Disney Store progress under Children's Place

[DisneyMickey]

Has anyone heard any news about Disney Store recently? Has much changed since they were bought? What about the in-store merchandise? Is Disney still pumping in the products or has Children's Place completely taken run by now and is handling and designing the stores products?

I did see an add for Disneystore in the latest Disney Magazine publishment. The "store" font has changed a little and above the words "Disneystore" is a new Mickey Mouse logo that sort of resembles the Tokyo DisneySeas Mickey head. At the bottom in tiny print it said something about "Disneystore is not affiliated with the Walt Disney Company" and "Operated and owned By Children's Place..."

Come this fall I hear, there will be Disney's DisneyDirect.com and the DisneyDirect catalog along with the Chidlren's Place operated Disney Stores, Disneystore.com website, and soon-to-be Disney Store outlets. Confused yet?

[Alchimedes]

It seems like the stores have become a discount Disney Store on some items,they do not have the nice art or sculptures like they used to.

[DisneyMickey]

Originally Posted by TicTocDragon

It seems like the stores have become a discount Disney Store on some items,they do not have the nice art or sculptures like they used to.

Unfortunatly, that stuff has been long gone for quite a while. Here's hoping Children's Place can really turn them around. They will never be like they used to be, but hopefully Chidlren's Place can get the quality up from what it has been the past few years.

[cellarhound]

They are a publicly traded company, so they have to file their financials with the SEC...

You can probably keep a tracker on their stock and business news through Yahoo Business (they do some of the best job tracking news stories...)

The Children's Place stock ticker: (PLCE)

Website: http://www.childrensplace.com/
They have an investor relations area where you can download some of this info...

[Cousin Orville]

In 10 years it'll say "Disneylandpark" not affiliated with the Walt Disney Holding Company operated by Pixarparks Inc.

[WDW1974]

The local stores in SoFla have not changed at all, except they are cleaner and better maintained. The merchandise, sadly, is still the mix of WalMart quality toys, plush, princess costumes, kids clothing, plush, coffee mugs, a few uninspired snowglobes, plush, low quality tees, very few items for adults, plush, DVDs, and a few Disney books. In other words, they look the same they did the last 3-4 years under Disney's mismanagement.

I do hear from employees that positive changes in the look of the stores and more adult merchandise is on the way this summer and fall.

Sadly, all the wonderful collectables, watches etc ... won't ever be back.

[BigPigletFan]

Originally Posted by WDW1974

The local stores in SoFla have not changed at all, except they are cleaner and better maintained. The merchandise, sadly, is still the mix of WalMart quality toys, plush, princess costumes, kids clothing, plush, coffee mugs, a few uninspired snowglobes, plush, low quality tees, very few items for adults, plush, DVDs, and a few Disney books. In other words, they look the same they did the last 3-4 years under Disney's mismanagement.

I do hear from employees that positive changes in the look of the stores and more adult merchandise is on the way this summer and fall.

Sadly, all the wonderful collectables, watches etc ... won't ever be back.

As I have laid out in another there thread (click here) it still be time before the merchandise flips around to TCP. Most of it is ordered six month in advance and most of TCP changes are simply starting to happen.

The past few years the stores have been trying to pick themselves back up after the closing of so many stores. The move towards more a children's store is what make them turn around and become successful again. My store was performing amazing and the stores were starting to show a positive future again right when Disney decided to sell. Any large changes take time. TCP is working on slowly working in new product, remodeling and opening new stores (including outlets) first. That's a lot. Disney stopped fixing their own stores a couple of years back. (My store only has two of Donald's nefews in the front window.) The changes are coming so try to be more optimistic until then.

[Speedway]

Well whenever I visit the Disney Stores in London or Birmingham, they are always packed full of people and the displays are colourful and imaginative. There are still sculptures and art, but I suppose they were left over from the Disney days. There is a lot of jewellery, and there is more adult merchandise. There are Disney DVDs which I found surprising, but after feeling the plushes around they are made from a lot cheaper material. Well they feel like it.

[BigPigletFan]

Originally Posted by Speedway

Well whenever I visit the Disney Stores in London or Birmingham, they are always packed full of people and the displays are colourful and imaginative. There are still sculptures and art, but I suppose they were left over from the Disney days. There is a lot of jewellery, and there is more adult merchandise. There are Disney DVDs which I found surprising, but after feeling the plushes around they are made from a lot cheaper material. Well they feel like it.

