The 3,000-square-foot boutique was
designed to test the waters in the Honolulu market to see if the market
could support a permanent American Girl store. About one-third the size
of American Girl’s regular stores, the shop at the Ala Moana Center
opened last October and closed in April.
The site was intended to be temporary from the start, Parks said, “to
determine the success/viability of an American Girl store in the
Hawaiian market, a top tourist destination.”
She said the company
was “pleased with the overall performance” but has no plans at this
point to set up a permanent American Girl store in Hawaii.
The store, which is located on the
second level of the mall’s Ewa Wing between Kate Spade New York and Ben
Bridge Timeworks, is scheduled to close on April 26 or earlier,
depending on how its closing sale goes.
The Wisconsin-based company opened stores in Arizona and Tennessee last year, and expanded into Canada in October 2013.
The company has sold more than 147
million American Girl books and more than 25 million dolls since its
inception in 1986, according to its website.
The American Girl catalog is one of
the largest consumer toy catalogs in the United States, and ranks as one
of the top 30 consumer catalogs in the country.
I feel very sad for the girls in Hawaii.
ReplyDeleteToo bad I am going to Hawaii this summer and I was looking forward to go to ag guess not 😢
ReplyDeleteI was really lucky to have been able to visit Oahu Hawaii last November, a trip in planning for almost 2 years. When I found out American Girl were opening a store there, (just for my visit), I was over the moon. The staff were really lovely, and patient with a mad 40 something Aussie, confession - I visited 4 times. Hopefully American Girl will make a permanent home on the island, there's a lovely glass front, multistorey building in Waikiki that would be perfect, I'm sure the current tenants would move out.
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