Disney To Close All But One Of Its UK Stores: What You Need To Know, Guv'nor

Walt Disney Co DIS is reportedly planning to close all but one of its Disney Stores in the U.K. as the company shifts from brick-and-mortar to online retailing.

What Happened: The first Disney Store opened in March 1987 in Glendale, California. The company opened its first U.K. store in April 1992 and now operates 34 stores in the country.

While the company has not made a formal announcement on the future of its U.K. retail presence, several Disney-focused blogs have been reporting the company plans to shut down all of its U.K. stores by September except for the location in London’s prominent Oxford Street shopping district. The shutdowns appear to be happening on a store-by-store basis, as the Snopes.com online resource tracked several regional U.K. newspapers that covered the shuttering of Disney Stores in their localities.

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What Else Is Happening: In March, Disney announced its efforts to pivot from brick-and-mortar stores to e-commerce, beginning with the closing of at least 60 of its North American stores, including all 18 of its Canadian locations.

“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 publishing in a press statement. “Over the past few years, we’ve been focused on meeting consumers where they are already spending their time, such as the expansion of Disney store shop-in-shops around the world.

"We now plan to create a more flexible, interconnected e-commerce experience that gives consumers easy access to unique, high-quality products across all our franchises.”

Disney is also moving away from a brick-and-mortar presence in Ireland, where a single Disney Store is expected to remain in Dublin, and in France, where stores will remain operational at Disneyland Paris and on the Champs-Élysées in the heart of the French capital.

Photo courtesy of The Walt Disney Company.