If you walk into the shops at Disney Adventure World at the moment, one thing immediately stands out: there are promotional signs everywhere advertising discounts on the Disney Adventure World merchandise collection. The collection was only launched a few months ago to celebrate the opening of the transformed park, formerly known as Walt Disney Studios Park. Yet Disneyland Paris is now offering the entire collection at 50% off, for everyone.
No Annual Pass discount at launch
When the Disney Adventure World merchandise was released, Disneyland Paris once again decided not to offer the usual 15% Annual Pass discount on the new collection. Merchandise discounts are one of the few remaining benefits of purchasing an Annual Pass, meaning that loyal guests who have paid for an Annual Pass specifically expecting these benefits were once again excluded from the promotion.
This practice was introduced under former Disneyland Paris President Natacha Rafalski and was first seen with the launch of Avengers Campus. The idea was seemingly to protect the sales of new, exclusive merchandise and take advantage of the hype surrounding a major new land or collection.
Instead of allowing Annual Passholders to receive their usual discount, Disneyland Paris would wait until the initial launch period had passed before restoring the discount. The same approach was later used for the Disneyland Hotel merchandise, and more recently for World of Frozen and Disney Adventure World.
After around a year, the restrictions are generally lifted. Today, for example, Annual Passholders can receive their discount on the Avengers Campus and Disneyland Hotel collections.
Was the strategy meant to target resellers?
One possible reason behind this policy is the growing problem of merchandise resellers. Reselling Disney merchandise has become a major phenomenon over the past few years, particularly since the pandemic. Some resellers purchase large quantities of merchandise using their Annual Pass discount and subsequently sell the items at significantly higher prices online.
This has sometimes resulted in popular products selling out quickly, leaving other fans unable to purchase them at Disneyland Paris.
Removing the Annual Pass discount on new collections may therefore have been an attempt to make bulk purchases less attractive to resellers while also maximising revenue during the initial hype surrounding a new collection. But the Disney Adventure World collection appears to have exposed a major weakness in that strategy.
Now 50% off for everyone
With no Annual Pass discount available at launch, resellers had less incentive to buy large quantities. At the same time, other Annual Passholders had less incentive to purchase the merchandise at full price.
The result?
Disney Adventure World merchandise now appears to be struggling to sell. And Disneyland Paris has responded by offering 50% off the entire collection, to everyone. That includes guests who do not have an Annual Pass and therefore never paid for the merchandise discount benefit in the first place.
In other words, the merchandise that Annual Passholders could not buy with their 15% discount a few months ago can now be purchased by anyone at half price.
Could this have been avoided?
In my opinion, this raises an obvious question: would it not have made more sense to offer Annual Passholders their usual discount from day one?
If Disneyland Paris had ensured sufficient stock and allowed its most loyal guests to use their 15% discount, perhaps the collection would have sold more successfully without eventually having to be reduced by 50%.
The situation is particularly interesting with the 35th Anniversary of Disneyland Paris approaching next year.
It would not be surprising if Disneyland Paris once again decided to exclude Annual Passholders from discounts on the major new anniversary merchandise collections, hoping that the excitement surrounding the anniversary would generate record merchandise sales.
But the Disney Adventure World experience could be a good opportunity to reconsider that strategy.
After all, loyal Annual Passholders are among Disneyland Paris’ most frequent visitors and biggest merchandise customers. Giving them the benefits they were promised might ultimately be more valuable than trying to maximise the price of every new collection.
