The Tokyo Disney Resort has recently updated its “Theme Park Usage Agreement,” and listed in its “Prohibited Acts” section is this little gem — “Purchasing products or souvenirs for the purpose of resale.” Yes, Tokyo Disney Resort has now made buying merchandise for the purpose of reselling it a reason to be removed from the park or banned altogether.
The new agreement, which will go into effect on Wednesday, December 21, 2022, states that customers shall not engage in any of the acts listed below when using the Park. “In addition, the violation of this paragraph shall be reasonably determined by the Company based on rational grounds.”
This is a significant problem at every Disney Park around the world. This phenomenon was observed at Tokyo DisneySea this past spring, where some shoppers arrived more than five hours early to purchase new Duffy and Friends Merchandise. Many of these shoppers were suspected of being resellers, and some have reportedly used baby dolls in an attempt to bypass the one-item limit.
The only other change to the “Theme Park Usage Agreement” is they added a new ban on “filming for commercial purposes.”
Prohibiting buying merchandise for reselling purposes at the Tokyo Disney Resort is now as serious as counterfeiting or altering theme park tickets, unauthorized use of credit cards, nuisance/violence towards a Cast Member, and more.
When it comes to popular and limited merchandise, as many Disney fans know, resellers have been a big problem. In 2020, when it was announced that Splash Mountain was being reimagined into Princess and the Frog, resellers descended upon Walt Disney World and Disneyland and nearly wiped out every piece of Splash Mountain merchandise.
At the time, we reported that guests at Walt Disney World snapped up attraction merchandise at the Briar Patch store, leaving shelves nearly bare. Nothing was safe from these resellers’ hands, including Funko POP figurines, clothing, and plush characters.
In 2021, Walt Disney World instituted a two-per-item limit for new releases and popular items. However, this past summer, that rule to curb reselling online has quietly been lifted for most items around Walt Disney World. With the exception of a few high-profile items, two-limit is now back to a maximum of 10 items now.
Click here to read the new “Theme Park Usage Agreement.”
What do you think about this change? Should other Disney Parks institute that same policy? Let us know in the comments below.
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People buying the limited edition t shirt for Mickey’s Not So Scary Party at Magic Kingdom in Orlando ruined the merch for that event. Not even a month in and the shirts were sold out. They definitely had resellers, probably buying 10 shirts each, and they did nothing to stop them…
We were there the night of the first scary event in August. My daughter and I each bought a shirt the minute we entered the event. The person in line in front of us had 18 event spirit jerseys. We counted.
I’d love to see all Disney Parks have this kind of policy, though enforcement seems borderline impossible — and expensive. I would expect prices to go up, at least minimally, to pay for the costs of enforcing the policy.
How do you actually prove that people are there to resell?
The typical theme park guest is only going to spend anywhere from $40-$90 if they’re buying one shirt or spirit jersey for themselves or roughly $200-$300 if they’re buying merchandise for their family as well as gifts for other people. Resellers typically spend between $1,000-$2,000 on merchandise alone. I’m not a reseller, but I do work in the theme park industry
Buying more than 2. Clothing would be harder to prove since they could just buying for their friends or children, if they buys the same clothes with same size then chances it’s for reselling.
If they aren’t going to hold back resellers, I need them to at least ration out event merch. There was nothing left in October for the Halloween parties.
You cannot prove any one person is a reseller. Maybe they are buying for several family members, or grandparent for several grandkids.
If you want to stop the resellers, sell the items online. There are a lot of things I would like to get from the Disney Japan site, but they won’t sell internationally, so whose fault is that?
Disney used to have a parks merch exclusive site, then got rid of it. Again, Disney, don’t be part of the problem.
Sell merch online and internationally and a lot of these resellers will go away.
Yes! Disney should put this into effect here at Disneyland and Walt Disney World. The resellers should only be able to purchase one or two items per day. They shouldn’t be able to go to other locations that same day and buy more. They also shouldn’t be able to sell items two, five or ten times what they paid for it. If they are allowed to sell it they should only sell it for what they paid for it with no markup since they got it at a discount. If a Disney cast member gets caught reselling something they bought with their discount they get terminated. An annual passholder that gets caught reselling discounted bought product should face similar consequences. They should have their passes taken away and possibly banned from Disney for a certain length of time. If they are a repeat offender ban them for life. They may say this is how I make my living. Boo hoo. Get a real job. You shouldn’t be able to take advantage of Disney fans who can’t make it to a Disney park to make their purchase or can’t get the product on Shop Disney because all the resellers have hoarded it all up. The resellers also sometimes make it impossible for local residents and guests visiting Disney to purchase product because they have hoarded it up . Disney needs to track all annual passholder discounted purchases like they do their own cast members. I know that Disney is getting rid of the plastic tickets for them, but if they kept them they could make the passholders swipe their passes just like cast members have to inorder to get their discount. That way they would know what they are buying and what they paid for the item and they would have their name attached to the transaction inorder to give Disney the ability to catch frequent offenders. Or Disney could have something for the cast member to scan on the my Disney experience app when the passholder shows them their pass information inorder to get their discount. Disney could also track the passholders transactions that way too. When an annual passholder purchases something with their discount and then try to resell the item at a significant markup they should get punished. That discount is a privilege Disney gives them for buying that ticket. It is not to be used for anyone other than the passholder. That means they can’t lend their discount to friends or family who are not annual passholders. All of that is an abuse of their discount privileges just like cast members if they tried to do the same thing and Disney should take away their passes.
Yes it needs to be done you can put a limit on the sales majority of resellers are passholders so tracking should not be that hard.
But they do ruin it for others. Fyi they are not that hard to spot Example–pushing a baby buggy with a non service dog in it at the park 3 to 4 x a week live casting while showing the merchandise. Or leaving parks with strollers [childless] full of bags at 930 am.
It is pretty obvious in some cases.
There’s nothing wrong with reselling, and Disney should just be happy there are people willing to provide the merch to those who want to buy it but can’t get their hands on it otherwise.
Probably in Japan, they won’t need to enforce it. If it’s the rule they’ll follow it.
There should be a way of tracking people that use he discount on their passes to buy the same merchadise multiple times. The sale should be cancelled if certain items appear during the transaction while using the discount.