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i went pin trading today!

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i went pin trading today!
miss.mouse

miss.mouse

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hey everyone one of DPF. i went pin trading today , in the well known place (if your from the UK ) - the trafford center in manchester.
i had a pretty dissapointing time.
so heres the story!!.....
i arrived there really happy to do a spot of trading, i got in side the disney store and grabbed my pins out of my bag. the store was quite busy but i searched around for a cast member with a landyard on , after 15 mins of searching , i finally asked a CM she said to me " what is disney pins and whats a landyard" , so i explained , she still didnt get me and brought the manager out . after 20 mins in the store , they finally found the landyard and showed it to me , really rubbish pins but i traded 2 anyways . the woman shoved the pins over to me and i told her "have a nice day" and from what i heard there was no "you too". is it me or does uk trading spoil pin trading all together . this isnt the first time the service has been like this... mabye its just me but i dont want to trade in the uk because it spoils my experience . Hats of to you americans :)
 
I'm SO shocked to hear this, as I visited the Trafford Centre just over a week ago and the two Cast Members we dealt with were lovely! I was with my friend Danny, and we first asked a lady with glasses if we could see the Trading lanyards (since we know they have two). The lady with glasses very happily handed us over to another lady, who then went and got the lanyards. I did a couple of trades and so did Danny, and both women were great.

Maybe you were unlucky enough to have been dealing with a Christmas temp. :( The temps in my local store have no clue about pin trading. I'm guessing it wasn't deemed important enough for them to get trained on it.
 
Okay, question -

WHY do they have to go & get the lanyards???? I've spent quite a while posting my opinions on UK trading & I'm sorry but Nicole's experience does nothing to improve that. I'll be going to Lakeside tomorrow so just wait & see what happens!
 
i frequently go into the Disney store in Romford and only on Friday i went lakeside and only once ever since they started pin trading in store did a CM were a lanyard and not have it hiding in a draw but generally when i ask they a quite happy to do that but i don't feel that’s the point as i feel the visual element of having a lanyard with this funny bits of metal with their fav Disney character will make non-pinheads ask questions of 'What is that?' and maybe get people aware and join in but that at the moment is not the case. i'm hoping after the mad rush of xmas is over they start changing
 
Went into Lakeside this morning & a CM was actually wearing a lanyard as the store opened! We asked to look at the pins & he even went to get the second lanyard (which I will say no-one was wearing!!). Ended up trading 4 pins (2 each) so overall a good experience. What I will say though is that the selection of pins for sale was very limited!
 
Come on people is christmas shopping madness which means two things, firstly that these places are over run with shoppers and secondly christmas temp staff frankly if I had been working there I would have murdered you for even asking have a heart for the poor CMs who have other things to do like take the money to keep the stores open. No I dont work for them but have a deal of sympathy for anyone working retail at this time of the year.

Jacqui
 
I think the general consensus is that the UK stores CM's do not wear the lanyards as a matter of cause, even though we customers seem to expect it based on WDW/DLR/DLP experiences! From the comments above it does seem pretty much hit or miss depending upon the store &/or CM's. Today in Lakeside it was a mixed pleasure, the CM (Leon) was very helpful & enjoyed trading - BUT the in store pin selection for sale was questionable as I wanted to purchase a couple of pins for DPF members! At 11am opening there were more CM's than customers & when we left the CM's with the lanyards were those that welcomed you into the store & not those busily serving etc. It is the same throughout anywhere Disney, it is coming up to Christmas & CM's will have to juggle their daily routines with us Pin traders/collectors, we do come across the odd CM in the parks who seem as though they cannot be bothered to trade - overall this an exception, maybe a bit of give & take on both sides!
 
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It's not only during Christmas time.
I don't get to the UK very often, but I never saw a CM in a store wearing a lanyard. Even when the store was completely dead. In Milton Keynes they actually had to go and fetch the second lanyard from an office once.

Also, that may be me but in my eyes there's quite a difference between them not wearing lanyards during busy times (something I think everyone understands) and what miss.mouse experiences.
 
