Disneyshopping.com now the "exclusive" online destination for Disneystore.com

[aeryn]

Wow. Got an email this morning announcing this and went over to the "new" site. All the cool stuff that had been at the old disneyshopping.com site is gone. No collectibles, no pins, very very limited housewares & no furniture or outdoor stuff. It has the same branding as the Disney Store b&m stores... I think I'll be keeping a lot more of my money in my pockets since what's on the site isn't very appealing to me

Amending my post to say that now I'm seeing the original disneyshopping.com merchandise in addition to the Disney store garbage.

 

[Sabres2008]

Well that stinks...The Disney Store has gone way downhill in recent years (since being sold, IMO) and I rarely spend any time or money there anymore.

To add insult to injury, the merch in WDW has similarly been homogenized. Instead of finding themed merchandise relevant to a shop's location, you find Pirates, Stitch or "Where Dreams Come True" merchandise everywhere.

Getting ridiculous, IMO...

 

[DisMN]

I'm glad you posted this. I just complained on the CB about the bizzare way they're showing the clothing merchandise on the "new" Disney shopping site......apparently the new cool way to display clothing is all wrinkled and looking like it came out of a pile of laundry. I'm afraid if I order one of the shirts it'll smell that way too. VERY unappealing. Their marketing department is really out of the loop IMHO.

There is absolutely nothing that appeals to me on the site anymore. I'm bummed......

 

[Magix]

As the OP added, there are two websites, disneystore.com and disneyshopping.com. If you still had disneystore.com bookmarked from ages ago, when it became disneyshopping.com, you'll be directed to the new disneystore.com site now. Just type in disneyshopping.com and you'll see all the stuff you're used to. These appear to both process their checkouts through disneyshopping.com, so they're the same site, but different.

Clear as mud, right?

 

[Disney Von Drake]

This is part of the original agreement when TCP bought TDS. The Disney online store (disneyshopping.com) is going out of business and that address is now linked to disneystore.com which is TCP.

Disney wants to get out of the direct retail business as much as possible.

 

[Dis13]

If it looks this bad new, how rumpled will it look on? YUCK! I wouldn't waste my money on this piece of junk!

 

[DisMN]

If it looks this bad new, how rumpled will it look on? YUCK! I wouldn't waste my money on this piece of junk!

I agree, isn't rumpled just a terrible way to showcase something? What are they thinking with this type of marketing? I really don't get the appeal of this kind of sales technique.........

 

[TheDisneyGirl02]

I think the clothing on the abercrombie site is a lot worse off (wrinkle-wise) than the clothing on disneyshopping. There has to be a reason why the clothing is displayed this way, I don't know what it is, but since it's now two sites it must be something the industry is doing as a whole.

http://www.abercrombie.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/category1_10051_10901_12282_-1_12203

 

[Dis13]

But somehow, the Abercrombie clothes look "trendy," while the Disney clothes look "cheap." (Not that I'm a fan of the quality of Abercrombie's clothes either - my 14-yo daughter loves their clothes - but I think the quality of the fabric they use is terrible.)

 

[wendyl]

This is part of the original agreement when TCP bought TDS. The Disney online store (disneyshopping.com) is going out of business and that address is now linked to disneystore.com which is TCP.

Is that just rumor or did you read it in a news article somewhere? I'd love to know whether that's official news or well traveled rumor. I've been hearing that for 3 years now, but they continue to come up with new merchandise so I don't see any indication that the rumor is true. If you did read it somewhere--do you have a link or know where I can read about the plans for disneyshopping to go out of business

 

[boston1029]

Disneystore.com has opened to showcase items that can be found in the Disney Stores. They should have the same sales and items that you can find in the stores. Disneyshopping.com will continue to have the items that they have now. I have to disagree with sabres2008, I feel that the quality of the clothing has gotten much better since the stores were taken over.

 

[Disney Von Drake]

Is that just rumor or did you read it in a news article somewhere? I'd love to know whether that's official news or well traveled rumor. I've been hearing that for 3 years now, but they continue to come up with new merchandise so I don't see any indication that the rumor is true. If you did read it somewhere--do you have a link or know where I can read about the plans for disneyshopping to go out of business

Disneyshopping.com is fully owned and run by The Children’s Place as are Disneyoutlet.com, DisneyDeals.com, DisneyAuctions.com and DisneyStore.com.

Disney only owns the Disney Stores in Europe. CP owns them in the USA and Oriental Land Company owns them in Japan.

CP also runs all the Disney Outlet stores in the U.S.

Confused yet?

Disney Parks runs the World of Disney store in NYC (formerly the flagship store in the DS chain) as well as shops at Orlando International and Pointe Orlando.

WDW runs about 6-7 outlet stores in Florida under the names of Character Premiere and Character Warehouse, while AMS (a liquidation company) has one permanent location in Fullerton, CA operating under the name Character Warehouse and often opens stores all around the country for weeks or months at a time under the same name. They also often carry Universal Studios merchandise, although never in the Fullerton store.

Finally, there's a Character Corner outlet just minutes from WDW on SR 535 that is privately owned, that sells WDW merchandise, test runs and defective items that were never on sale in the parks.

Edit: Also, you’re correct about the “rumor” time frame. It was about three years ago when Andy Mooney (Chairman of Disney Consumer Products Division) announced that the company was going to get out of the retail end of the business.

They now concentrate their efforts on licensing products and moving the product via big retail outlets such as Wal-Mart, Kmart, etc. Obviously the retail giants can move more stuff than anyone else.

