shopDisney laying off 115 employees (mostly part time) and outsourcing to third party for guest services.

[DCBaker]

Also of note, shopDisney is reportedly being officially rebranded to the Disney Store on February 14. The main URL will switch to DisneyStore.com

shopDisney to Rebrand Back to Disney Store

After several years, shopDisney will be rebranding — and going back to a familiar name. What’s happening: Later this month, shopDisney will once again be known as the Disney Store.In turn, the main URL for the online retail destination will be DisneyStore.com. According to the Guest

www.laughingplace.com

 

[tissandtully]

Also of note, shopDisney is reportedly being officially rebranded to the Disney Store on February 14. The main URL will switch to DisneyStore.com

shopDisney to Rebrand Back to Disney Store

After several years, shopDisney will be rebranding — and going back to a familiar name. What’s happening: Later this month, shopDisney will once again be known as the Disney Store.In turn, the main URL for the online retail destination will be DisneyStore.com. According to the Guest

www.laughingplace.com

If only there were a bunch of physical locations in cities around the country that you could visit, that would have been cool, oh well

 

[drizgirl]

Also of note, shopDisney is reportedly being officially rebranded to the Disney Store on February 14. The main URL will switch to DisneyStore.com

shopDisney to Rebrand Back to Disney Store

After several years, shopDisney will be rebranding — and going back to a familiar name. What’s happening: Later this month, shopDisney will once again be known as the Disney Store.In turn, the main URL for the online retail destination will be DisneyStore.com. According to the Guest

www.laughingplace.com

What a bunch of wishy washy morons.

 

[MagicRat]

Wishy-Washy is the way to run a business. I am not saying that is a the good thing, the moral thing and especially the profitable thing. It is a bunch of new hires replacing the wheel. It happens everywhere in this great global economy. In two years it will change again and most will not care. Especially the ones who have previously said well on this thread for this instance that customer service was bad anyway so who cares. Go back and check how many times these type of employees were changed in one way or another.

We all can’t work at Amazon, pick up food and drive Lyft or Uber. This will trickle down and I am also the one saying g give the parks a chance. Corporations and this world’s individual greed sucks!

 

[JohnD]

Also of note, shopDisney is reportedly being officially rebranded to the Disney Store on February 14. The main URL will switch to DisneyStore.com

shopDisney to Rebrand Back to Disney Store

After several years, shopDisney will be rebranding — and going back to a familiar name. What’s happening: Later this month, shopDisney will once again be known as the Disney Store.In turn, the main URL for the online retail destination will be DisneyStore.com. According to the Guest

www.laughingplace.com

Whatever. Just make sure ShopDisney redirects to DisneyStore. I don't care the URL.

 

[tissandtully]

Wishy-Washy is the way to run a business. I am not saying that is a the good thing, the moral thing and especially the profitable thing. It is a bunch of new hires replacing the wheel. It happens everywhere in this great global economy. In two years it will change again and most will not care. Especially the ones who have previously said well on this thread for this instance that customer service was bad anyway so who cares. Go back and check how many times these type of employees were changed in one way or another.

We all can’t work at Amazon, pick up food and drive Lyft or Uber. This will trickle down and I am also the one saying g give the parks a chance. Corporations and this world’s individual greed sucks!

I would agree if I hadn’t watched them pretty much abandon doing anything to the mall stores, when the Clearwater location closed in 2021, it STILL had the same theming from the 90s when it opened

 

[MagicRat]

I would agree if I hadn’t watched them pretty much abandon doing anything to the mall stores, when the Clearwater location closed in 2021, it STILL had the same theming from the 90s when it opened

I guess that’s because it is a Florida store and for some reason corporate decided to keep that one and The NY Times Square one, I can tell you Midwest wise they opened them, closed them, opened them again and then closed them. Even the Chicago “Flagship” store closed this time but I am sure that one was blamed on COVID or Chicago being too dangerous for shopping. Ralph Lauren’s Flagship store is still there!

 

[Captain Barbossa]

If only there were a bunch of physical locations in cities around the country that you could visit, that would have been cool, oh well

This ^^^

There used to be a Disney Store at our local mall that opened in the late 90s/early 2000s. It was my childhood lol. Went there nearly every week. Great atmosphere and great selection of items. Despite it being one of the most, if not the most, popular stores at the mall, it only lasted about 10 years unfortunately. Luckily, one of the large distribution centers was an hour away and they had a true outlet store. Everything was a minimum of 50% off with most items being around 70% off, and they had a ton of park merchandise. We’d go once a month to see what was “new”. A many of times we’d walk out with over $300 worth of stuff that we only payed $30-$40 for. Talk about the good old days when an outlet store had outlet store prices lol. Anyways, it lasted from 97-2011 then Disney sold it to Belks. The next closest Disney Stores were the 2 in Charlotte, which both closed back in 2021. There’s still one in Myrtle Beach, but I don’t live close to that part of the state. I’m sure its days are numbered.

