Hi. Disneystore.com used to have weekly releases with many great pins. There would generally be a series of individual pins, usually with a similar theme like back to school or baseball. Then there could be a set, sometimes like an le100 set. They stopped doing them a couple years ago. They have never said why. Now they still do occasional releases, but nothing like they used to. As for the Frozen pin, we just guessed that since the film was coming, that there would be at least one pin. Edit: There was not an email, people just kept checking for a release. Generally when they do one of their exclusive pins they release them on Monday morning 12am pacific time.
I am one of those that lived through the rise and fall of DS.com pins. And below is what I remember from those days.
DS.com became the primary source for low LEs available to the general public back in late 2006, after Disney pulled the plug on DA and sent all the un-released DA pins to DS for them to sell. Then DS.com started with its own LEs. Mostly LE 250 and LE 300 individual pins and LE 100 3-pin and 6-pin sets.
Between 2006 and 2007, most of these pins would sell out in minutes because their designs were for the most part totally awsome. Some of those who would miss out on the pins would call DS.com and complain often, loudly, and repeadedly.
By 2008, DS.com started raising prices and often released designs that were just not as totally awesome as they once were. So some pins stopped selling out immediately, but still seemed to sell out at full price.
Quality started seriously deteriorating in 2009, particularly with the LE 250s.
During this time DS.com would less frequently release totally awesome pins that would sell out immediately. But whenever this occurred, some of those who would miss out on the pins would continue to call DS and complain often, loudly, and repeadedly. So by now DS.com has been having to deal with folks complaining about the same thing for three years.
By 2009, DS.com both started limiting pin purchases to 5/style/order - and - they started raising the edition size of many the LE 100s to LE 125, 135, or 150 + raising the prices of all the pins again - and - not doing much to address the quality problems.
By 2010, most of the higher edition LE sets stopped selling out immediately and many lingered long enought to be marked down.
By early 2011, DS.com stopped releasing the 6-pin sets and spent most of the year just releasing the 110 Legacy series of LE 250s.
To summarize, I believe the following factors, listed in no particular order, all combined to make DS.com stop its weekly releases of low LEs:
a) Ongoing complaints from those who would miss out on the pins.
b) Increasing volume of pins of mediocre design rather than fewer pins with awesome design.
c) Edition size increases.
d) Price increases and decreasing availability of coupon codes to offset the increases.
e) Increasing quality problems.
I believe:
1. (a) resulted in (c).
2. (b), (d), and (e) would likely have happened without (a).
3. (b), (c), (e) all contributed to a greater mojority of the pins not selling out at full price.
I also believe (1) and (3) made DS.com realize the pins were just not as profitable as they needed them to be in order for them to continue producing them.
