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Disney Stores confident of bumper Christmas
Thursday July 26 2007
The Disney Store will unveil a new concept outlet at Lakeside Shopping Centre within the next two weeks that will be used as the template for a 'whole new shopping experience', which forms part of the planned refurbishment and modernisation of the company's 100-plus pan-European stores.



The Lakeside outlet will open ahead of the introduction of the Christmas lines into the group's stores, which were this week showcased in central London, and will be pushed out to the company's stores in time for the official start to its festive season on October 1st.
 
Joanne Webb, marketing director of The Disney Store, was confident that the Christmas products would help the company to enjoy a strong first quarter to its next financial year despite the increasingly negative effects of the recent interest rate rises on consumer spending. "Christmas and Disney are synonymous and although we will not rest on our laurels we are quietly confident that this Christmas will be a good experience," she said.

The company will be helped by a raft of new product lines relating to a number of forthcoming film releases by Disney - Enchanted comes out in December, High School Musical will be shown soon on the Disney Channel, and Ratatouille is set to hit the UK in October having broken box office records in the US. Webb says the company is in a particularly strong position with selling goods from these productions as most of them are exclusive to the Disney Store.

Following on from its success last year Webb said the company will again be having a number of exclusive internet-only products available such as a Princess Car and TV set as well as a wide variety of ranges that can be personalised including cushions and pyjamas.

"Our online sales are quite limited but we've plans for this to be bigger. And they are not different customers as a lot of them also shop in-store and a lot also use the internet shop as a browsing tool," she explained.

Although Webb would not say whether the company intends to open more stores - to take the total beyond the current 56 in the UK (which represents 50 per cent of the European business) - she said that a review of the stores after they have been refurbished will determine how the company decides to go forward.

"Our strategy is to be in the right places - in the best shopping centres and high streets - and to have the best customer experience. So when we get the results back, who knows what will happen?" she said.

I got this from http://www.theretailbulletin.com

If anyone lives near lakeside please let us all know what its like, im not going there for another 4 weeks. Also its grest to read that they are not ruling out expansion

Also grest ot see that they are planning to expand their online business too  

[peep]

Sounds interesting. A new style of store? One might pop along to Lakeside if possible to check it out.

Sounds like they are also going all out for the new christmas range. I think October 1st is way too early to start selling christmas merchandise though.