One Frozen shirt available at Walt Disney World
A story in Jezebel looks at some of the comments being made by upset parents who can’t find merchandise from Disney’s Frozen anywhere in stores and don’t want to pay the high prices on eBay where some limited edition items are going for nearly $2000.00. It’s entertaining, to say the least. But it is also a real problem for Disney.
Disney obviously under-estimated demand for product, but it wasn’t their fault. Those who saw the movie early were rating Frozen about the same as Tangled, so Disney ordered merchandise levels to match that of Tangled. I’m sure Disney’s ecstatic that the movie has soared passed the $1Billion mark at the box office and want nothing more than to capitalize on the movie’s popularity. However, there is a problem.
That problem is the supply chain. The factories that produced the original Frozen merchandise have either moved on to other orders or were scheduled to continue with additional shipments, but that volume obviously was not enough either. So Disney now has to find additional factories with time available that meet their quality standards and protect the safety of the workers and has the resources on hand to produce the additional items. Then they have to ship it to the United States and distribute it to stores.
This all takes time. It’s normally at least a 6 month process from order to shipment on many items. Sometimes it’s much longer. I promise you Disney is working as fast as they can to meet demand. It’s just that they cannot defy the laws of physics to make it happen.
So parents. Do you have any war stories or secrets to finding Frozen merchandise you’d like to share here? Let it Go in the comments below!
Went absolutely nuts trying to get a small Frozen trinket for my fiancé for Christmas. Just wanted a small stuffed Olaf or something along those lines. TOTALLY struck out. Zip, nada, everywhere. Finally was able to track down one thing for Valentines Day…a plastic Olaf action figure type doll from Toys r Us. One of the only remaining Frozen items in the store. And this was just a silly little gift to make my fiancé smile. I can’t imagine having kids begging me (or Santa) for this stuff and having to go through what I did to find it. Madness.
No excuse for Disney, they had to know from the early box office numbers and merchandise sales this was going to be wildly popular. I haven’t seen a plush Olaf in store and disney store online hasn’t had one since opening weekend. Since when doesn’t Disney churn out the plush characters? I love Disney but they dropped the ball, just hoping I can get an Elsa dress/costume by Halloween, every girl I know (and teenagers and adults) love this movie.
I think you are ignoring one thing that has become very clear. Disney had no faith in Frozen which is why their merchandising choices has been so lackluster. People excuse Disney by saying “Its because demand is so high” and that explains the shortage in “quantity” but whats the excuse in “Variety”?
Where’s the Frozen fruit snacks, Build-a-Bear outfits and other readily available Licensing products that they did with Monsters U / Brave / Tiana? Why are there so few toy options available? Why is there only 4 different artwork designs re-used over and over (and over) on T-Shirts? Where’s the Thermos Funtainers?
Based on the overstocking of MonstersU / Brave / Tiana merchandise that ended up being clearanced out, then Disney probably didn’t think this Frozen stuff would sell either. And now that it’s a huge hit then I’m wondering if Disney is using this leverage to force higher licensing rates. Because, even though Frozen is played out and over in our household, I still want an Elsa build a bear outfit for my daughters plush.
We found a similar situation at F&W last year. We were there in mid-October and they were already out of F&W pins. We saw the same thing at MK for MNSSHP pins too. Missed opportunity!
You know it’s funny, my family and I managed to see all the merchandise lined up at the parks weeks before the movie premiered, but once opening weekend rolled in we went the following week and found nothing. It was amazing, everything was GONE.
And yes, other stores followed suit. Pretty soon all the Frozen merchandise was gone. My biggest concern was that Disney failed to restock at the PARKS. Tourists from all over the world would travel hoping to get their kids Olaf plushes or Anna and Elsa dresses and end up in disappointment. I mean, if there’s one place people would buy the merch it would most definitely be at the theme parks.
I wasn’t able to get anything until four months later where I miraculously found Olaf online on the Disneystore site. The company’s been pretty good with restocking the website with merchandise but you have to monitor it 24/7, or else you miss your chance. The same can’t be said with the parks…they still lack the merchandise demanded and it’s already April.
Arrghh, I’ve looked so often for Frozen merchandise. I was very late to the Frozen fan group, only seeing it for the first time on DVD when it came out. I wanted merchandise right away but can’t find it anywhere. It just felt so weird to go into the Disney store and only see 3 items left when the movie was just released on DVD. I would have thought Disney would have had a roll-out of merchandise planned for when the DVD came out–this is what is most peculiar to me.
Comments are closed.