Magic Kingdom's Bizarre Bazaars

[MickeyLuv'r]

I think the answer others have said is likely a big part of it. Fewer different vendors = it costs less to fill shelves. I also wonder though if a piece of it is also that one-time visitors don't want to have to hunt down an item. Imagine a small child/adult sees an item, but the family doesn't buy it right away. Maybe the child didn't speak up, maybe the adult wasn't sure they wanted it. Many parents give their children a fixed budget of what they can spend, and tell their children they have to be certain they want the item. I think few actually consider that merchandise can be returned. The parents are trying to teach the kids to be selective, but they don't really think through the hassle of trying to find a specific item later when they are tired, forgot where they saw the item, etc.

 

[MickeyLuv'r]

In the age of distracted park goers, repetition = more sales.

The more we see an item, the more likely we are to remember it, and actually buy it.

Customers also like multi-sensory experiences: being able to see, hear, touch, smell, and sometimes taste merchandise.

A single ad doesn't do much, but when customers see an ad 5 times, it starts to stick.

While we think we want something unusual; many people actually want the opposite: they want/buy items that they perceive to be popular. When everyone else is drinking cola P, we do not want to be the only one drinking cola G. Unless maybe we think cola G is better in some way. Some of us might pay an absurd amount of $ for an exclusive Star Wars experience, for example, if we think it will give us something special to brag about.

 

[ppete1975]

Cost- every store has the same bland crap that the others do- half of it is identical to disneyland just with disneyworld printed on it.
So its cheaper to just mass produce a billion things instead of a ton of unique items.
combining stores hides some of that, and also decreases staff.

The one thing i wanted most from one of my latest trips was a big button from each of the lands, cheap unique souvenir. (of course buttons are no longer that popular since pin trading, but i was shocked i couldnt get one from each area, instead adventureland mostly had the same merch as mainstreet or my hotel)

 

[Animaniac93-98]

Personally I preferred the old days when merchandise was more specific and the various shops were part of the show. I never bought any memorabilia at Sid’s at mgm or the silversmith but we always had a look it was fun. Similarly main st and Hollywood boulevard were nicer to me as separate stores as it added character to the land

I still have some old Disney movie posters from the 70s/80s that I bought at Sid's. That shop alone did so much to make Hollywood Blvd feel like a real place and not just another Disney Store.

 

[UNCgolf]

I still have some old Disney movie posters from the 70s/80s that I bought at Sid's. That shop alone did so much to make Hollywood Blvd feel like a real place and not just another Disney Store.

Hollywood Boulevard was a masterpiece of theme and place setting. The facades are still great, but almost everything else has been ruined.

Sid's was incredible. Turning it into a PhotoPass station is one of the dumbest things they've ever done at DHS; it ranks up there with removing the Great Movie Ride.

 

[Animaniac93-98]

Sid's must have been the easiest specialty store to stock.

Disney was going to throw out all that stuff anyway, but put it in a store at MGM Studios and suddenly it's $pecial (works for me!).

 

[Sir_Cliff]

This is one of those topics that makes me a little depressed. Not only because we've lost one of those things that used to make the Disney parks special, but because it seems to have been an element of the parks they could dispose of without guests really caring. Indeed, I imagine they're making more money from all those spaces now and still struggling to deal with all the people who want to visit the parks and throw money at them. It's therefore hard to mount much of an argument against them having turned most of the stores in the parks into generic Disney stores, but I do really miss that element of the parks as it really detracts from making them feel like "real" places rather than theme parks run by a major corporation.

 

[Animaniac93-98]

There must be a middle ground when it comes to specialty vs homogenized shopping. Harry Potter and Star Wars have unique stuff. Disneyland and Tokyo Disneyland still have their Main Street Magic Shops.

Even just having a couple store-specific items would help to justify walking into them. Social media (Disney owned and otherwise) could do a lot to promote them far more than in decades past when only the exterior sign, a park guide blurb and word of mouth encouraged you to look into a place like The King's Gallery or Old World Antiques.

 

[lazyboy97o]

This is one of those things that demonstrates how Paul Pressler remains the true godfather of the contemporary DisneyParks® experience. Some of this started before him but he really accelerated and completed the change the Disney’s business model from measuring the whole operation to measuring the square foot. The result has become that Walt Disney World and it’s constituent experiences are no longer a singular experience working together towards a larger goal but a geographic cluster of competing businesses that just happen to share ownership.

