Traded as NZX: PPL Profit NZ$25.5 million (2010) Founder Sally R. Synnott Number of locations 218 (2009) | Area served Worldwide Headquarters Auckland, New Zealand Founded 1990 Number of employees 2,000 | |
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Key people Peter Schuyt (Chairman)
Luke Bunt (CEO) as of August 2015. Products Brands: Urban Angel Girls, Charlie&me, Patch General Store, Patch Maternity Revenue NZ$381.9 million (2010) CEO Luke Nicholas Elias Bunt (3 Aug 2015–) Subsidiaries Pumpkin Patch (australia) Pty Limited Profiles | ||
Pumpkin Patch was a childrenswear retailer based in Auckland, New Zealand established in 1990 that mostly focused on the design, marketing, retail, and wholesale of children’s clothing. It employed over 2,000 people and had company-owned retail stores in New Zealand, Australia and Ireland as well as distribution agreements in Asia, the Middle East, the United Kingdom and the United States. The company also sold its products online.
In 2015, Pumpkin Patch was voted by Australian shoppers as providing the best customer service in their category of clothing and sport stores. The company rated the highest in the survey for customer satisfaction at 92%.
The firm also received a Highly Recommended in the Essential Baby Awards 2015 in the "best maternity and babywear clothing brand" category.
Pumpkin Patch has a long term partnership with charity organisation Cure Kids and has raised over $600,000 since the partnership began in 2006 to help save, improve and extend the lives of thousands of young children with life-threatening illnesses.
Since 2014, the firm has experienced declining revenues and margin compression due to competition. In response, it closed a number of unprofitable stores, withdrew from some overseas markets, and cut other costs. It temporarily breached some of its banking covenants in 2015 but has since renegotiated those. It went into receivership in October 2016.
The receivers put their Dublin, Ireland stores into liquidation on Saturday 2 December 2016 and let all their staff go on the spot without paying their last week's wages. But after the staff refused to leave the store and carried out a sit-in, the receivers agreed to pay them in cash.