Working at the Mall of America we tend to get a lot of tourists and many from Europe. They mention how they don't get stuff like this in their Disney Stores in the UK. Just last week a guest from England was commenting on a bubble blower and another from Europe was buying princess clothing for a 3 year old. It's weird but guests from Europe seem to LOVE our stores while Americans dislike them so much.

[DisneyMickey]

American's can stop into Walt Mart and find the same princess junk they find at Disney Store. I am patiently awaiting Children's Place to kick in because they can work out those stupid light twirler things, and quite a few other items of junk. But, I did see a press release under their stock quote(PLCE) and they said that a few new stores are opening(one in a mall in Queens along with outlets) and there are about 25 or 35 stores slated for remodels.

[BigPigletFan]

Originally Posted by DisneyMickey

American's can stop into Walt Mart and find the same princess junk they find at Disney Store. I am patiently awaiting Children's Place to kick in because they can work out those stupid light twirler things, and quite a few other items of junk. But, I did see a press release under their stock quote(PLCE) and they said that a few new stores are opening(one in a mall in Queens along with outlets) and there are about 25 or 35 stores slated for remodels.

I'm not sure the Light Chasers will be leaving anytime soon since they still sell quite well. We just got in a few more styles which is probably from TCP but I'm not quite sure. As I have mentioned before it takes time for the merchandise to switch over and hopefully we'll see this change occur fully for role play and for sure with back to school. We need some good quality lunch boxes and back backs in larger sizes!

[Speedway]

Well I think there are only Disney Stores in Edinburgh, Manchester, Birmingham and London so they aren't really that common in the UK. Disney merchandise isn't very well available, you see the odd promotional TV shirt tie-in with the latest movie at the cinema. I'm not bothered though - I stock up in Paris and Florida.

[Mrs.Newseditor44]

One of the first remodeled stores opened in South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa, CA. Its smaller than the original store but it looks a lot better. As far as layout, there's not much difference.

[WDW1974]

I long for the days when the Disney Stores were destinations themselves and you could spend an hour there just browing the high quality merchandise or talking about the parks or the latest animated feature with high quality CMs ... yeah, that day ended about 1998 maybe even earlier.

[prisoner]

What I have seen and heard has not been encouraging. Here is a report that I wrote in my blog back in March:

So, we visited the new Disney Outlet Store yesterday to see what it would be like. What we saw was dissapointing, depressing, and possibly an ominous sign of things to come.

Dissaponting because it is essentialy a Disney Store. It sold what appeared to be the identical items to any other Disney Store that is currently open. T-shirts, toys, plushes, assorted do-dads, a couple of snow globes. The only thing we saw that was missing were the audio and videos. And it didn't look like anything was discounted either - pretty strange for being at an "outlet" store.

Depressing because the biggest difference between this store and every other Disney Store I've ever seen was the theming. There was none. NONE! No display in the window. No display along the walls by the ceiling. There was a plushie pile, but it was tiny. Over the plushie pile was a single monitor instead of the video bank. There were no other monitors in the store. The shelves were cheap and looked like they were going to collapse. Calling this a Disney Store is like calling Six Flags Astroworld "Disneyland".

The grand opening "special" was pretty standard for Disney Store grand openings (the DS in Columbia, MD re-opened while we were there). Free baloons and free hat with $30 purchase. Except in Columbia they also had visits from Mickey and Minnie, and a huge Mickey sitting in a chair that you could enter for a drawing to win - and which kids were posing in front of for pictures.

Ominous because none of this was done by Disney. The Children's Place opened this store, and plans to open five more just like it. Five more cheap, but hardly inexpensive, immitations of what a Disney Store was. The recent reports of Fullscreen versions of The Incredibles only being available is another indication that The Childrens Place is targeting the stores more narrowly than Disney did. It seems clear they do not have "The Disney Touch" that the stores were infused with when Disney first opened them, and I think there is a good chance this will be a worse failure for them than it had become for Disney.

I was never a fan of Pressler when he was head of Parks, but there is no question that he knew what he was doing when he created the Disney Store. He created a family store, with stuff for adults, kids, and kids-at-heart - much like what Walt built the theme parks on. Disney weakened the stores for years after Paul lost control of them, and now The Childrens Place will weaken them even further. Quite honestly, this is a disaster for the Disney brand name, although as a small footnote of the grand opening sign reminds us - there is no relationship between the store and the Walt Disney Company.

Sure, all anecdotal evidence... but certainly not good evidence.