Kid Chic: KooKoo Bear Targets High-End Children’s Furniture Market

All moms want their children’s bedrooms to be special. For some, that means taking the tykes to Target and letting them choose between the Spider-Man, Dora or SpongeBob sheets.

But for style conscious moms, that means outfitting the room in fully coordinated high-end furniture, bedding and accessories. These upscale mamas, who might not blink at spending $30,000 to deck the halls, are the target audience for Roswell, GA-based KooKoo Bear Kids.

Mediate founded the catalog with his partners, who were previously with Saks and Ballard Design. The company mailed its first catalog in July 2003 and has a current circulation of over 2 million.

While one might think that retailers like Pottery Barn Kids are KooKoo Bear’s competition, Mediate says instead that its small upscale boutiques that are vying for his customers’ dollars. That’s because his audience is interested in more unique items that what a mall chain could offer.

The company came out of the gate “like gangbusters” in 2003-2004, and initially, grew a little too quickly. “If you grow too fast your sales outstrip your capacity to do operational things like make product, put it in the box and ship it,” says Mediate.

In the next two years, KooKoo Bear scaled back both circulation and marketing a bit, to build up the operation side of the business. “We didn’t feel like we were giving the customer service we needed to give,” he says. “Now, if an order comes in the morning it usually ships that afternoon. Before, we might have had a four or five day lag, just because we couldn’t keep up with the order flow.”

One challenge the company faces is finding quality products that are ahead of the trends in color and style. The catalog strives to offer its own private label stock side by side with designer products.

Boy’s products, in particular, are difficult to find. Mediate has three quality control testers for those items in his own home, three sons ages 11, 10 and 7.

KooKoo Bear Kids plans to triple the size of its one existing retail location in Georgia, and plans to slowly open other retail stores in strategic spots around the country. But for now, the Internet plays a large role in the brand’s promotion.

The company’s Web site hosts a blog where Mediate says the company connects with consumers, giving updates about new products and promotions such a sweepstakes in conjunction with the Nickelodeon movie “Are We Done Yet?” The winner receives a $2000 gift certificate for a room makeover.

For the 2006 holiday season, sales were up 144% over 2005, with online sales up 67%. Search terms like kids furniture and kids bedding regularly place KooKoo on the first page of Google, which helps the small cataloger compete with bigger firms.

For more on KooKoo Bear Kids and the world of small catalogs, see the May issue of Direct magazine.