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Discussion about the state of the Disney Store site and Pin selling

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Discussion about the state of the Disney Store site and Pin selling

broncobilly83

Scrooge McDuck's #1 Nickel
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I have been mulling this over since getting back from WDW this past weekend, and the more I read about this on other boards, as well the way my order was handled, makes me want to try and have a discussion with others who understand the situations as well as go through it as well. Please keep it civil!

Now for a little pin background. I am relatively new to the hobby, doing it for only a year or so. Going on advice of others, we picked characters and pins we liked instead of doing it en masse, which in my case of being a Scrooge McDuck fan, makes me very behind the Number One Dime, so to speak, so I have to resort to buying pins I might not want for myself, just to have valid trading fodder for some of these older pins.

Since the website remodel a month ago, there has been nothing but chaos on new pin release days, where people can not find the pins, they do not go active at the right time, when actually placed in the proper area on the site they are sold out, and the list goes on and on.

To me though, this past week with the Jessica Rabbit pins took the cake so to speak. I do not have to get up early to order, as Mondays have me out the door anyway at 3:30 AM EST, so I am up already. I had to do a search for the Jessica pins via the main Disney search, and found the links, so I ordered one of each. The site accepted my order, and I went on my merry way to work. To purchase, I used what was left of a gift card, and my CC for the rest. When I got home, I checked the gift card, and only part of it was charged, so I logged into DS.com to check my order and that is when it gets really weird

Remember, I ordered 1 of each pins, so 4 pins total. My order now reflected 6 pins, 2 each of the Hatter and Tink versions and 1 each of the other 2. So I called and spoke with a CM, who told me that actually, the two that had changed quantity were already sold out and I was only getting the other 2, which is why there was a partial charge. The order was timestamped 3:22 AM EST. After going through 2 other people, there still was no true explanation or resolution, just a $10 credit and a promise to take my suggestions up the chain.

Over the next few days, I have seen posts on other sites discussing orders timestamped LATER than mine getting fulfilled for the same items I were told by Cast Members were sold out when I ordered, and then a post yesterday that basically stated that Disney does not fill orders in the order placed, but based on the size/dollar amount of the order, bigger ones first! I have no reason to doubt the first assertion, and while the second one might seem doubtful to some, it is plausible.

Either way, in my opinion, this situation highlights a massive flaw in not only the website, but the management at the website and distribution levels and raises questions like

1) How are orders truly filled, by $ amount, by time placed, etc? Why is there no uniform guidelines for this?

2) Why are they having issues getting these listed properly since the new site design?

3) Why are some people being allowed to purchase items that according to them were already sold out?

4) Why can't their site have a basic product counter, so when an LE 250 has all 250 already sold or in other carts, the next person who looks at the page gets a sold out message? Other sites employ this quite readily

5) Why was this week's pins "3 per order" instead of "3 per customer" and why do allow the same customer to order 3 or 4 times for the same items?

Things to mull over to say the least, and I welcome honest debate with this!
Bill
 
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Some of these issues have been going on for a long time. While I haven't been encountering many of them ever since the limits went into place, I'll try to answer some of these the best I can.

1) How are orders truly filled, by $ amount, by time placed, etc? Why is there no uniform guidelines for this?

As others have said, I believe the multiple server issue is the most plausible. It just makes the most sense. I don't really buy the order value theory. We have seen cases of it not holding true and it just seems a bit of a stretch to me.

2) Why are they having issues getting these listed properly since the new site design?

Again, an IT issue. In my experience with IT organizations, sometimes you get really good project leads and sometimes you don't. And when you roll in corporate politics and annual department goals, sometimes corners get cut just to make a deadline. It is unfortunate because we are impacted but just the way it goes sometimes. Also, the could be some complication that they are having trouble working out. We just don't know so it is all speculation.

3) Why are some people being allowed to purchase items that according to them were already sold out?

I think this points back to the server issue. If one server is on a lag or something (I'm not too systems savvy) it could continue to allow orders even though an item is sold out. Also, maybe they do something similar to what airlines do sometimes. They might oversell a little just in case there are any cancellations. I doubt that is true, but you never know. Again, all we can do is speculate.

4) Why can't their site have a basic product counter, so when an LE 250 has all 250 already sold or in other carts, the next person who looks at the page gets a sold out message? Other sites employ this quite readily

Same as number 3, possibly The servers being out of synch.

5) Why was this week's pins "3 per order" instead of "3 per customer" and why do allow the same customer to order 3 or 4 times for the same items?

