Disney CHANGED the Way You’ll Shop Online

We know from experiences in the parks that some guests mean business when it comes to buying Disney’s newest souvenirs.

Emporium in Magic Kingdom

But even if you can’t get to the merchandise in the parks, you can probably find it on Disney’s online store, shopDisney! This site just introduced a NEW system to shop for the latest items, and it’s got some major changes.

When we visited shopDisney this morning to check out a brand new Stitch Crashes Disney collection (this time featuring Pocahontas), we were greeted by a new page. When shopDisney was busy in the past (usually due to the drop of new, popular items), we would see this “waiting room” screen. It would stay up for an unknown period of time, and when we were allowed to proceed to the website, we were given 10 minutes to shop.

Screenshot from shopDisney | ©shopDisney

But today, there was a shopDisney “Shopping Event,” and the site apparently didn’t actually open to guests until 7AM PST. The event was the drop of the new Stich Crashes Pocahontas merchandise.

©shopDisney

The same message as was on the previous waiting room was on this screen as well (about the creation of the online waiting room). The only difference was that this one mentioned an event that began at a specific time. It informed us that when the event began, we would be entered into the waiting room.

©shopDisney

This page also listed the new products on the website, including the Stitch Crashes Pocahontas plush and pin. It reported on their availability while we waited. It’s nice to have these updates so that you won’t have to wait for a long time only to discover that the item you wanted was already sold out.

©Disney

Once the event time hit, we were automatically sent to a new waiting room. This room informed us that we would have 10 minutes to shop once our turn came up (although we found that we were really given a little more than 10 minutes when we made it to the site). It also said how many users were ahead of us and had a list of the new products and their availability.

©shopDisney

Even though it seemed like there were a LOT of people ahead of us, we were moved out of the waiting room and on to the website in under 10 minutes. This time will probably vary depending on the users and how long other people take to shop.

It’s nice to have updates on when we might be admitted into the shopDisney site rather than just having to wait and hope that we’re let through soon! Keep following AllEars for more updates on all the latest Disney news.