still feel good about the guidance that we have provided on a full-year basis to deliver the fifth consecutive record year in our history.

Speaker 7: Got it. And then listening to just some of your competitor calls and some Black Friday store checks, they mentioned they’re taking share in plush, and I saw that in some stores. I know you guys mostly benchmark against yourself, but as we think about the Mini Beans opportunity, I mean, what interests you about wholesaling that product in other retailers and taking on that competition?

Voin Todorovic, Chief Financial Officer, Build-A-Bear Workshop: Yeah. So definitely, that’s one of those areas that when we think about what’s happening with our stores, what’s happening with Mini Beans, as I mentioned, we are approaching three million units sold in our stores. And that portion of those sales are also in other retail channels. So we are selling some of that to wholesale accounts. That’s definitely an area of opportunity for us. And we believe there is a lot of white space as we move forward. But as we think about the overall plush sales and everything, I can’t comment on how other people and what their performance is. But I’ll again reiterate, it’s a fifth consecutive year of record results for us. So year after year, yeah, we continue to beat our revenue goals, our margin goals. So we are pleased with the progress that we are making.

But there is still some white space for us as we look to the future, especially in the wholesale channels.

Sharon John, Chief Executive Officer, Build-A-Bear Workshop: Yeah, and I’ll just add a little bit to that. I mean, while we’re really pleased with our growth from experiential retail location expansion, I think Chris mentioned to 651 locations around the globe now, the expansion into new retail environments that offers up literally thousands of doors that Build-A-Bear would otherwise not have a presence in, where it’s not necessary to go through the experience that created us. But because that experience is so emotional and so memorable, it creates a halo effect. That brand and the brand equity stretches beyond the workshop walls, and Mini Beans is an example of that in that people understand that this is going to be a quality product. They think of it as it has the branded equity with it. So it’s not just another plush on the shelf. It’s Build-A-Bear.

So when you think about what is the essence of the competition, well, we believe that the Mini Beans carry that branded aspect that benefits it in that space. And we are seeing that from early sales, both, of course, inside the Build-A-Bear Workshop, as I noted, but in some of the early stages outside of the Workshop as well.

Speaker 7: Thank you.

Conference Operator: There are no further questions at this time. I would like to turn the conference back over to Sharon for closing remarks.

Sharon John, Chief Executive Officer, Build-A-Bear Workshop: Thank you for being on the call today. And we certainly appreciate everyone joining us to hear our third quarter results and look forward to sharing our fourth quarter results with you next year. In closing, we wish you and your families a very happy holiday and a wonderful New Year.

Conference Operator: Thank you. This will conclude today’s conference. You may disconnect at this time, and thank you for your participation.

This article was generated with the support of AI and reviewed by an editor. For more information see our T&C.