The Walt Disney Company is revamping 300 retail stores. The new store designs are designed to put the magic back in the retail experience and borrow strongly from Apple’s seminal work with its own stores.

Miniature Castle and Colorful Trees (Photo Supplied by Disney Co.)

Disney opened the first of its redesigned stores on June 29, according to Forbes on Monday. The 4,800 sq ft store in Montebello, California has some new and extraordinary features. Just to name a few:

• A Pixar inspired area that allows children to create their own Cars character toys.
• A small Disney Princess Castle with a magic mirror that tells stories.
• Large trees that surround the store and change colors and play Disney theme music.
• A pixie dust trail that leads customers to major store features.

Just like the Apple stores, Disney store employees have hand-held point of sale devices. No waiting in line.

“What was missing in the original Disney stores was indeed the magic,” said Bob Phibbs recently. He’s the president of The Retail Doctor & Associates. “They’ve brought it back in spades. I can only imagine the price tag to deliver this experience, but it will make them a real draw in all locations, which [Mall] landlords can rejoice in.”

Magic Mirror

It has been suggested that Steve Jobs, the largest shareholder of the Disney Co., influenced this redesign based on his experience at Apple.  “Retailing is theatre and entertainment, and no one knows better how to execute these two things than does Disney and Jobs,” said industry consultant Joel Warady. However, Shawn Turner, a Disney representative told TMO: “Pompei AD http://www.pompeiad.com/ worked on the initial concept drawings, guided by the Disney Store internal design team.  The Apple team encouraged the Disney Store team to ‘think big,’ but otherwise was not a part of the design process.”

Disney has published a press release with more details.

Photo and caption supplied by Disney