Vala said:
Also, that may be me but in my eyes there's quite a difference between them not wearing lanyards during busy times (something I think everyone understands) and what miss.mouse experiences.
Click to expand...

That's the problem - based on trading experiences we have come to expect that CM's wear lanyards even during busy periods.

Vala's witnessed what I had today - I really do not know how to try to improve things other than write to the UK Offices - suggestions anyone???
 
could you not start a petition to send to them lol with every one who wants to see them on the CM's. i went in to my local store the other day (York) and they had 2 temps on the till the manager (claire) is lovely and after tradeing some pins with me the new temp wanted to wear the lanyard :) witch made me happy. I do think they should were them as part of there uniform like in the parks.
 
earthbound said:
Vala's witnessed what I had today - I really do not know how to try to improve things other than write to the UK Offices - suggestions anyone???
Click to expand...

That's a tough one, really. Right now that's the only suggestion I can come up with too.

When I go in I try to be kind and cheerful and make a point in trading good pins to try to show the CMs that trading can be fun too because I used to think they just don't wear the lanyards because they don't know. But it is a little painful when 2/3 of the CMs tell you then that they actually do collect themselves when you finally got them to bring the lanyard.

So far I am getting the impression that trading is a nuissance for the CMs, and that's something only the head office can likely solve.
 
Well, i'm open to writing to them, just need to consolidate our thoughts etc. Any other thoughts could you please post them in this thread
 
1) CM's should wear the landyards while helping customers(even if its just 2 landyards)
2) CM's should be educated around pin trading
3) showcase the pins that are on trade
4) Maybe have a notice explaing pin trading so if there are shy people etc who don't want to ask a CM
5) Once pin tradeing gets better in the UK they should hold pin trading day in store or somthing along those lines
This is what i would like to see :)

ANY ONE WANT TO ADD ANYTHING TO THAT?
 
earthbound said:
Okay, question -

WHY do they have to go & get the lanyards????
Click to expand...

I was wondering this too -- i'm not from the UK (and havent even been to europe since i was about 5 or 6 -- would love to visit very soon, though), but Why wouldn't any employees be wearing them? :sad:
 
earthbound said:
Baffles the hell out of me Bryan & I think this is the main point in question - i'll start drafting a letter tomorrow at work
Click to expand...
Oh your a star!!! just to warn you though i sent am email a couple of weeks ago asking them a question and i didnt here a peep!!
 
If they're anything like the US Store... You just have to be... forgive me, but I can't find another word for it: annoying enough. Eventually they will reply. If we all start writing in I think we stand a chance.
 
Can I just add some more fuel to our UK Pin Trading fire.

I visited the Birmingham store today hoping to buy a couple of the LE800 Christmas window pins. When I went in to the store the racks were almost bare and there was no sign of the newly released pins. I asked the nearest CM if they had any left and they knew what pin I meant but said that they had all sold out on Saturday. No quicker had she told me this she hurried off. So I asked another CM to check the infamous 'box behind the counter'. No sign of the pins in there either, but she said she would check out the back just in case. About three or four minutes later she came back with about 20 of them. They had not been put out on display at all and were still out the back from when they were delivered. Why did a CM tell me that they were sold out??

It then took me about 10 minutes to queue up to pay and when I got to the till I asked to see the lanyards. They were searching through all the draws and asking other CMs if they'd seen them. It was all rather embarassing as I kid you not there were about 50 people in the queue it was bending around the shop. In the end I said not to bother as I didn't want to hold the other people up further.

Another annoying pin day. But at least I managed to get 2 of the new pins! *sigh*

Martin
 
I would think you can just speak to the store manager and explain that it is part of the experience and see why they are not available.
As for being knowledgable about pins, remember they have a whole store to deal with. Other than just being able to direct you to the pins is typically acceptable but of course if it is their department, you would hope they would know a little something and what pins they may currently have in stock.

I have heard a few different types of experience from different people about the same store. It could be the staff on those days?
 
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