Originally Posted By Darkbeer <a href="http://www.orlandosentinel.com/business/custom/tourism/orl-disneypins2506jul25" target="_blank">http://www.orlandosentinel.com /business/custom/tourism/orl-disneypins2506jul25</a>,0,4347615.story?coll=orl-business-headlines-tourism >>Disney pin-trading nights are coming to an end at Walt Disney World hotels, and some collectors wonder if it's because of declining interest. The Walt Disney Co. announced on its official pin-collecting Web site this month that weekly pin-trading sessions, staple activities in several Walt Disney World resort hotels for years, will end in the next couple of weeks. The Web site, officialdisneypintrading.com, did not say why the sessions are ending. Nor did a Walt Disney World spokeswoman, except to say that the company is making room for future pin-trading opportunities, associated with the company's upcoming "Year of a Million Dreams" campaign that opens in October. "It's part of the ongoing efforts to continually refresh the experiences," spokeswoman Kim Prunty said. Disney lapel pins depict thousands of iconic Disney moments ranging from Snow White kissing Grumpy to Cars characters. Most retail for $6.95 to $12.95. In 2000, pin-trading popularity took off. And not long after that, pin-trading sessions began at the hotels. But attendance at the hotel sessions has fallen recently, collectors said. Some wondered if Disney might have saturated the collectible pin market and deflated the craze, while others suggested that professional pin traders, known as "pin sharks," began to dominate small meetings and took the fun out of them.<<
Originally Posted By leemac Must have been a slow news day at the Sentinel to try and make this into a story.
Originally Posted By vbdad55 <Some wondered if Disney might have saturated the collectible pin market and deflated the craze, while others suggested that professional pin traders, known as "pin sharks," began to dominate small meetings and took the fun out of them.<< My guess is a reporter/writer that was a pin trader because the above statement is dead on !
Originally Posted By -em I can say I am not that sad to see them end in this current format. I have been to two of the nights since being back and I was amazed on how unfriendly and often times pushy most were to the basic/new pin trader. I was amazed when listening to several sharks talk with obvious beginners and were getting them to get 12.95 pins to trade for a basic easy to find lanyard pins- Even to me when I inquired about certain pins to get a really loopsided trade offer back to the point I was disgusted and felt bad for those who dont know better... I would love to see more disney involved events such as a form of DLs come out and trade where there are plenty of CMs/Mgmt to trade and talk with where not only the sharks but beginners would feel welcome and have fun. -em
Originally Posted By TDLFAN While I would love to see the end of Pin Trading as well, along with the return of CMs wearing their costumes without those unsightly lanyards full of cheap pins no one wants to trade with... The sad truth is this is only a slow-down of the pin events, and NOT the end. However... Disney did kill the hobby by oversaturating it. I say GOOD RIDDANCE. I am only collecting TDR stuff anyways.
Originally Posted By Roger55 IMO, pin trading is not slowing down... it is just changing. Pins are too much of a money maker for Disney to slow down or ignore. What other merchandise do they sell that cost them pennies and they can sell for $10-$20??? Contrary to what most people think, I believe that Disney does NOT make most of their money off of the hard core pin traders that go to the pin events, pin trading nights at the hotels and collect all those fancy Limited Edition pins. I believe the majority of the pin revenues come from the sales to the regular day Guests. These are the vacationing families, some who are given "free" lanyards and pins by WDTC or AAA Travel, and told about how pin trading works. They give out thousands of these freebie lanyard sets (which cost them hardly anything), in hopes to get these people to just buy a few pins during their stay at the resorts. This is who I believe is the target group for pin sales. Stopping pin trading nights only affects the SMALL group of hard core traders. Though they may number in the hundreds and they may think they are Disney's target for pin sales, Disney can do far better sales wise buy hitting up the THOUSANDS of day visitors and have them buy even just a few pins. A hypothetical example would be... Let's say WDW has an average daily attendance of 35,000 visitors for the four parks (someone can correct me here if they know the actuals). Let's say just 1 out of 10 of those people decide to take the bait and buy JUST ONE pin. That would mean the sale of approximately 3,500 pins A DAY!!! And I'm sure my figures are conservative. Now let's consider the hard core traders. If Disney has two or three releases of Limited Edition pins a week (again conservative)... and each release is for an LE2000... and the pins happen to sell out within that week... that would only mean a sales of 4000-6000 pins for the week MAX. It is easy to see that targeting the day Guests and not the hard core pin traders is far more profitable. That is why IMO Disney is willing to shift their attention away from those hard core people. One step reflecting this shift is the cancellation pin trading nights, which cater to a small group of people and does not bring in much income at all. So for all of you who see this as the "death" of pin trading, I'm sorry to disappoint you but IMO, it is going to be around for a while. It just may take on a slightly different look.
