Here is why the Build-A-Bear workshop is booming even though the difficulties at retail

For the friends of Cammie Craycroft, 26, the perfect birthday activity this summer was a group trip to Build-A-Bear workshop.

Craycroft said that she and her friends had grown up at the retailer, who is known for her experiential shopping product where customers can choose their animal in a plush, then choose their outfits, accessories and more.

“Build-A-Bear means a lot for me. I had so many birthday parties in Build-A-Bear,” Craycroft told CNBC. “It’s really a nostalgic place, and I have so many happy memories there.”

The company has recently targeted adults like Craycroft as it diversifies its portfolio and looks at the brand’s nostalgia. Despite the macroeconomic opposite winds, the company recorded record income in the first half for the fiscal 2025, reaching $ 252.6 million, an increase of almost 12% compared to the period of the previous year.

And in its report on the results of the second quarter at the end of August, the retailer increased its prospects after the success of its prices attenuation strategies – namely, increasing its inventory in the first quarter while operating by assuming that the prices would increase prices.

Build-A-Bear shares are up to approximately 60% of a billion dollars, even if other retailers are struggling to recover the losses of tariffs.

Founded in 1997, the company focused on planning scenarios and the guarantee of its brand faithful to its nostalgic roots while adapting to constantly evolving macroenvironnement, according to CEO Sharon Price John, which resumed the company in 2013.

Although “the retail apocalypse” means that retailers have seen less pedestrian traffic in shopping centers in the last decade, John said that Build-A-Bear has evolved to be “so much more” than a simple showcase. The company has diversified its positions beyond shopping centers in cruise ships, amusement parks, hospitality and more.

“It is a truly emotional and memorable experience that creates a huge amount of equity,” John told CNBC. “These strong feelings that consumers have for brands are very extensible beyond this experience.”

With more than 600 stores in 32 countries, the company has explored new options to offer its signature experience in different ways, especially expanding with a multitude of international stores and by creating a range of “mini-haricots”, which are smaller and pre-toys.

John attributed the success of the company to its prospective strategies. Although Build-A-Bear imports a “vast majority” of its products from China and Vietnam, John said that the pricing impacts were not as drastic as they could have been because the company provided in advance.

“Success is not an accident, and it often takes years to plan to be able to resist difficult situations,” said John.

But the success of the basic brand of the company goes beyond the simple caretaker of the clean assessment, she added.

“The other piece is that I think we are in the right place at the right time,” said John. “There is a lot of planning, but sometimes it turns out that you are in the right Zeitgeist. The gift is in the zeitgeist,` `kidulting ” is part of the zeitgeist, personalization is part of the zeitgeist, is going back to the right things of comfort.”

Da Davidson’s analyst Keegan Cox said there are a multitude of reasons that Build-A-Bear has experienced even growth that macroenvironnement shows signs of potential economic slowdown.

One of the factors that help the company, said Cox, is its ability to “discreetly” increase the prices of certain articles without customers noticing, because it constantly creates new products to stick to the current trends that are evaluated differently.

“No consumer can really say it, because there is no direct comparable product,” he told CNBC. “I think it is a good little strategy of attenuation of the prices that has just built in their model.”

COX said that the company’s diversified source of income, between new products and new demographic data, helped it remain afloat and succeeded. The analyst said he saw “the momentum” in the company, especially since it increases the inventory before the holiday season.

Its expansion in international stores has been a particularly effective tool, he added.

“In my opinion, these stores are simply a return to super high capital, and there is a big track for growth which, I think, finally begins to appear in the course of action,” said Cox.

Craycroft and his friends are an excellent example of one of the most effective strategies of the company: marketing for adults who have grown with the emblematic brand.

During the 26th anniversary party of her best friend, Craycroft said that she and her friends were again felt like children – except that this time, she came prepared with research on Pinterest on the specific aesthetic of the teddy bear that would correspond to her room and her lifestyle.

His golden brown bear, named Bearett, is stylish with a gray checkered pajamas and rabbit slippers.

“All this really reminded me how soft it is and how it can be something that you can connect with people,” she said. “But it’s also fun and silly.”

Craycroft and his friends are not the only ones to look at the brand. After making a tiktok on her adult relationship with the toy company, she said that she had seen most of her opinions on the video came from people looking for “build-a-bear” on the application.

According to a recent survey by Build-A-Bear, 92% of adults still have their bear in a childhood plush, and almost 100% of respondents said that animal animals were for all ages, not just children.

The nostalgia for build-a-bear for its older customers, and those who want to continue it for the next generation, is a huge factor in the permanent driving of sales, according to the marketing professor at the University of Pennsylvania, American Reed.

“If we learn something from the Cracker Barrel saga,” said Reed, referring to the turmoil on the Internet on the attempt at the Change Change Chain, “is that nostalgia counts, and I think it’s a large part of this.”

In what has become an economy of “attention deficit”, with a plethora of options available for consumers at any time, Reed said that Build-A-Bear’s ability to rely on its existing footprint while innovating its digital presence and on social networks has helped it to keep its attention among consumers of all ages.

Due to the “ritual” experience of purchasing an animal in a plush in Build-A-Bear, Reed said that the brand’s identity becomes closely linked to customers.

“While you work to assemble something and personalize it, you essentially create this extension of yourself, and it’s incredibly powerful,” said Reed. “And then you go home, and you can think about it and look at it. It’s really difficult to reproduce.”

Reed added that Build-A-Bear has become a good example of the way to effectively build a brand that creates deeper relationships with its consumers than others, creating a feeling of loyalty.

“The pressure to create something special enough to unravel the type of attention of attention deficit will be the pressure test of which will succeed in the future,” he said. “They will have the most traction.”