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No pins in Disney stores?

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No pins in Disney stores?

TornadoTitan

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I walked to the Disney store in Dallas since I still wanted a taste of Disney post-vacation, and saw they had no pins. I would assume they had one or two. Do only the Disney stores at the Resorts and Parks have pins?
 
Big city stores will sometimes have them - smaller local stores tend to rarely (if ever) have them anymore.
I know the one in NYC does, and a friend got me one from somewhere in Ireland.

I believe they also gave away pins for Star Wars day (May 4th) at most stores a year or two ago (or was that this year?).
 
They used to, years ago. I know they had a huge Magical Musical Moments pin set and the 101- pin Countdown to the Millennium pin set, some random character pin sets here and there, a Wreck-it Ralph racers pin set and the WIR jumbo pixel pin, etc.

Nowadays, very infrequently Disney Stores will have pins. The last ones I know for sure about were Star Wars character heads, and before that were Monsters U frat house symbols. A few Disney Stores in iconic cities have city-specific pins (Dublin and New York for instance). Some Disney Outlets will also have pins a few times a year (overstock from the parks), but those may just be outlets close to parks (So Cal and Orlando areas). But in general, physical Disney Stores don't carry pins any more. Pretty much all of the Disney Store pins are from ds.com.
 
Oh that's a shame, the pins are small enough I would assume the stores would have them. I wonder why they chose not to stock them? Pin trading with cast members at different Disney Stores would be fun as well if they did that, even if on certain days or events.
 

Pins are also a shoplifters' paradise unless they are kept behind the register--and these days, there is way too much "stuff" behind the cashwrap as it is. Plus, as someone who worked at a Disney Store during the Countdown to the Millennium set (and who was not "into" pins at that time, although I picked up an odd one or two that I really liked), it was an utter NIGHTMARE on release days. My store is in a suburban mall and there would be oodles of people lined up outside, "shaking the cage," several hours before opening. In a less genteel setting, I'm sure someone was at risk for getting trampled, ha.

Dividing out the supply on limited edition pins is also a huge PITA--how many does each store get, especially when you reserve stock for the website? I will never, ever forget the release day for one set of Millennium pins, when our shipment arrived at the crack o' dawn and we did NOT get the expected number of each pin. In the meantime, unaware of this, CMs were on the phone with regular customers "reserving" pins (you could do that back in those days) and we had cage-shakers out front waiting for the store to open. When our designated stock person announced that we had FIVE of each style, instead of the usual/expected 20, and we had "hold" slips for a dozen people already filled out ... MAYHEM. None of the people waiting out front could get pins, and most of the people who'd reserved them by phone arrived later to pick them up and discovered they were skunked. All because someone in Corporate botched the shipment. (Disney Stores, FYI, do not "order" merch. You get what Corporate decides you need. There is a method based on sales, etc, but sometimes we'd open shipment and think, "We have 412 of these just hanging around, why did they send us 75 more?")

I preferred working on Christmas Eve AND the day after Christmas to working on a pin release day. :wat:
 
LoL... Well that story certainly contextualizes why they don't do pins at Disney Stores anymore. I had kind of hoped, deep down, that when they renovated the Disney Stores here and started doing more events to engage with customers, they might host pin trading nights or something like that. Alas.
 
My local Disney Store is really only for the little ones. They might have a few collectibles(dolls, mugs, etc.) for the older customers but it was far geared toward the kids. I did ask about pins one time but the cm had no recollection selling "park" trading pins.
 
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AvatarAng1 said:
I went to a local CA Disney store and they had lots of Olaf Christmas pins.
Click to expand...

Was it a regular Disney Store, or was it an outlet? Outlets, especially in So Cal, do have overstock pins from the parks occasionally. Usually a few times a year when there is a big change in merch at the parks.
 
timeerkat said:
Was it a regular Disney Store, or was it an outlet? Outlets, especially in So Cal, do have overstock pins from the parks occasionally. Usually a few times a year when there is a big change in merch at the parks.
Click to expand...
It wasn't an outlet, it was inside of the Mall near my house. The CM said she didn't know why they had them lol.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-J320A using Tapatalk
 
It's been answered but it looks like most regular ones wouldn't (maybe in the clearance section), something outlet ones do and the Disney Character Warehouse ones in Florida have tons of cheap ones. For sure the Times Square one has but they're specific to that store/NYC in theme, I got a Minnie dressed as the Statue of Liberty I love it!
 
The ones I know of are in Camarillo (Camarillo Premium Outlets), Commerce (Citadel Outlets), and Ontario (Ontario Mills Outlets).
 
There's also a Disney Outlet in Gilroy I believe! But I've only ever seen overstock of rack pins there.
(At my last visit it was packed to the brim with 99% Frozen merch)
 
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