My girlfriend works for Disney Store. She said, her boss says that a better selection of adult and infant clothes are returning to the Disney Stores. I'm glad to hear that.

Seems someone at Dinsey forgot the law of deminishing returns. Kids clothes sell best, but doubleing the amount of shelf space devoted to kids clothing, doesn't double the sales of kids clothing.

What they really need to do is keep it fresh. Buy far fewer items of each product, and shorten the shelf time of each item. Come out with a new shirt, throw it on the rack, and be sold out in a couple weeks. Right now, customers see something they want, then wait 6 months for it to go on 75% off clearence.

Of course, good movies help a lot too. Sales had been falling since last Christmas, but Nemo stuff has been flying off the shleves since it opened. Of course, the competition from Target isn't helping much. Target seems to have better Dis merchandise than DisStore.

Not to be pessimistic or anything, but a better selection could mean 2 or 3 shirts these days.

We were in a Disney Store in Stockton last weekend. And granted I did see more adult clothes there than I had in nearly a year - we saw two different styles of Adult T-Shirts with a Mouse Ears emblem on them, in each a different color. Had about 4 or 5 of each one in different sizes.

That was it.

One design, two colors.

Although compared to the ZERO adult clothing items they've had recently, it was definitely a better selection....

We used to love going into the Disney Store. Felt like you were entering the Disney Embassy. Stepping onto home soil in a foreign land of over-hyped and over-priced mall stores. It just felt good to be in there. You'd walk up to the Cast Members, who either knew you by name or wanted to, and discussed the latest collectibles in the glass cases or the latest book on the shelf. Dare I say it even smelled better, as if Disneyland bottled up the chocolate chip cookie smell and sent it off to the stores each week.

But now, it's painful to visit. The embassy has been attacked by corporate terrorists, and all that's left are a few locals trying to feign interest inside a burned out husk of a store. Attention ladies and gentlemen, the heart has now left the building. Please move on. Nothing to see here....

A shame. A real shame. :crying:

Disney stores 'haven't been the same since Pressler got promoted to DLR. They need another genius shopkeeper to revive that brand... but they'll probably sell it off in a short-sighted move instead.

Wow, marklodi, very well said. When it comes to words, I'm not easily impressed. Your words impress me.

Gosh, Klutch - thank you. I appreciate the compliment. :)

This is good news. Time will tell if the return to better merchandise helps, or if TDS rep is just too damaged now. To be honest, I don't know what will happen or even what I want. On one hand this is a great thing and I'm hoping that it'll lure many customers back. On the other hand, I'm hoping that it'll fail and somehow force Disney to return artwork and sculptures to the stores; win back all those rich Disneyana collectors:).
Then again, knowing Eisner & Co, if the stores don't improve drmatically profit-wise come next year, they'll probably just sell them. Make a quick buck instead of the potential to make more money over the next few years by producing better merchandise.
But, all in all this is great news. Not everything I had hoped for, but it's a start.
However, time will tell.

Well, the brand may be in an ICU somewhere, on an iron lung, but they haven't totally killed it yet. There are enough of us who still can't resist looking in the stores, that new merchandise will be noticed, and the stores could probably be revived. Those of us who don't still visit the stores will hear about it from those who do, and... well, you get the picture. But they'd better hurry!

Yeah, that's one of my fears. If this return-to-adult-clothing idea doesn't fly, Eisner & his henchman will just sell the stores instead of realizing their full potential.