Don’t look now, but the Magic Kingdom is . . . for kids.
Michael Eisner is overhauling Disney’s failed stores, hoping to jolt his consumer products business back to life and shake off a theme store slump that has hit all the studios.
The biggest change will be a near-exclusive focus on children’s products, backed by Disney’s first TV and print ads for the stores.
“We have tried to be everything to everyone, so when you walked into the stores there were a lot of mixed messages,” said Tom Park, head of Disney stores worldwide. The new plan is to phase out most of the adult apparel, and focus on toys and clothes for infants, boys up to age 6, and girls to age 8.
Disney is also cleaning out the stores. There will be a lot less merchandise as Disney reduces the number of items it carries by 40 percent.
The House of Mouse is also hoping to cash in on the technology craze, adding interactive kiosks where kids can play computer games, and adults can buy theme-park passes or order items that are out of stock.
The overhaul will take a while. Just two stores have been redone – one in California and the other in Cherry Hill, N.J., which reopens today.
Park said that he wants to redo 30 of Disney’s 500 North American stores by the end of next summer and 350 done by the end of 2003.
The 42nd Street Disney store currently under construction will have the new format. But 34th Street, which has several years left on its lease, will have to wait. Despite rumors that Disney wants to close that location, Park said won’t.
Park would not say how much the overhaul would cost but said it was less than the cost of refurbishing the current format.
So far, Wall Street is taking a wait-and-see attitude.
“. . . [O]ne could question the need for Disney to be directly involved in the low margin (and somewhat capital intensive) retail business,” wrote ING Barings analyst Spencer Wang in a recent report. But he also called the stores “a valuable point of contact to the consumer for Disney.”