Disney Considers selling off Disney Stores

[Tagrel]

Read about it here:

Disney's Retail Stores Continue to Struggle (http://www.smartmoney.com/bn/ON/index.cfm?story=ON-20030516-000050-0045)

[cockermom]

Is this one of those "vicious circles?" I'm sure the decision to cut back and more recently eliminate (at least at our local Disney Store) adult merchandise from the stores was a financial one. But for those of us without little ones in the family, all they ended up eliminating was a major reason to shop there. :(

Would really hate to see them close.

Barbara

[Esmerelda]

I would hate to see them close, but I have to admit, I think they committed their own downfall by recent decisions! There really isn't any compelling reason to go there anymore unless you have a young child that can still fit in the clothes. I would miss being able to purchase disney dollars though!

[LimeGreenCheri]

The can't close my Disney Store!! I buy at least $50 disney dollars everyweek. It they close them, how will I save? I think they need to sell ABC! all the mess started when they bought ABC in the first place. But, did they ask me? no. oh well

[MissBianca]

First, I agree totally with everything that has been said. There have been a lot of stupid decisions going on...

With respect to the Disney Store, they overexpanded and are competing with themselves right and left. As with many cool specialty stores, the one Disney Store in Seattle used to be a destination! It made the mall it was in special, and it served a large population. Well, once it was in every mall in the area, it wasn't special. Not only that, but the quality of the merchandise went down (have to be cheap enough to sell stuff in the lower end malls) and the stock had to turn over more often (because I'd walk past it every month or so).

Plus now they're competing directly with more accessible sales locations like the web and the catalog.

A lot of stores have done this--like Pottery Barn, FAO Schwartz, LL Bean. Don't they understand that they lose the cachet of their brand name by spamming it everywhere? And now every shopping area in America looks exactly the same and I've lost one of the things I used to do for fun on vacation :(

[Ursulinda]

Every mall looks exactly the same so there's no need to go in ANY of them! And as for the Disney Store - I haven't bought anything but discounted pins in there in a couple years - I used to visit at least once a month. They don't even sell adult socks!