Oriental Trading Company, a party supplies merchant, announced on June 27 it has acquired MindWare, a retailer of educational toys for children.
Oriental Trading Company CEO Sam Taylor said Mindware will continue to operate as a stand-alone business.
Taylor said MindWare products will continue to be sold on the MindWare company website and through its catalogs along with independent specialty and mass retailers.
MindWare will also be featured on Orientaltrading.com and the Oriental Trading Company catalogs, according to Taylor.
The company said its plan is to integrate the products on a smaller scale later this fall.
MindWare CEO Martin Smith said they are very excited about this acquisition.
“We think [Oriental Trading Company] is going to be a very good partner for MindWare, they have a huge customer file, they have a first class fulfillment operation and customer service center,” said Smith.
Smith said MindWare will be transferring their own fulfillment operations to the Oriental Trading Company facility over time, the company expects to do this before the holiday season.
“I think we’ll be able to invest a little bit more heavily in product development adding some positions,” said Smith. “I am pretty excited about it. It gives [MindWare] a stable home, a parent who is purely interested in what MindWare represents and prepare in its future growth.”
Smith added, they did look at other possible acquisition opportunities but found that Oriental Trading Company was clearly the frontrunner in the industry.