Jaime Torres Valadez / El Paso Newspaper
Friday, March 12, 2021 | 06:00
Entertainment giant Walt Disney has announced the closure of at least 60 stores in various cities across the country, including one of the two in El Paso, Texas, its executives said.
The one located in the Cielo Vista shopping center, was the first to be established in this city. It has been visited by thousands of buyers both locally and in northern Mexico. Now all that’s left is The Outlet Shoppes in El Paso, in the Northwest.
“Now is the time to say goodbye,” reads a sign at the entrance to the store that emphasizes that you can shop in the online store: official.shopdisney.com.
“I feel sad because I see how much I love and recognize the shops in the city,” said Evangelina Ruiz, after learning about the closure. The place offers a 30 percent discount on the farewell of its purchases, in addition to the gift of a $ 10 coupon to those who visit and buy their items in the physical store.
Although a branch will remain in the city, consumers have shown melancholy just like employees who will end their work cycle this month.
According to the company, the closure of dozens of stores, including seven located in the state of Texas, is scheduled for March 23 this year or earlier.
Walt Disney recently announced that it is drastically reducing the size of its North American chain store by about 35%. And it will do so in other parts of the world.
For several years, and even more so with the coronavirus pandemic, shoppers have chosen to buy their goods online, which has motivated the company to put more emphasis on e-commerce in the near future.
“We have been here for years to buy so many toys from the magical world of Disney, first for our children, then for our grandchildren and now for our great-grandchildren. We will have to go to the other one,” said another customer regretfully. wait in line for the entrance.
Like her, consumers bought her toys, monkeys stuffed with Disney characters, creative crafts, puzzles, costumes and even DVDs of their favorite movies to have fun at home.
The store has been crowded since the announcement of the closure, but controlled order and capacity have been dominated by staff who maintain the security protocol to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.
A total of seven branches will be closed in Texas: three in San Antonio; two in Houston, one in Laredo and one in El Paso.
The rest of the stores that will close in the country are in Arizona (3); Baltimore (2), Colorado (1), California (9), Chicago (2), Indianapolis (2), Kansas (1), Miami (2), New York (2), Oregon (1), New Jersey (1 )), Missouri (1), Pittsburgh (2) and Tennessee (1).
Stephanie Young, the Disney manager, told the media that during the pandemic, the business moved to the Internet, noting that the group recently had more than 300 “Disney stores” with iconic branches around the world, including Times Square in New York.
Although Disney initially did not provide any information on how many jobs will be lost due to the closures, the Mickey Mouse Group has already announced that it will lay off approximately 32,000 employees in the first half of fiscal year 2021.
In particular, Disney amusement parks and cruise ships are suffering greatly from the pandemic. Prior to the crisis, Disney still had more than 100,000 employees in the division, it was said.
Newspaper data indicate that at the peak in 1999, there were nearly 800 Disney stores worldwide. More than two decades away, the chain wants to significantly reduce its presence in the traditional retail sector and focus on expanding its digital trading platform.