Originally Posted By Doobie This topic is for discussion of the 4/17/2001 news item <b><a href="News-ID10006290.asp" target="_blank">Peter D. Whitford Named President, Disney Store - Worldwide</a></b> Retail industry veteran Peter D. Whitford has been named president of the Disney Store - Worldwide. Whitford will oversee all facets of the Disney Store's global retail operation. <small>Source: Company Press Release</small>
Originally Posted By jmenomeno If you go to the current events discussion topics, there's one for the LATimes article aboutthis...I'm worried.
Originally Posted By tweedle jason (I originally posted this to the topic in Current Events, but since it's being discussed here as well Shouldn't Disney be seeking out someone who has been successful? The LA Times article states that he was "president and chief executive of another struggling retail chain, Structure, the once hip men's sportswear division of Limited Inc." I think "once hip" is key. Structure has barely changed its merchandise in ten years. I would say that that has a great deal to do with why Structure lost an astounding $65 million last year and, at least in my area (Chicago), is closing many of its stores. What reason has Structure been giving people to visit them? A guy only can have so many six-button polos--just as a guy can have only so many Tigger golf shirts. I hope that Whitford's "new merchandising strategy" will be to realize that Disney has a huge library of characters to draw on, not just the Fab Five and Friends of the 100 Acre Wood. He also needs to realize that the new store design alone isn't going to make Disney Stores successful. A new store design might help to get people in ONCE to see how the new store looks, but if they stop in and see that it's just the same old stuff, they aren't going to buy anything, nor will they return.
Originally Posted By tweedle jason Perhaps, since this is the Merchandise Discussion Board, we can treat the topic here like an open letter to Peter Whitford to let him know what failings we have noted in the merchandise available at the Disney Store as of late. To begin, I think an obvious problem--which many on Laughingplace have already complained about--is the way Disney Store is handling (or not handling) its adult market. The stores have not carried any adult clothing since that which was left over from Christmas was cleared out. Areas of the stores formerly set aside for adult merchandise has been handed over to more racks for children's apparel or toys. Cast Members have told me that adult clothing will still be available through the catalog and online, and the stores will carry a small selection of adult clothing at a few key times of the year, such as at Christmas. I take this as a response to lagging sales of adult clothing. Eliminating it from the stores hardly seems like a wise response. It doesn't attempt to look at the merchandise they were offering to see WHY it failed. I have a pretty strong belief of why adult clothing sales have been dropping out over the last couple of years. First, lack of variety. I'd estimate that 80-90% of the adult clothing produced featured either the Mickey characters or the Pooh characters. Die hard Disney fans might want numerous articles of clothing with these characters on them (just look in my closet, for example ; ), but the average person might only want one shirt with Mickey on it and/or one shirt with Pooh. Once they have that, they'll think, "Oh, I don't need another shirt with Mickey." If there was a constantly changing array of characters being merchandised, people might want to stop in more often to see what the current lineup is. Then, seeing a character they may have almost forgot about, they might be willing to shell out the $25 bucks for a new shirt with Stromboli, Captain Hook, etc. Just check out the "What Character Would You Want Merchandised?" topic on the boards--there's a ton of characters out there, that people would just love to see go on a shirt or whatever. Mickey & Gang and Pooh & Friends are successful, yes, but they can just act as a backbone or a safety net while other characters get a turn up at bat. Second, men's clothing was beginning to look like it wasn't even Disney clothing. Up until maybe three or four years ago, it seemed most of the adult line was pretty much unisex--a lot of T-shirts and sweatshirts that anyone could wear. Then clothes began to seem more geared to women, Pooh taking a prevalent place on just about anything you can think of. Men's clothing got Tigger, Mickey, and less frequently Donald, Goofy, and Grumpy. The selection of men's wear kept getting scantier and scantier. At the same time, it continued to get less and less "Disney" in appearance. They had golf shirts with a tiny Mickey icon embroidered on the chest, maybe two centimeters in size. Other things looked as though they might have been taken right off the rack from a Tommy Hilfiger or Guess? display--you'd have to look close at it to see that the little plastic emblem on it had a small figure of Tigger in it with 1968, or whatever. I know that I didn't want this stuff, and it seems that no one else did either. If I want a Tommy sweatshirt, I'll get a Tommy sweatshirt--Tommy does Tommy better than Disney. If I want to wear an article of Disney clothing, and have paid Disney prices for it, I want it to look Disney. I don't want to have to have people inspect it in order to find the practically unnoticeable emblem. Men didn't buy this, and the men's clothing line just got smaller and smaller as Disney Store seemed to believe that men just don't want Disney clothes anymore instead of thinking maybe they just aren't offering the kind that they want. Well, this is already an extremely long post, so I'll stop. Can you tell I have strong feelings about this? What are your feelings?
Originally Posted By hopemax Another reason why I think adult clothing hasn't succeeded lately. Not all Disney fans have bodies identical to a 17 year old cheerleeder. Many Disney fans are "fluffy" as the term seems to go on this board. The clothing styles they have been featuring lately, will not look good on a "fluffy" person, so why would they buy it? I also question the color palette.
Originally Posted By jmenomeno Tweedle Jason, one of the things that I found out when I yacked with some cast members last year (or so-they keep turning over!) was that the guy in charge (I assume Disney Stores) came from the Gap. And Project Go was an effort to basically turn the Diz store into a Gap kinda place. And a wild success that was... So now we get this person who is coming with a losing record from Structure...who thought that decision through? If Disney has to layoff people to hire staff like this, I think that someone needs to reevaluate their priorities. Okay, enough from the soapbox... In terms of products, someone has to figure out that a good variety creates sales. That means adults and children, seniors and infants. The basic elimination of adults clothing from the stores is in a word, dumb. And while I like Pooh a lot, this is not the Pooh store...where's Mickey? And if you use Mickey, create new art...the poses that have been used in the T-shirts have been repeated. And repeated. There's a set of coffee mugs at the stores now with Mickey in a beach cchair at the beach, another wih Minnie the beach, and one with Goofy with a snorkel in the water. The same graphics were on a set of shirts last year...did anyone in Merchandising think of rereleasing these shirts? Not yet, and it's a shame. I would have got them as a set. And the really sad thing is that the best merchandisers would be someone familiar with Disney...and the powers that be constantly overlook that. Can we lay them off?