That wouldn't make much of a difference. People could just set up alternate accounts and order that way. Even if they took the time to weed out duplicate shipto addresses people could just send them to their neighbor or something. Plus, this is still a business. They don't want to hinder sales to the point that it hurts them. With the current limits in place you should be able to get one order in before others get multiples in.
 
One thing that has made me stop purchasing pins (actually, just trying to purchase pins) from Disney Store site is the fact that they sell out so quickly. I understand that part of pin collecting is waking up early many times to get LE's, but it is ridiculous. Now this is just an idea, but what if a certain number of pins were released for sale every hour? Ex: a LE 300 pin; every hour, 20 are up to sell. Maybe this would just complicate it wayyyy too much, but the fact that these pins sell out within minutes online is crazy. Maybe the disney store should go back to their auctioning off of pins on eBay. I don't know. But I wish the system was different. There are many pins that pop up on the site, but as soon as I get on my computer, they are sold out. It is stressful.
 
If it helps, Disney Store put a 1 per person limit per order on the LE pin sets :) This is hopefully very cool :) I guess people will know by
next week. See even though they put an order through does not mean you will get it. Sometimes for some reason (DS still has not fixed
this computer problem yet) they Over Sell the item..........You will hear all different reasons why. But basically we look at it as a "if we are
lucky enough to get the item - great" If not we can always trade for it :)

This has been going on since the very beginning(we have been collecting since 1999-2000), for some reason they to date still have not fixed the issues. So we are hoping with the one per person per order that maybe this will give more of a chance for guests to get their items they are looking for.

Dana
dizneyusa
 
In their defense I think they have really tried to please us over the years. Just last year they did the call in thing to accommodate us. Before that there were no limits on pin orders at all (at least none that I remember). Now there are limits. The system is not perfect. What system is perfect in the world of computers and technology? And what other site that sells merchandise gets hit as hard as that site when a really really popular pin, series, or set is released?

I think they are really doing the best they can.
 
Personally I think Disney has gone strictly quantity over quality. I am real tired of seeing 500 variations of doombuggy pins with every possible charactor...done over and over again, And not a single new concept Wall-E pin. I would love to see 1 pin where EVE is blowing up everything in site with her laser when Wall-E made a noise when he first saw her. How about a scene from the Axiom or earth as a pig pen, which is pretty much what the movie was about.

1 Jungle cruise pin with the natives behind their shields throwing a spear would be fun or the tribesman dancing. I have givin up on seeing a Tiki room pin showing all of the "Girls" on their white feather perch.

Tiki rant is over.... now back to your normal pin news
 
Disney has had problems for much longer than just the past few years. Some of us on here probably had the "pleasure" of dealing with Disney Auctions. I will say the DA pins are still some of the best I've ever seen, but there were lots of people - who after a heated bidding war for an LE 100 pin - ended up receiving the wrong pin, with no way to get the one they wanted! Then there was the poor customer service. And not to forget the end of DA, when a lot of their pins went "missing" somehow, only to turn up on Disney Shopping years later giving us no advanced notice.

The Jessica Rabbit, Tinker Bell, LE 100 madness has been happening for a long time, around 2006. Disney was Really pushing Jessica at that point. So naturally a Jessica LE100 set would sell out in no time. I think estimated fastest sell out time for a pin set or series was around ten minutes. (I cringe to think how hard it would be to get a Jessica with Tink LE100 set if that ever happend - probably sell out in three minutes) .

What I question is Why do certain ones sell out, and others sit there for months. I said before, if Jessica was just a popular character, wouldn't most all of her pins sell out? Halloween and Christmas seem to be the bigger headache times - the former being the worst I think.

The only thing I have come up with is that Disney employees are getting in on the pins too. Disney site developers, pin designers and the like have to know exactly when the pins are coming out even better than we know. The supply is not meeting the demand with that many people buying, especially the customers who buy multiples only to sell off later. If they sell 300 pins and everyone bought the limit of three, that only leaves 100 customers able to buy, thats not very much to go around. Even at one pin each, 300 is not a big number.

As for the "site glitches" I just don't get it, seems to happen every Halloween since 2007, there is always some mix up or problem going on. There should be no excuses by now - although - with merchandise selling that fast, Disney might not know how to deal with it, or might not be interested. Concert tickets have sold out in minutes and don't have this kind of issue, so why does Disney's site? Never been able to figure it out or get a good answer from them. Oh and I have posted video of my Jessica pin buying experiences on YouTube lol.
 
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