60 Disney stores to close

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Brian Lutz
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60 Disney stores to close

Post by Brian Lutz »

https://www.wdwinfo.com/news-stories/at ... -year-end/

Disney is planning to close 60 of their retail stores in North America over the next year as part of a refocus on their online shopping. I've never quite understood what purpose these stores really serve, but the one at Bellevue Square seems pretty popular whenever we're there.
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Re: 60 Disney stores to close

Post by Alpha8472 »

Disney stores seem much more popular with kids these days. Disneyland has been closed since 2020. Toys R Us has been gone for years. Going to a toy store is sort of a treat for many kids since many schools are closed and amusement parks are also closed. Just getting out of the house is nice change in routine.
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Re: 60 Disney stores to close

Post by storewanderer »

A number of years ago, Disney tried to offload these stores as they didn't make any money. They offloaded them to The Children's Place who ran the stores under the same general format as Disney ran them under. As in you wouldn't even know the stores were not owned by Disney.

Eventually The Children's Place wasn't making any money on them either and said they were going to shut them all down. Disney didn't like that too much and took back some of the locations but let some of the other locations close.

For some reason this model of a store well stocked with Disney merchandise and loud blaring Disney movies/music in the place doesn't seem to translate into high sales volumes/profitability. I always saw foot traffic in these stores too and was kind of surprised when the local one closed (it did transition back to Disney from Children's Place, but not for very long) based on the foot traffic I saw but it just must not have done much in sales.

The mall store did not even come close to the assortment of merchandise Disney has in the parks.
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Re: 60 Disney stores to close

Post by Alpha8472 »

The purpose of the stores is more for advertisement than sales. When kids see the Disney store, they immediately start to nag their parents to take them to Disneyland or Disney World. If the store does not have the merchandise, the children will beg their parents to take them to one of the theme parks.

Now that Disneyland is closed, there is less incentive to keep these stores open.

The stores also advertise new Disney movies. Since many theaters are closed, the stores do not increase ticket sales by much these days.
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Re: 60 Disney stores to close

Post by Brian Lutz »

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/sh ... 244550002/

Another 55 Disney Store locations are set to close next month. At the same time, they also announced that over 100 more Disney mini-stores will be opening inside Target stores by the Holiday season (currently there are 53 of these in operation.)

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/sh ... 214032002/
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Re: 60 Disney stores to close

Post by Alpha8472 »

In the San Francisco Bay Area, they are closing 4 of 5 stores. The mall locations and downtown San Francisco are closing. The only one remaining is a store at an outlet shopping center.

The outlet location must have cheaper rent. This will devastate Sunvalley Mall in Concord, California as Macy's and Sears are rumored to be closing. The only anchor will be JCPenney.
Last edited by Alpha8472 on August 24th, 2021, 8:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: 60 Disney stores to close

Post by storewanderer »

Disney tried to sell these stores to Children's Place years ago and they ended up being such a dog for Children's Place that Children's Place said they were going to close all of them. Disney wanted to save face so they went ahead and took some of the stores back and have been operating them ever since. For whatever reason, these stores seem to be perpetually not very well performing.

These stores however did have a very Disney feel, well stocked, festive, and when you went inside they did a great job with the mood. I will be very curious if they can re-create the environment in Target Stores.

Maybe the point of these stores was not to run a profitable retail store but to market Disney and its brand away from Disney Parks, back in the 90's or whenever these stores were envisioned.
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Re: 60 Disney stores to close

Post by buckguy »

They did mostly act as feeders to Disney parks and products, but I'm guessing that they needed to at least break even to justify that. I suspect the only ones that did any real volume are those that had a lot of foreign tourists--Times Square, Miami, etc. Those are the folks who would have Disney shopping bags. It's unlikely that they'll have many of those customers for awhile, but Times Square is open for now, although they closed the ones in Miami.

Disney shops are opening in Target, so that seems to be their replacement for this--not clear how this managed (Target leasing space or acting as contractor) but it seems like a more flexible, lower overhead arrangement for Disney that can still drive traffic to their other businesses.
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Re: 60 Disney stores to close

Post by Brian Lutz »

The Target in Lake Stevens has one of these Disney mini stores in it (it was one of the first to get one if I recall correctly) and it's a relatively small portion of space that was carved out of what used to be the home department (I'd guess 400 square feet) next to the toy department, and sells a variety of Disney merchandise. Most of the department seems to be devoted to merchandise related to Disney and Pixar animated films, and most of the remaining space is Star Wars Merchandise. Marvel doesn't seem to be a focus in this department, and most of the Marvel merchandise seems to remain in the main toy department. There is also little to no clothing in this department, aside from possibly some costumes. The department does maintain some of the multimedia elements of the larger Disney stores, but on a smaller scale.

As far as I can tell, it's treated as just another department within the Target store. I know Target is also partnering with Ulta Beauty, so I'm not sure what their plans for that are. So far it seems to be a department rather than a "store within a store" like the Sephoras inside JCPenney stores.
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Re: 60 Disney stores to close

Post by Alpha8472 »

It is sad that they are closing. These stores started in the 80s and brought a little bit of Disneyland or Disney World to children all over. The Target Disney stores simply do not compare. When you walk into a Disney Store people will go out of their way to help you find something.
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