There will be even more Disney stores closing on Sept. 15, including the location at City Creek Center on Sale Lake, leaving only 25 out of 300 in North America and heading to Utah. (Business Wire, Associated Press)
SALT LAKE CITY – Disney will close even more brick stores until Sept. 15, including the location at Salt Lake City’s City Creek Center, leaving only 25 out of 300 in North America and moving to Utah. The store closest to Utahns will be in Las Vegas.
This wave of closures of 57 Disney Store stores across North America is part of a company effort to focus on online shopping at shopDisney.com in the wake of the global COVID-19 pandemic, which cites changes in consumer shopping and the desire to connect shopping to the Disney Parks app.
The online store will expand to include “collections of adult clothing, streetwear, premium home goods and collectibles” in the coming months, Disney said in the ad . The wave of closures won’t reach Disney theme park stores.
“While consumer behavior has shifted toward online shopping, the global pandemic has changed what consumers expect from a retailer,” said Stephanie Young, president of consumer products, games and publications at Disney, in a state. “Over the past few years, we’ve focused on getting to know consumers where they already spend their time, such as expanding Disney store stores around the world. We now plan to create a more flexible and interconnected system – experience of trade that provides consumers with easy access to unique, high-quality products across all our franchises. “
North America is the first part of the world to close these stores, but Disney will evaluate whether to close stores in Europe and other parts of the world.
Disney has also partnered with Target to create a new store in the Disney Store at 160 retail outlets in selected cities. The company has not yet announced where the new locations will be. There are currently two in Utah: South Jordan and American Fork.
Disney has not yet released a statement on how the closures will affect employees and cast members at these locations, but it did acknowledge that there would be an unknown number of layoffs as stores close.