Just like in our towns, the big boxes may be more efficient but they destroy the experience of place. Very few people want a souvenir from the Walmart they visited on holiday. The promise of that newfound efficiency never fully materialized outside of a specific focus on square footage performance. The parks didn’t suddenly start selling more merchandise because everyone had the same stuff, it just diluted a bit of everything.

The homogenization is though also now starting to hurt. In retail design there are formulas for how much shelf space you want for every square foot. You want enough space for both variety and quantity. Not enough variety and people lose interest. Not enough quantity and people don’t see what you have, the place looks barren and/or you’re wasting time and money constantly restocking. Disney is now making stores more open with fewer fixtures, so they are losing out on that metric of shelves to square footage. And while people would point to the crowds and evidence that the model works, we must remember that at the Magic Kingdom, the world’s busiest theme park not only is their abandoned retail space but there hasn’t been any sort of meaningful expansion in over 30 years when the giant tent was added in what is now Storybook Circus. Would people really not be interested in an exotic candy shop in Adventureland or some sort of techno-wizardry candy shop in Tomorrowland? The people really are demanding they get their Skittles on Main Street in a big room with a few pieces of trim nailed to the walls?

 

[Mickey5150]

I think the answer others have said is likely a big part of it. Fewer different vendors = it costs less to fill shelves. I also wonder though if a piece of it is also that one-time visitors don't want to have to hunt down an item. Imagine a small child/adult sees an item, but the family doesn't buy it right away. Maybe the child didn't speak up, maybe the adult wasn't sure they wanted it. Many parents give their children a fixed budget of what they can spend, and tell their children they have to be certain they want the item. I think few actually consider that merchandise can be returned. The parents are trying to teach the kids to be selective, but they don't really think through the hassle of trying to find a specific item later when they are tired, forgot where they saw the item, etc.

That is the reason WDW put an "Emporium" shop in all of it's parks. Every park now has 1 central store that sells a variety of Disney items so no matter which park you are in you can find that souvenir you saw the other day.

 

[Living the Life]

After visiting Magic Kingdom last month I was thinking about how strange it is that the park has comparatively few gift shops given how popular it is. I actually struggled to name more than half a dozen in the entire West hand side of the park, which is weird when you realize just how many there used to be.

I found this blog post I remembered about the old Adventureland stores. Thank goodness there's maps for reference because I couldn't wrap my head around where all these places used to be. I swear there's only 3 gift shops in the land now, but at one point there were at least 10! The current Agrabah Bazaar actual sits in front of several of these now closed locations. Their facades blocked by tents and merch racks.

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See if you can spot the entrance to "The Magic Carpet" in the more recent photo. The elaborate window is still there.

Some gift shops over time were absorbed by other things. Two Caribbean Plaza stores are now extra seating for Pecos Bills, for example.

The combo-store approach was also done with Liberty Square. The current Christmas shop used to be three separate stores. Similarly, the West side of Main Street (now just The Emporium and Main Street Athletic Department) used to be made up of smaller locations. The trend of one store expanding into another continues to this day with the Main Street Confectionary taking over the former hat shop.

Disney seems to love their one-stop mega stores. Just look at the Space Mountain exit or Big Top Souvenirs. There seems to be an unwritten rule that any location must b x number of square feet to justify its existence. So we get things like Frontier Trading Post that's basically the only shop in Frontierland.

Then there's locations that are just closed like Heritage House or the Tricorn Hat Shoppe. The gift shop that used to be next to Snow White's Scary Adventures is now just a seating area. Progress City Radio Hour mentioned on their podcast that it would have been an obvious place to sell on-ride photos from the mine train ride. What was recently The Pirate's League has joined this list too.

It all seems strange to me. Other Disney theme parks don't do this, and they see fewer visitors a year. You can't even blame the current situation because this has been going on since the 90s. The end goal has been fewer stores total and less variety of goods to sell. The only time I ever go in these stores is if they're at the exit of a ride, which is not the case for most of Magic Kingdom's rides as they were built before that became a trend. Ironically, the gift shop after Pooh (which I'm sure Paul Pressler insisted there be) doesn't even sell that much Pooh merch anymore.

The only reason I can think of visiting a Sunglass Hut in Adventureland is if I happen to loose or forget my sunglasses on a visit to MK. Can they at least reopen some of these smaller stores to sell unique stuff? Look how nuts people go over special popcorn buckets. The Main Street Cinema now selling retro stuff shows they can still think outside the box if they want to.

