Disney’s Retail Plan Is a Theme Park in Its Stores

The Walt Disney Company, with the help of Apple, intends to overhaul its approach to the shopping mall.

New York Times, October 13, 2009 — The Walt Disney Company, with the help of Steven P. Jobs and his retailing team at Apple, intends to drastically overhaul its approach to the shopping mall.

At a time when many retailers are still cutting back or approaching strategic shifts with extreme caution, Disney is going the other way, getting more aggressive and putting into motion an expensive and ambitious floor-to-ceiling reboot of its 340 stores in the United States and Europe — as well as opening new ones, including a potential flagship in Times Square.