More than 14,000 children have celebrated their birthday at craft retailer Michaels, said Heather Bennett, executive vice president, marketing and ecommerce at Michaels, at the Shoptalk Fall conference in Chicago in October.
And she knows there is room for growth. After a successful pilot in Canada in 2023, Michaels debuted birthday parties in the U.S. in March. Michaels used to offer classes for adults, and so all stores already have a room available for a party.
The two-hour, $299 party includes: a themed evite, three crafts with all of the supplies, an employee to prepare the room, lead the crafts and clean the event, plates, napkins, cutlery and party hats. Party throwers also can add items, such as food, beverages, goodie bags and balloons that Michaels will take care of.
The retailer also has an adult flavor of this initiative, called “Make and Mingle,” in which a consumer can reserve the room and have a crafting party with friends.
One of the learnings from the Canadian pilot was getting the technology right to make this process easy, Bennett said. After using a third-party vendor, Michaels built its own technology for the party booking process.
Adding more features for Michaels’ birthday parties
The retail chain is looking to add even features for this in-store experience, such as an integrated invitation, Bennett told Multichannel Marketer in an interview at the show.
Currently, the party host books the event, invites their guests and tells Michaels how many guests are coming. The retailer is working on allowing hosts to create a wish list of Michaels’ products and for hosts to share guest information. This would allow Michaels to share the wish list with birthday party guests. If guests purchase a gift from the list, Michaels would then have it wrapped and waiting in the party room on the day.
“One of the pain points in birthday parties is having to go find that last minute birthday present, bring it to the birthday party and wrap it, and you’re always running around last second,” Bennett said. “That is an example of a way that we would use that information to actually take away some pain from the birthday party guests having to go find a present.”
Currently, Michaels does not track if birthday party guests and attendees are shopping when they attend the event, although Bennett said they are.
Hosting in-person events is a good idea, and will help drive community around the brand, said Paula Rosenblum, co-founder and managing partner at retail consulting firm RSR Research
“Omnichannel or not, the goal with low margin products like Michaels sells has to be to drive store traffic,” she said. “The revenue will come once shoppers are in the store.”
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