The Party Must Go On: Party City Finds a New Home at Staples

Party City and Staples announced a partnership this week that will bring Party City balloons, décor, and party supplies into more than 700 Staples stores and onto Staples.com by year-end. The assortment includes balloons, décor, tableware, gift bags, costume accessories, and favors, while Staples adds its existing print services for invitations, banners, yard signs, and posters. The balloon offering is central to the concept: Staples stores will carry a range of helium-filled latex and foil balloons, and customers will be able to schedule balloon pickup through Staples.com and the Staples app.

The partnership also arrives during a critical arc for the challenged party supply company. Party City filed for Chapter 11 in late 2024, its second bankruptcy in less than two years, after first entering bankruptcy court in 2023 and emerging in September 2023 with roughly $1 billion of debt eliminated. By December 2024, Bloomberg reported that sales were lagging, the company was behind on rent at some locations, and running out of cash. By the start of 2025, New Amscan, an affiliate of Ad Populum, purchased Party City’s intellectual property and wholesale operations for $20 million.

Staples, meanwhile, has been operating in a category that has been under pressure as Amazon and e-commerce have chipped away at the office supply superstore model over the years. According to NRF’s 2025 Top 100 Retailers ranking, Staples generated $6.0 billion in U.S. retail sales in 2024, down 5% from the prior year. Staples still operates a sizable 900+ store base and has spent years expanding beyond traditional office supplies into print, shipping, technical support, and business services. Bringing Party City into the store gives Staples another reason to drive foot traffic, particularly for celebration occasions that already overlap naturally with its print business.

Image Source: Staples

That overlap is what makes the partnership strategically appealing for both sides. Party City gets back into brick-and-mortar retail without taking on the cost, labor, and real estate risk of reopening a full fleet of standalone stores. Staples gains a traffic-driving category that fits logically alongside invitations, signs, posters, and other event-related printing. Graduation parties, birthdays, baby showers, office celebrations, and grand openings all create the same broader shopping mission that could drive additional customers to Staples stores. Together, they create a more compelling reason to visit than either might on its own.

Image Source: Staples.com

The in-store balloon offering is a critical differentiator for the partnership. Party supplies broadly have become much easier to buy elsewhere, whether through Amazon, Temu, dollar stores, or mass merchants. Balloons are different. A balloon bouquet or garland is fragile, space-consuming, awkward to transport, and time-sensitive in a way that plasticware, paper plates, and party hats are not. Sure, you can place an order for balloons online, but the logistics of getting those balloons to the customer in good condition, at the right time, and at a reasonable cost are much harder to solve. Party City’s bankruptcy also left a meaningful gap in the market for on-demand party balloons, creating an opening for supermarkets and dollar stores, even though most lack the staffing and expertise to execute more elaborate balloon bouquets and garlands. That makes balloons one of the last truly defensible categories in party retail, and a logical category for Party City to anchor its physical presence around.

Case in point: I went to Party City during the 2024 graduation season to pick up a balloon bouquet, and the parking lot alone was a spectacle. Picture multiple customers trying to wedge oversized balloons – and their kids – into their sedans and minivans, with varying degrees of success. It was chaotic and amusing, but also a good reminder that balloons are one of those categories where the last mile is not nearly as simple as having an Amazon box show up neatly on your doorstep.

Image Source: McMillanDoolittle. The author’s SUV after picking up balloons at Party City while en route to hosting a baby shower.

More broadly, the partnership reflects the pressure both businesses are under to find new ways to differentiate as competition intensifies and macro pressures persist. Party City has been challenged because much of the party supply category is now easier and often cheaper to buy elsewhere. Staples has spent years trying to lure customers back into its stores as digital competition eroded the old office supply playbook. Placing Party City inside Staples is not a silver bullet for either company, but it is a pragmatic move that leans into what physical retail can still do well: urgency, service, customization, and categories that remain hard to ship. The timing does not hurt either, with the rollout landing just ahead of graduation season, when balloons and custom signage are top of mind for families and organizations alike.

If the first era of convenience was about having everything under one roof, the next one may be more selective, with routine items shifting online while stores focus on higher service, harder-to-ship, or more immediate, occasion-driven needs. In that sense, Party City at Staples feels less like a novelty and more like a practical sign of where brick-and-mortar retail may be headed.

How are you thinking about strategic partnerships, in-store experience, and service-led traffic drivers in your own business? McMillanDoolittle helps retailers and brands rethink concepts, footprints, and customer experience for the next phase of growth. Contact us to learn more.