In mid 2005, Disney closed their big DisneyStore.com call center located in Overland Park, Kansas. At that time there was talk of shifting remaining catalog call center duties to the Disney phone center operators in WDW but they still have other plans for those poor folks not herewith germane to this conversation.

 

[wendyl]

Disneyshopping.com is fully owned and run by The Children’s Place as are Disneyoutlet.com, DisneyDeals.com, DisneyAuctions.com and DisneyStore.com.

Disney only owns the Disney Stores in Europe. CP owns them in the USA and Oriental Land Company owns them in Japan.

CP also runs all the Disney Outlet stores in the U.S.

Confused yet?

Disney Parks runs the World of Disney store in NYC (formerly the flagship store in the DS chain) as well as shops at Orlando International and Pointe Orlando.

WDW runs about 6-7 outlet stores in Florida under the names of Character Premiere and Character Warehouse, while AMS (a liquidation company) has one permanent location in Fullerton, CA operating under the name Character Warehouse and often opens stores all around the country for weeks or months at a time under the same name. They also often carry Universal Studios merchandise, although never in the Fullerton store.

Finally, there's a Character Corner outlet just minutes from WDW on SR 535 that is privately owned, that sells WDW merchandise, test runs and defective items that were never on sale in the parks.

Edit: Also, you’re correct about the “rumor” time frame. It was about three years ago when Andy Mooney (Chairman of Disney Consumer Products Division) announced that the company was going to get out of the retail end of the business.

They now concentrate their efforts on licensing products and moving the product via big retail outlets such as Wal-Mart, Kmart, etc. Obviously the retail giants can move more stuff than anyone else.

In mid 2005, Disney closed their big DisneyStore.com call center located in Overland Park, Kansas. At that time there was talk of shifting remaining catalog call center duties to the Disney phone center operators in WDW but they still have other plans for those poor folks not herewith germane to this conversation.

I'll have to check out Mooney's announcement somewhere--thanks for that info.

But, the TCP doesn't own disneyshopping--they just took over the brick and mortar Disney Stores and brick and mortar Disney Outlets. I have close ties with the disneyshopping distribution center and there was wonder/worry if TCP would become the parent company and take over the Disney catalog/Disneyshoppping---but it didn't happen. They are all very much official Disney employees---unlike the Disney Store employees.

 

[Disney Von Drake]

I'll have to check out Mooney's announcement somewhere--thanks for that info.

But, the TCP doesn't own disneyshopping--they just took over the brick and mortar Disney Stores and brick and mortar Disney Outlets. I have close ties with the disneyshopping distribution center and there was wonder/worry if TCP would become the parent company and take over the Disney catalog/Disneyshoppping---but it didn't happen. They are all very much official Disney employees---unlike the Disney Store employees.

Disney is still in the e-commerce business, just not in the way most would imagine. As I stated before, they made the decision to get out of the retail business and that is what they’re doing. After closing the call center in Kansas back in February, 2006 they then eliminated the catalog in the spring of 2006.

After the Kansas call center closed last year the service was contracted out to a third party provider until TCP could pick up the service. However, TCP was not able to meet the timetable and the contract ran out with the third party. As a stopgap measure Disney relocated the call center to its warehouse facility in Jonesville, SC last May to cover the upcoming Christmas season.

That call center will run until TCP is able to take over the service. No dates have been set (or if they have they’re unknown to the public).

Getting rid of the catalog saved them a lot of money and they shifted that money over to e-mail marketing campaigns and buying search engine ads (Google, etc.). They’ve also been hard at work sorting out Disney.com.

Disney has a full plate of third-party sites that serve their buyers. The Children’s Place is just one of many affiliates that Disney uses. DisneyShopping.com and DisneyStore.com are one in the same. They use the same IP address (199.181.132.250) and the same servers. It’s all been folded into the CP. However, Go.com is Disney.

Sure, there are some remnants of the old DisneyShopping.com still left but that is because the complete transition to the CP is still in progress. Also other affiliates are coming onboard. Disney’s objective is to make the transition as seamless as possible for the customer. The customer won’t know about the regional warehouse closures or the shift to third-party affiliates.

The bottom line here is money and cost savings. Why should Disney pay a CM to handle Internet orders and when they can shift that overhead cost to the CP?

Now, if you still don’t think that TCP, DisneyShopping.com and DisneyStore.com are all the same, I will direct you to DisneyShopping.com. Go to the bottom of the page and click on Return/Exchange Policy. You’ll find that you can freely exchange, return or get a refund for any items purchased between any of the stores. Why? Because they’re all the same outfit owned (actually it’s a 50 year lease) and operated by Hoop Retail (aka TCP).

 

[TheDisneyGirl02]

Now, if you still don’t think that TCP, DisneyShopping.com and DisneyStore.com are all the same, I will direct you to DisneyShopping.com. Go to the bottom of the page and click on Return/Exchange Policy. You’ll find that you can freely exchange, return or get a refund for any items purchased between any of the stores. Why? Because they’re all the same outfit owned (actually it’s a 50 year lease) and operated by Hoop Retail (aka TCP).

As far as the return/exchange policy, it was just recently changed...within the last month when Disneystore.com was launched. Up until that point, the stores couldn't return merchandise from Disneyshopping.com. The stores can take back merchandise to a certain extent - nothing big and bulky. That was what I was told the last time I worked at my Disney Store.