Pumpkin Patch will be revived as a mostly online business after the owner of Australian e-commerce store CatchOfTheDay bought the collapsed children clothing retailer's brand and intellectual assets.
Catch Group, which also owns online businesses Scoopon, GroceryRun and Mumgo, plans to relaunch Pumpkin Patch's online business in Australia and New Zealand by July and to gradually open a small number of brick and mortar stores.
Pumpkin Patch collapsed into receivership in October and all its 124 Australian stores were closed by March after receiver KordaMentah was unable to find a buyer.
Now, Catch Group has announced it has bought the intellectual rights, local and international trademarks, database of customers and product designs for an undisclosed sum.
Catch Group chief executive Nati Harpaz said the company was working on new apparel designs for infants to eight year olds; Pumpkin Patch's traditional market before it expanded to include teenagers.
"One of their mistakes was to increase the range, from zero to eight, to zero to 14 when it wasn't necessarily a place 13- and 14-year-olds wanted to walk into," Mr Harpaz told AAP.
"Pumpkin Patch is a great brand loved by many Australians and New Zealanders and it had a great following but at some point it lost its way."
Mr Harpaz said big stores, a large corporate structure, massive overheads, expensively priced apparel and stiffer competition, including from the likes of international retailers H&M and Zara, all played a part in its financial collapse.
Even so, he said, the brand had not been tarnished.
Similar to Zara, Catch Group would outsource some of its design work to agencies that specialise in fashion, rather than doing it just in-house, to ensure its clothing was in sync with the latest trends, Mr Harpaz said.
The group also plans to eventually have 15 to 20 small-format brick and mortar stores, including possible concession outlets inside large department stores.