 

[Disstevefan1]

Someone correct me if I am wrong. There were recently two Iger friendly board members recently added and one of those loves to outsource. I wonder if the new member made this happen or it was just a coincidence?

 

[tissandtully]

Someone correct me if I am wrong. There were recently two Iger friendly board members recently added and one of those loves to outsource. I wonder if the new member made this happen or it was just a coincidence?

I don't think that's a unique trait amongst consultants lol

 

[tanc]

It was a stupid rename, shopDisney sounds like an eBay reseller and not the official store.

 

[Nubs70]

Is WDW subcontracting to SHEIN?

 

[Casper Gutman]

A number of very loud voices on this board are constantly screaming that Disney needs to reduce costs and are even cheering on a corporate raider intent on squeezing the company to death for dividends, but those same posters meet actual cost-cutting measures with howls of disapproval.

I think I’ve proven on these boards that I can be very critical of Disney and its current management. I hate the decline in Disney service. But some folks on here really do just want to hate for its own sake, divorced from any sense of reality or consequences.

 

[Brian]

A number of very loud voices on this board are constantly screaming that Disney needs to reduce costs and are even cheering on a corporate raider intent on squeezing the company to death for dividends, but those same posters meet actual cost-cutting measures with howls of disapproval.

I think I’ve proven on these boards that I can be very critical of Disney and its current management. I hate the decline in Disney service. But some folks on here really do just want to hate for its own sake, divorced from any sense of reality or consequences.

Delivering value to shareholders is not as simple as reducing costs and issuing dividends. If you do that by slashing service to the bone, eventually revenue will decline (and take shareholder value with it) because you've alienated more and more customers.

Cutting 115 part-time workers at shopDisney isn't exactly earth shattering stuff, but let's pretend that in addition, they were to ship the entire customer service operation out overseas to some contractor. You're going to get some rando in APAC who knows nothing of Disney or their customer service philosophy, and it's highly likely they won't be able to sufficiently solve your problem due to policies. This frustration causes you to reconsider your future business with the company, whether in consumer products, or in extreme cases, with any segment.

Take that on a grand enough scale and for a sufficient amount of time, and the cost cutting measures you implemented to increase shareholder value ends up hurting it instead.

 

[JD80]

Physical stores aren't the answer either. I've got a mall in my area, very densely populated with every name brand/chain restaurant and retail store you could imagine.

The mall is dead. Every other store is booming.

Disney licenses out merch everywhere from cheap trading cards at the Dollar Store to plushes on the shelves at Target, to ice cream and macaroni and cheese at the local grocery store. The company doesn't need a dedicate store for it's merch. That's just an incredible amount of overhead and real estate it has to deal with.

Probably for little profit.

Now if you say you think Disney should pull all it's merch from every store/chain in the country and ONLY have dedicated Disney merch stores? That would also be a stupid idea, but at least you'd be thinking in a different way.

 

[LittleBuford]

You're going to get some rando in APAC who knows nothing of Disney or their customer service philosophy, and it's highly likely they won't be able to sufficiently solve your problem due to policies.

My experience with overseas call centres has generally been very good. Moreover, a bunch of posters here are saying they’ve had poor interactions with the current agents anyway (which, as I’ve noted above, hasn’t been the case for me).

To be clear, I think it’s a shame these jobs are being lost, but the assumption that the level of customer service is going to be lower from “some rando in APAC” seems really unfair to me.

 

[Brian]

My experience with overseas call centres has generally been very good. Moreover, a bunch of posters here are saying they’ve had poor interactions with the current agents anyway (which, as I’ve noted above, hasn’t been the case for me).

To be clear, I think it’s a shame these jobs are being lost, but the assumption that the level of customer service is going to be lower from “some rando in APAC” seems really unfair to me.

While subjective experiences may vary, I think we can agree that when a company outsources their customer service to a third-party, whether in APAC or even in the U.S., they lose the control over the service standards and philosophy they would have if they worked directly for the company.

 

[LittleBuford]

While subjective experiences may vary, I think we can agree that when a company outsources their customer service to a third-party, whether in APAC or even in the U.S., they lose the control over the service standards and philosophy they would have if they worked directly for the company.

I can't agree with that based on the customer service I've received. Some of my best experiences have been with agents in foreign call centres.

 

[castlecake2.0]

They went too far too quick. Should have kept strategic locations while closing underperforming locations. Florida mall made millions a year, why close that? You already make the merch. In 2010s there were close to 200 locations, could have dropped down to about 30 top performers. The target experiment is also a complete failure.

 

[GimpYancIent]

I can't agree with that based on the customer service I've received. Some of my best experiences have been with agents in foreign call centres.

You are one of the rare few.