There is a difference. What Disney is doing is NOT unethical. Polluting a common resource is.
Increasing prices on something you don't absolutely need is not an ethics issue. No one absolutely has to have a vacation to WDW, or absolutely has to have their merchandise. Increasing the price of EpiPens is unethical; people need them for life-threatening emergencies. Disney raising the prices of merchandise that you want, not need, is unethical.
My point was not that Disney is copying anyone else. Disney, along with other businesses, is running their business to maximize profit, and it happens that their price point is similar to that of others. That shows generally how the industry and the economy in general is at this point.
You're misunderstanding my point.
It doesn't matter if its "unethical" or "polluting".
My point is that in the name of "XXX brand is a business! they need to make money!" companies have done from huge variety of maneuvers where everyone else loses except their investors under the Wall Street pressure.
If Exxon could get away (like other companies have tried to lobby their way). They wouldn't cleanup or even payup for spills.
People fighting and protesting did.
Same way that airlines got away with being cheap on repairs and maintenance on their airplanes. Because it was cheaper to pay the dead people their insurance, than replace the fleet (until they were mandatorily forced to replace or fix their airplanes or their fleet would stay grounded).
Same for cars, it was used for car makers to pay the death in accidents caused by defects (because it was cheaper) than to actually do a rollcall of the defective product.
Hell, they would get also get away by stealing land from groups so they could build things like an oil pipeline (even paying local or state officials to use the public force to protect the construction sites).
That something I am thankful of the "call out" culture by the media.
Helps companies stay in point under most circumstances.
Anyway, my point is.. companies WILL DO if they can get away, regardless if its ethical or not.
all in the name of "ITS A BUSINESS! MONEY FIRST!" (hence my hate towards that excuse that almost sounds from someone in the payroll of said company)
Uni still is not as popular as WDW. They get about 25.8 million visitors in all their parks worldwide. Disney gets 112.5 million visitors worldwide. When Disney was getting 25.8 million visitors per year, they were charging lower prices as well.
you're quoting worldwide, the issue is in the US Parks imho.
Shangai Disneyland seems to have been built with higer standards, at least for now than what the current parks in the US are getting.
Tokyo as always been over the top (and thats because the company that controls it still maintains the high standards set by Disney before)
And technically, UNI parks are growing by a lot.
IF they keep the build of quality stuff, they might reach Disney. Hence why they were desperate with Avatar and now Star Wars. Trying to get a huge slice of UNI's growth cake.
Still, cant wait to read about cost cuts on the land once the hype subsides and the money guys force their way in again.
While their manufacturing process is optimized, they still can't sell an unlimited amount. Their shelves and storage facilities aren't unlimited. They have a limited number of employees. Think about the shops at Main Street during park closing, when people tend to look before they get out. Now think about how even more busy they would be if the merchandise prices were overall decreased and people buy more than they already do. At their busiest points.
That is implying that Disney themselves do the production.
Most of their products are made in china and have very similar production costs than any other company producing in china.
I bet plushies cost Disney like 50 cents of a dollar to make, and they sell at 50 or 100 times the cost.
I still do not get your point over the "look how busy"... They are supposed to get busy. Their function is to sell.
IF they were really 100% for the money, they would have spammed a lower rate and sell more than end with a huge part of the merchandise being phased out to discount bins and third party stores to keep profits up.
This kinda reminds me of how Nikon is killing themselves.
They sell a 2,000 USD "USA guaranteed camera". But since their profits are down. instead of reducing the price to attract more buyers.. they flood the street with "grey" equipment (aka same camera, from same factory, with the same specifications, except no US guarantee)
Now if all of their merchandise were sold online, with no limitations of brick and mortar stores and having to be physically present to purchase merchandise, then producing more and lowering prices would make sense. But since they have stores, and since their stores can only sell so much in a given period, keeping their prices higher makes sense. Selling more also always, always, always increases overhead.
That doesn't stop Walmart, Fry's, Bestbuy to still keep their stores. Stores will always have a physical presence when needed.
So I'm pretty sure that Disney is artificially keeping a very low stock (as seen with my experiences buying with them in both low attendance and high attendance seasons) to maintain high prices on location.
There are 162 games per year. About half of those games are home games. Their store is open year-round, which means they get traffic year round, especially since a lot of people go down that way for events at M&T bank. Definitely not a one-time thing.
Each game is still unique.
Same as each concert you go. (or broadway production)
Players change, teams change, seasons change.
A fixed store for a very specific job doesn't. Specially if they have real official unique memoralia. and not chinese stuff that can be found anywhere.
Also you were talking about food on the "games". Now you're talking about the store itself.
We may not like Disney's prices, but there is a logic behind their pricing. If they discover it's not working, they can change it. But considering that they're making a LOT of money, they don't seem to need to lower their prices. Again, I don't agree with everything Disney does (you should hear my TofT Guardians of the Galaxy rant), but when it comes to pricing, their price points make sense, even though they do hurt my wallet.
I dont think they will ever reduce costs.
As others have said. They prefer to hide their insane costs under "free dinning" and other packaged plans.
they have trapped themselves into a cycle of huge price hikes vs big pseudo discounts year around.
As for parks, I think the park costs per day makes sense. But not the hotels nor the dinning. The quality and service is not there to charge that much. Even for non "location" hotels.
And I agree with you on TOT. I also didnt liked how instead of Pixar Place, we got MORE toy story and a very cost cut'ted version.
But as for my rant about business.
They will do what they want to get money if they can get away with it.
Sadly Disney as enough "one time purchasers", DVCers and addicts to keep going for quite a bit until the attendance levels finally hit zero gain.
Just on quick during lunch. It has been mostly meetings. This afternoon I get to work in my room. The bad part is they have shut off the water on my side of the building to work on something. So I have to walk to the other side of the school to use the facilities. Our school is spread out so it is a hassle.
