Build-A-Bear Workshop Unveils New Store Design
September 28, 2012
St. Louis-based Build-A-Bear Workshop Inc. has opened its first newly designed store at West County Center in St. Louis. The store is one of six that the company will open this year in select markets across the United States. Build-A-Bear Workshop spent the last two years creating the newly imagined store design that merges the hands-on bear-making experience with innovative technology that is central to how kids play today. The updated store allows customers to personalize the bear-making process and offers them a different experience each time they visit a Build-A-Bear Workshop store. While the Build-A-Bear Workshop signature process remains at its core, the new store design includes the addition of sensory and technological features, as well as an interactive storefront with digital signage that customers can touch and interact with, and which will change with the seasons and holidays.
The store design consists of multiple stations with new features, including "Choose Me" where stuffed animals are now at kid height for interaction; "Love Me," which allows shoppers to customize the toys with special personality attributes displayed as emoticons on an interactive table; and "Hear Me" has an interactive touchscreen to choose customized sounds and music that can be inserted into the stuffed animal. The "Stuff Me" station now allows shoppers to customize their animal with an assortment of scents, while "Fluff Me" features a digital bath tub with virtual bubbles and other sensory effects. The "Dress Me" station is now organized by theme and includes "Match Me" technology for recommendations, and the "Name Me" station allows shoppers to view the special attributes added to the animal using a special viewfinder, or "bear-o-scope." Lastly, the remodeled "Take Me Home" station now resembles the Build-A-Bear Workshop Cub Condo.
Build-A-Bear Workshop plans to open other new concept stores this year in Pleasanton, Calif.; Annapolis, Md.; Troy, Mich.; Fairfax, Va.; and Indianapolis.
