Article

NRF: Disney Store shares details about POS, store redesigns

A complete overhaul of both technology platform and store design draw up a new in-store experience.

January 10, 2011 by James Bickers — Editor, Networld Alliance

NEW YORK — At a Tuesday morning NRF session, executives from Oracle and Disney Store gave some background on two major initiatives the companies have recently completed: the complete rebuild of Disney Store's POS and multichannel platform, and a new experiential design for the stores themselves.

Vince Beacom, group vice president for Oracle, talked about the challenges his company faced in designing a new technology platform for Disney Store, which operates 330 stores in seven countries. The retailer wanted a common POS platform, needed to be able to localize assortments, and had to deal with five languages and four currencies.

The project kicked off in May of 2009, and Disney Store asked for the first store pilot to be delivered in 18 weeks — which the technology company and its partners successfully achieved.

Beacom said the release contained a lot of things that are challenging to execute in a short time frame, such as integration with legacy systems and theme parks.

The new Times Square store opened in November 2010, and Beacom said it represented the completion of the project, deployment of the new technology platform to all of the company's stores. The finished work includes 1,500-plus registers, connecting with 425 servers.

Disney Store senior vice president of global retail operations Stephen Finney then took to the stage, telling the story of the new store design. In true Disney fashion, he quite literally told it as a story, complete with a narrative arc and villains (competitors). The dark years in the retailer's history were likened to the deterioration of the kingdom under the evil Scar (from "The Lion King"), and the lackluster business that prompted the redesign represented the last petal falling from the Beast's rose (from "Beauty and the Beast").

Driven by the mission statement, "How do we become the best 30 minutes in a child's day?", the retailer assembled an international team to redesign the Disney shopping experience from the ground up. The new store design, which Finney said is only going to be launched in select areas and will never reach the 500-plus store count that Disney had several years ago, has seen a 20 percent increase in traffic and a 25 percent increase in productivity on a sales and margin basis.

When asked by an audience member how much the new store design costs, Finney said he couldn't disclose, merely saying with a laugh, "We think it's considerably more than the typical retail store."

Some of the features of the new store design include:

• Digital signage throughout the store:Content is downloaded to each location on a daily basis, with each store receiving content unique to its locale. Finney said the company is exploring using facial recognition and RFID to change digital signage content for each unique shopper.
• Magic trees:Giant transparent tree-shaped screens are a focal point of the store entry, receiving high-definition projected shows that include fireworks, seasonal decorations and character images. Each 30-minute show is specially formatted to appear on the tree's branches and leaves, and is timed with the audio.
• The castle:At the front of each store is a large castle (12 feet tall in typical stores, 20 feet tall at Times Square) that includes a "Magic Mirror." When a young girl dons an outfit and waves a wand in front of the mirror, it recognizes what she is wearing, plays an animated scene and speaks directly to her. "Nothing is more fun and exciting for a young girl than to get a special message from her favorite princess, just by waving a wand in front of  a mirror," Finney said.
• A 300-square-foot theater area,located in the back of each store, that acts as a focal point, as well as a place for birthday celebrations and other special events. The wall at the very back consists of a giant curved screen, which guests can control using the touch screen Imagination Station, which acts as a "giant iPod Touch," according to Finney.

(Photo by nycmominthecity.)

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