• by Tanya Gazdik , December 22, 2014

Homemaker and businesswoman extraordinaire Martha Stewart is offering holiday-themed items via her alliances with a large assortment of major retailers including Petsmart, Macy’s, JCPenney, Michaels, JoAnn Fabric, Staples, Amazon.com and The Home Depot.

The extensive product lines, available nationwide, aim to make holiday decorating, gifting, and entertaining festive and memorable.

For the pet lover, Martha Stewart Pets at PetSmart offers a variety of themed pet apparel, toys, bowls, beds, and collars for the holidays as well as every day.

One of the pillars of PetSmart’s strategy and what it calls a key competitive advantage is to have exclusive relationships, says George Puro, a White Plains, N.Y.-based analyst who tracks the pet products segment for Packaged Facts.

“This helps attract pet owners to shop for things at PetSmart stores that they can’t find anywhere else,” Puro tells Marketing Daily. “PetSmart doesn’t need to worry about those items selling for less at mass. If a consumer wants that Martha Stewart Pets Shovel & Scoop Waste Kit or that Martha Stewart Pets Chambray Dog Dress, PetSmart is the only place to find it. And if that consumer also buys a few things that they might have found cheaper somewhere else, then PetSmart really wins.”

Consumers respond to a celebrity brand in a retailer if it aligns with what they are expecting from a retailer, says Laura Kennedy, principal analyst with Kantar Retail.

Martha Stewart Living at The Home Depot offers coordinated holiday decorating essentials from wreathes and ornaments to trees and garland, and the “Ask Martha” Home How-To Video Series for creating DIY projects using the Martha Stewart Living at The Home Depot holiday collections.

“We approach it from the point of view of what the Martha (or any name brand) can do for the retailer, as well as vice versa,” she tells Marketing Daily. “In the case of The Home Depot, for example, while the Martha brand in general is still quite strong, it just wasn’t the right fit to be across so many categories and so prominent at HD — since that retailer’s business thrives much more with a pro contractor customer who is not necessarily trafficking as much in the home décor areas of the store. She is still in select categories but her presence is now far lower-profile.”

Other retailers carrying Stewart-branded items include Macy’s, JoAnn Fabric, Michael’s and Amazon.

For the crafter, Michaels, JoAnn Fabric and Craft Stores, and Amazon.com offer Martha Stewart Crafts tools and supplies for packaging holiday treats and making homemade gifts, holiday cards and DIY home décor.

Customers can outfit their homes and entertain guests with tableware, kitchen and food prep essentials, bath, holiday bedding, and pillows and throws from the Martha Stewart Collection at Macy’s.

Although it may seem to shoppers that Martha Stewart-branded products are everywhere they look, it’s not necessarily a detriment to her retailer partners that she’s in many stores.

“In theory, her assortment at PetSmart is different than her paint line at Home Depot,” Kennedy says. “The issue only comes when retailers want to have exclusives when it comes to certain categories. Where JCP and Macy’s have run into trouble (in terms of the various contract disputes) is where they were selling the same types or categories of Martha merchandise.”