Books-A-Million had 72 hours to weigh 700 Party City stores. It came away with 5 prime locations.

Bookstore chain · 260 stores · Birmingham, AL

Where they started

Party City declared bankruptcy in December 2024. BAM had less than 72 hours to evaluate 700 prime retail locations and determine bid values before the auction closed. Traditional analysis would have taken weeks.

GrowthFactor’s team ran this analysis for BAM, before the platform existed.

What they did, step by step

Step 1
Emergency activation
Team mobilized within hours of bankruptcy announcement
Step 2
Every site analyzed
All 700 Party City locations measured against BAM's success criteria
Step 3
Pattern matching
Compared each site to BAM's top 25% performing stores
Step 4
Competitive mapping
Identified sites with low bookstore competition + strong retail synergies
Step 5
Bid recommendations
Data-driven pricing for auction strategy
Step 6
Real-time support
Instant analysis as auction dynamics evolved

Before and after

Projected 18-month payback on all 5 locations. Competitors were still gathering basic data when BAM had already closed.

~700

Party City sites analyzed in 72 hours.

Prime locations secured, in two new markets with zero cannibalization.

$3M+

Saved by not overbidding on 15 sites that missed the criteria.

85%

Faster than the analysis would have taken by hand.

“GrowthFactor accelerated our team's new store site selection process, allowing the team to expedite the review of hundreds of potential sites as part of a complex bankruptcy auction.”