If you haven’t noticed, I’m a bit of a nerd when it comes to Disney merchandise; a merch connoisseur, if you will. And while I spend quite a bit of time sifting through all the items to bring you the best of the best, I often notice the little shifts in tactics along the way. The nuances of merchandise and how well Disney does or doesn’t cater to their market don’t always hit the way we expect them to. For example, last year’s Disney Decades Collection had moments of missing the mark, with some items not representing the decade in question the way fans had hoped. The years before that hosted the Mickey Mouse: The Main Attraction and Minnie Mouse: The Main Attraction Collections, which had sloppy release dates thanks to worldwide issues with manufacturing. You notice these things along the way, yet none of those are what we are discussing today. A new trend is arising that I am finding to be troubling.
This week’s Disney Debate is focused on Mystery Packs. While we have seen this sales and marketing tactic used countless times in the past, the frequency seems to be rather distinctly ramping up, and so too are frustrations. Just last week, I was discussing this very approach with a friend of mine as he vented his annoyance that the collectible toy his daughter was heavily invested in kept turning out to be the same item with each purchase. Now, this wasn’t a Disney-related toy, though it got me thinking about how common this sales trend has become. It’s ingenious in a way. Encouraging easily excitable children (and, well, me) to collect all of a series of items, only to release it as a mystery that won’t allow you to actually collect anything at all except by chance? Come to think of it, it’s just sort of mean.
I find it most troublesome with smaller items. For larger purchases, one might be only expecting to buy one item, happy with any that they receive; however, for a smaller purchase, it’s easier for those dollars to get away from you as you chase that elusive next character in your Disney collection. I have another friend whose son was collecting Disney Munchlings at the time. He desperately tried to complete his set, asking for every birthday and special occasion to have another shot at finishing his collection with the last character. I can’t recall which one it was, but I do remember by the time they gave up on it, they had received so many of the same character that they tried to sell them on eBay in case others might be looking for the very one they had ten of.
I wonder how much more we would pay to get the particular item we were longing for. How much money do we waste on mystery sets, considering as your collection grows, your odds of receiving those last missing pieces decrease dramatically? The newest kicker is that many of the current collections that utilize this sales technique aren’t available any other way. That’s right; you gamble on every purchase or can’t acquire your items. The value of a single item seems fair, though the prospect of wanting the whole collection becomes problematic. Sure, they are marketed as a fun surprise, a bit of excitement in your retail experience, not knowing what will arrive, which is all good for your first or second acquisition. But the mere suggestion of a ‘collection’ motivates the buyer to want the set, which is only available through this game of chance and requires you to invest much more than it’s worth. This one feels like a rort to me — that’s an Aussie word for something that’s a rip-off or a bit of a swindle.
Let me know what you think. In unraveling that one, I’ve discovered I have some substantially negative feelings about it. What I started writing as a single thought has developed into more of a disgust for the strategy. It’s obvious when you think about it you will never get all ten items in a ten-item mystery collection on the first try. Still, cloaked in the intrigue of marketing, we quickly forget that hurdle in our first instance of temptation. How hard will it be to collect them all? Harder than you think is the answer.
Let me know where you sit on this one. Are blind mystery packs fun or laced with disappointment?
Zoë Wood is a travel writer from Sydney, Australia. Since her first visit to Disneyland at the age of 6, she has spent her years frequently visiting Disney Parks and traveling around the world.
Join Zoë as she lets you in on all the tips, tricks, anecdotes, and embarrassments that arise from her family adventures.
