The Decline of Party City...What Happened?

The country's biggest party store is shutting down. This video discusses the company's history while attempting to identify five main reasons behind its decline.

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Company Declines:
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[bug]

I'm a store manager at party city and it was a shock when we got the we had just received new equipment for the store and new training for associates.... then merry Christmas we're

[christinescreativitycabine]

You didn't mention Dollar Tree as a competitor. Dollar Tree has a huge selection of party supplies, balloons, greeting cards, gift wrap, and holiday decorations, all for $1.25. They're good quality, too. For many people, they are the go-to store in this category.

[OrthwormJEB]

I feel bad for the employees that work in Party City. Imagine hearing that you're losing your job around the holiday season. I wish all those affected by this luck on finding a new job.

[adraino]

Rebrand as a novelty liquor store and call it After Party.

[gromithere]

I think people underestimate just how much Party City relied on balloons. As a former Party City store manager, I can attest that many stores were QUITE busy and balloons accounted for a large portion of that. It was definitely the behind the scenes actions of the private equity firms that killed Party City.

[MeganTako]

I was a director in their corporate offices and found out on that it was my last day on Friday, along with 400 or so other people via email… at 4 am pst. No notice, no legally owed severance. We had a very strong Halloween and had been seeing y/y growth on the ecommerce side. We found out that the executive team knew they had no choice but to close 10 days prior.

[companyman]

Hope everyone has a great holiday today. I appreciate you spending a little part of it here.

[IraJavier]

My family had party store late 90s early 2000s. Party City opened and took a majority of our customers. To compete, we delivered for more than 24 balloon or over $50, gave customers an oversized plastic bag to protect their balloons and essentially a baker's dozen in case a balloon popped in the car. We did personalized invitations too and souvenir/giveaways. We decorated for weddings/bdays parties. We worked with local caterers, flower stors and cake shops.

Still it was rough and we closed mid 2000s. I can't imagine how our business would have gone with digital invitations, helium prices, ban of plastic bags (in our city), and fuel cost/inflation.

[joeboggio]

The doom words: "Private equity."

[nknasi]

Surprise, surprise, another company laid to waste by the vultures of private equity saddling a company with unsustainable debt just to give themselves a fat dividend to buy another yacht with. It's disgusting and should be illegal.

[Riverbend]

It's so sad that private equity can come in, milk a company for everything it has, killing it in the process, and then just walk away with profit. There needs to be some sort of change to stop this, but I'm not knowledgeable enough to know how to go about that, plus the private equity firms can spend a lot of those profits on lobbying to ensure they can continue their methods.

[Chaosrunepownage]

The sudden bankruptcy can be seen at my local store: they had a sign on the door saying "now hiring!" and right above it "store closing! everything 50% off!"

Curse private equity firms.

[KillteeLenny]

Spirit licking it's lips right now

[pankfibsh]

im currently working for party city so i guess i have some unique perspective, one of the things that threw everyone here for a loop is that in august, we started doing renovations at many of our locations in NY. At somepoint around october the new CEO was supposed to come around to our stores to inspect them (he never made it to my store there was always some excuse as to why) amd apparently he didnt like some of the renovations in our sister stores, so they were going to do another renovation on top of it. we all found out thursday, my Store team lead found out at like 8-9am and was nearly crying the entire time, and one girl from corporate came in a few days later saying that everyone was just laid off as they found out. all i know is we're still doing online orders (no delivery) until january 2nd and wether we have stock left or not we are completely closing our doors on feburary 28th. if anyone else has any more questions about it i can try and answer but seeing as im not from corporate i dont have a more full picture

[MxCartney_Lou]

You should do Big Lots for the next installment

[JonFlores]

As a kid of the 90s, visiting Party City during the Halloween season was always my favorite thing to do. The ENTIRE store was head to toe Halloween, fog machines blasting, Spooky music through the intercoms, and once you got to the back section you could smell the latex from the ceiling high mask display. It helped me become the holiday fanatic I am today.

Went to a Party City a handful of months ago and was sad to see the state of it. Not only did everything just clearly seem as leftover and not taken care of, but the prices for what are mostly one-time-use products were beyond insane. . If you go 10 minutes down the road, there is a local party supply store that damn near captured the same feeling I had as a kid. Their prices are genuinely reasonable, and it feels FUN in there.

I'll miss the Party City I knew as a child, and oddly grateful for the impact it made on my life.

[skrachvynl]

To think that you have been doing this for so long, we can see in real time videos you've made about the rise and fall, years apart. Happy holidays! I'm looking forward to 2025.

[derekofbaltimore]

Dammit man. This one hit hard. I worked there for 21years and have a lot of friends still there who will soon be jobless...

[marcushickey]

Please do a Big Lots update since they are close to closing. My wife has worked there for the past 12 years.

[brandoniswhoiam]

For those who wanna still go to Party City, Canada still has them… due to being owned by Canadian Tire.