Originally Posted By TDLFAN >>IMO, pin trading is not slowing down...<< Oh yes it has. >>If Disney has two or three releases of Limited Edition pins a week (again conservative)... and each release is for an LE2000... and the pins happen to sell out within that week... that would only mean a sales of 4000-6000 pins for the week MAX.<< Problem is...in reality, limited edition pins ARE sitting on the shelves for weeks and some for even months after their releases. Who here remembers when you had to step in line at WOD at 6am to get a Limted edition pin that would surely sell out by 1pm?? Those days are gone and Disney should kill pin trading for once and for all.
Originally Posted By Roger55 In reality, they are sitting on the racks longer... Exactly, and that helps make my point that Disney does not see the hard core trader groups who buy those LE pins as it's target. Sales of LE pins should not be used as the measure. And even if they did sell out, those numbers do not even compare to the huge sales to the day guests of all pins, core and LE. Smaller sales to the hard core traders does not drastically affect the bottom line TOTAL pin sales. IMO, it is not valid to come to any conclusions about pin trading as a whole by observing such a small segment of it(i.e. LE pins and hard core pin traders). Take a look and notice how many people are wearing those freebie lanyards and buying even just one or two pins to put on them. It is my opinion that there are pleanty of people buying pins all the time. They just aren't the ones that used to line up and buy out the LE pins like in days past.
Originally Posted By -em I think Pin trading is now in a mature phase of life. It was new and exiting for awhile and people grabbed all they could and more. Now its been around for almost 7 years and the excitement has worn off a bit for those in since the beginning. People still buy but are being more limited in the scope and volume they buy. Disney has over saturated the market in some degree with to many releases and series and whatnot going on. IMO they need to slow the releases down and make what they do release better and different than what has gone before. I dont see the end of it quite yet though and I agree to some part about it being for the guest trader vs the serious trader. I work at a location that I would say is 80% guests 20% serious driven. Most of our guests are new to the hobby or just dabble in it- We mostly sell rack pins and starter sets with very very few LE sets (The Walt series is the only LE set we have currently) and we have just a wide variety of everything with very few specific pins (mostly characters with a few park specific pins). And we do rather decent sales at the cart and I can only imagine what a store like Pin Traders would bring in... The one part of my location that irkes me is our pin trading book which is one of the few left on property- and how filled of trash it becomes with lower quality pins and other unwanted crap- Then people complain about the lack of good pins in the book and on lanyards.. -em
Originally Posted By smeeeko I never went to the Hotel pin trading events. I just assumed they were attended by hardcore traders & sharks, which I never really considered myself to be one of those. Also I got sharked pretty early on exactly as mentioned 2pins for one not so hard to get LE pin.. bleh.. really left a bad taste in my mouth about the whole thing. I stopped trading with guests a LONG time ago other than work related.. Trading with CMs at WDW is more fun and you don't have that whole shark mentality. I like that they have the trading books or whatever and that makes it so you don't have to stare at a CMs lanyard for something.. or have an unsavory guest grabbing you like when I used to trade with other guests they would just walk up and try to rip your lanyard off you. bleh. We haven't traded in ages and I only am getting around to inventorying our collection. I'm leaving it up to SeanYoda what he wants to trade but as for me.. I don't trade at DLR usually and at WDW I only trade with CMs. They're the only other people that seem to know the rules of good pin trading and courtesy. Once we trade whatever extras we have for trading, we'll go back to our once in a blue moon purchasing. Like em said, we just got into it too quickly and we've been burned and burnt out for the last 3years. We only get pins that we like and for keeping or gifting... Not for trading. =) One of the pin events we did enjoy though was the Chip & Dale Wild West pin event. That was fun. Again, games & neat merch & trading with CMs. =)
