Sorry to bump this up, but I had a few comments I wanted to add to this thread and no time until now to do it.
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TheVisionarySoul had said in his/her thread yesterday that he/she had hear that Yankee Trader merch would be moved to Heritage House when the onride photo shop moves into Yankee trader. Maybe this is prep for that move?
This is exactly what is happening, to my knowledge. I do not know of the exact plans for Heritage House, but I do know for certain that Yankee Trader will become a Haunted Mansion gift shop, and will accommodate Haunted Mansion photo sales. Many in the company see this as a waste of resources given the recent refurb of Yankee Trader and the surrounding area, much of which will need to be redone (again).
Heritage House, although actually mildly profitable, was still one of the slowest stores in Magic Kingdom (certainly the slowest in Frontierland/Liberty Square) and apparently wasn't satisfyingly profitable enough to continue operation. I've heard rumors of its closure for a while now but was hoping they wouldn't be true. I'm hearing that Yankee Trader could be relocated to Heritage House to become a more expanded kitchen shop. I'm not sure any of the people I'm talking to know for sure, but they would be the first to know and this is what they're speculating.
I don't know about that I see many people using their smart phones to take pictures of picture of them on a ride. LOL. Not sure if Disney is making much money on the photos any more??? I do know the prices have dropped in the last few years.
Photo sales are hard to give accurate information on, since all the money goes directly to Photopass (not the individual gift shops) and gets more complicated when you have to figure out how ride photo packages like Attractions+ and Memory Maker figure into sales. But generally speaking, you'd be very surprised. Despite the abundance of people snapping pictures of their ride photos, sales generally are very healthy, depending on the location. Obviously, Splash Mountain photo sales have an almost constant line while Test Track's tend to be more paltry. But at $18.95 to print a $0.25 piece of film paper, the ride photos do healthy business.
They used to sell some really cool Americana-type merchandise there (old campaign pins - I still have some of mine, "antiqued" copies of historical documents)...you know, back when gift shops sold merchandise relevant to their respective lands? Oh, and unique merchandise. I mean nowadays this isn't really a loss, because it's all the same stuff, sadly.
They've sold much of that even recently. They sold all of the colonial-type merchandise for Liberty Square, including the tri-cornered hats, as well as American flags, biographies of the presidents and books about the revolutionary war, and custom family crests from a counter operated by a third party. Personally, I find it a huge shame that such a shop will no longer be offered in Liberty Square. It is not always the job of every shop to be a profit center. If Disney was serious about Liberty Square being an east-coast equivalent to Disneyland's New Orleans Square (a losing battle, to be sure, so maybe they're not), they would understand the latter's emphasis on niche and setting-appropriate shops. Heritage House was perhaps the best example of that and its closure will be a huge loss to Liberty Square.