Pumpkin Patch reborn with Australian deal
Aussie owners eye online market
Pumpkin Patch is set to relaunch this year after it was bought by Australian e- commerce business Catch Group. The Pumpkin Patch brand and its intellectual property, including its customer database, product designs and trademarks, were bought for an amount understood to be about A$2 million ($2.17m) from receivers.
Catch Group, which touts itself as being one of the largest e-commerce sites in Australia, is designing a new Pumpkin Patch range that would be sold online in New Zealand and Australia from mid-year, as well as on some of the brand’s other sites.
According to retail commentators, the move could prove lucrative.
“Pumpkin Patch’s database alone will be quite significant so [ Catch Group] will be able to tap into that,” said First Retail managing director Chris Wilkinson. “Using the informa- tion and data they have from the brand, they’ll be able to focus on the product types and age groups that were successful and they’ll know where the quickest and most profitable wins will be.”
The move has been done before with other legacy retailers, most recently with electronics brand Dick Smith.
When that business went into administration last year, Australian online department store Kogan bought the brand and customer base for A$2.6m.
Kogan relaunched the brand as an online-only business later in the year and in the first two months it was operating, it made A$6.5m in sales.
Managing director of JustONE Ben Goodale said Pumpkin Patch was in no worse state than Dick Smith had been and both had a loyal following.
“When you buy a brand you buy instant recognition of a set of brand values — a memory of what that brand means to you and a promise of what it is offering,” Goodale said.
“The [ Pumpkin Patch] name is well established — it means something. So, backed up by great product and customer experience, it could do well,” he said.
“Having the database is a great start. Dick Smith was bought by Kogan on the same basis and seems to have done relatively well since.” According to the Australian Fin
ancial Review, Catch Group’s chief executive Nati Harpaz was also considering launching flagship Pumpkin Patch stores in key locations.
Harpaz said the “iconic” brand would be relaunched with new and much-loved designs, and the business had plans to invest in expanding its product lines for mums, kids and babies.
“There is a strong history of passion for the Pumpkin Patch brand locally and internationally,” Harpaz said. “As parents of kids who wear and love Pumpkin Patch we couldn’t just sit back and let the brand disappear.”
The retailer, which was founded in 1990, went into receivership in October last year owing around $76m.
Receivers f rom t he f i rm KordaMentha had tried to sell the business as a going concern but had no option other than to liquidate after it received no serious expressions of interest.
Since October, all 160 stores have closed with the loss of about 1400 jobs.