Personally, I would be more likely to visit a store if I knew it sold something special. Each land having an Emporium seems pointless when there's one at the exit anyway.

I agree with you... the way Disney parks have been moving towards just doesn't make any sense (to me) All the places they do sell merchandise is the same in each spot, just about. It's like there is no thought about it at all. However, if you've never been to WDW you wouldn't know the difference. Disney is always looking at the bottom line, where can we save.. where can we have customers pay more for less..

 

[castlecake2.0]

There must be a middle ground when it comes to specialty vs homogenized shopping. Harry Potter and Star Wars have unique stuff. Disneyland and Tokyo Disneyland still have their Main Street Magic Shops.

Even just having a couple store-specific items would help to justify walking into them. Social media (Disney owned and otherwise) could do a lot to promote them far more than in decades past when only the exterior sign, a park guide blurb and word of mouth encouraged you to look into a place like The King's Gallery or Old World Antiques.

They kind of do this at the resorts. The front display is usually location specific before moving into general Disney stuff.

World Showcase shows they are still able to operate themed stores.

 

[Animaniac93-98]

They kind of do this at the resorts. The front display is usually location specific before moving into general Disney stuff.

World Showcase shows they are still able to operate themed stores.

Indeed, this seems to be more a Magic Kingdom specific problem, despite it being their most popular park by a long shot.

 

[Animaniac93-98]

And while people would point to the crowds and evidence that the model works, we must remember that at the Magic Kingdom, the world’s busiest theme park not only is their abandoned retail space but there hasn’t been any sort of meaningful expansion in over 30 years when the giant tent was added in what is now Storybook Circus.

I feel like because its been this way for so long now people just assume it's what works best, despite it not being the only way for stores to make money, as shown by what other parks do.

 

[lazyboy97o]

I feel like because its been this way for so long now people just assume it's what works best, despite it not being the only way for stores to make money, as shown by what other parks do.

It’s the whole “Disney is a business” mantra that ignores that Walt Disney World was always a business, that other parks are a business, that other Disney parks are a business. The “You’re not [an HR executive or retail executive suddenly moved over to be in charge of operations] so you can’t know” mantra. But what is the good business, good service reason that the world’s busiest theme park has not meaningfully expanded retail in 30 years? Why does it still have less dining capacity than 30 years ago? How is that not money left on the table? How is it not a systemic problem where it’s better to strain satisfaction instead of incurring the temporary expense of expansion?

 

[rio]

I feel like this was a thing for a lot longer than people want to admit. I remember in the 2000s when practically every shop sold Pal Mickey. Several other pieces of standard merchandise were scattered throughout the world. But the absolute worst for this (prior to COVID) came during and after the Great Recession. Variety was back as good as I’ve ever known by my December 2017 trip. I do miss Pal Mickey and the care they took with advertising things like the Monorail sets though.

I also prefer the larger store format in some areas that are highly congested. The Emporium basically becomes a cut through, and it makes sense that everything sold in that section of the park can be cashed out in one place rather than several. It encourages MORE sales.

 

[lazyboy97o]

I feel like this was a thing for a lot longer than people want to admit.

The original post references shops removed in the 90s.

I also prefer the larger store format in some areas that are highly congested. The Emporium basically becomes a cut through, and it makes sense that everything sold in that section of the park can be cashed out in one place rather than several. It encourages MORE sales.

One big purchase doesn’t necessarily encourage more sales because the buyer is more aware of the total. This is also why package delivery and pick-up are offered, so you’re not reminded of how much you have already purchased.

It would be possible to create pass throughs in more individual shops that allowed people to make purchases across venues. No reason a cash register in the park can’t ring up any piece of merchandise sold in the park.

That the stores on Main Street, USA get used as pass throughs is also part of the problem and how sales are being lost. The full arcades as at Disneyland Paris should have been added years ago.

 

[Animaniac93-98]

That the stores on Main Street, USA get used as pass throughs is also part of the problem and how sales are being lost. The full arcades as at Disneyland Paris should have been added years ago.

Probably how more shoplifting happens too.

More crowded stores, fewer CMs to observe guests, easier to walk through locations, merch out in the open vs up on shelves or behind counters etc

I seem to remember an older post on this site referencing how much on a given day is lost at the Emporium.