Should You Hire a Disney Personal Shopper?

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Thankfully, there are a few options in these situations.  One of them is to hire a Disney Personal Shopper.  Here’s our experience with using this service recently.

What is a Disney Personal Shopper?

A Disney Personal Shopper is someone who is local to the Disney Parks and can pick up items and ship them to you.  They do this full-time or as a side business, charging a flat fee or a percentage fee for their service.

Some of the Personal Shoppers seem to specialize in only the most popular merchandise, while others seem to be willing to get you just about anything, no matter how small or obscure.  There are some who also offer additional services such as Gift Bag or grocery delivery to the Resorts.

Personal Shoppers are not to be confused with people who stock up on limited edition merchandise and then try to resell it on their sites or on eBay.

What Kind of Markup Should You Expect to Pay?

Looking around the Internet, the markup fees for various Disney Personal Shoppers we’ve seen have ranged from 15% on the low end to 30% on the high end.  Some have minimum purchase requirements in order to get the low markup rates.

Wishes and Dreams Concierge Shopping

When he heard about the new MagicBand Watch Sliders, we wanted to get our hands on them so we could do a review.  We teamed up with Tracey from Wishes and Dreams Concierge Shopping to get a pair of Watch Sliders sent to us at home before our next trip. Tracey has also graciously agreed to supply a pair of Watch Sliders for the giveaway we are currently running as well!

You can check out our review of the Watch Sliders here.

Meet Tracey, A Disney Concierge Shopper

Wishes and Dreams Concierge Shopping is run by Tracey and her husband.  They operate solely through their Facebook page, and communicate via email, phone or text. Transactions are completed through Paypal.

I asked Tracey a few questions so we could get to know more about her and her business.

How did you come to live in the Walt Disney World area? 

My husband and I relocated to the Orlando area four years ago and immediately became Disney passholders. At that time, my daughter was just turning 3, so we celebrated her birthday at Magic Kingdom. We also discovered that Hollywood Studios is the best place to potty-train a toddler. Sounds strange, but that park has the most Companion restrooms of any park.

What do you do when you’re not shopping for people at the parks?

My husband is a stay at home Dad. We call him the “Retired Chef” (he’s only 44.) We were looking for job opportunities for him that would allow him to be available for any reason. You see, I am a traveling sales rep for a very large scientific supply company and I am out of town 70% of the year. We came up with the Disney Shopper idea, but we wanted to stand out against the current field.

How do you stand out from other personal shoppers?

Our idea is to offer fair pricing with outstanding service. We didn’t want our services to feel like a cookie cutter website where you browse items and dump them in your cart. Concierge shopping is about “live” shopping with the customer available by phone or text. Some know the exact item they are searching for, others like to freestyle through the parks with us. We create special bonds with our customers, for we like to refer to them as “Dreamers.”

To quote Mr. Walt Disney,
“You can dream, create, design and build the most wonderful place in the world… but it requires people to make the dream a reality.”

Our philosophy is to provide a little pixie dust to remind our “Dreamers” of those special moments in life, whether it’s their past trips to Disney or an upcoming trip they have planned. We also provide delivery to any of the Disney Resorts.

The Service

True to her word, once we enlisted Tracey’s services in locating the MagicBand Watch Sliders, she was in constant communication with us.  The sliders proved to be somewhat difficult to find, but Tracey kept looking and did manage to snag us a couple.

Once she purchased the sliders, she sent us an invoice detailing the price, her fees, as well as the shipping cost, which she determined using our address.  We paid for them using Paypal.

The markup for the Watch Sliders was 20%, which is in line with most of the other personal shopping services we looked at. There was an additional 3% Paypal fee as well as a shipping and handling charge.

The invoice also notes that they have a 15-day return policy.

Tracey supplied us with a tracking number and estimated delivery date via email once our order had been shipped.

The difficulty in locating the sliders was the only other glitch in an otherwise smooth transaction.  For some reason, and certainly not due to anything that Tracey could control, our order sat inside a U.S. Postal facility for a few days before actually making its way to us.  We had the tracking number, so we could see this happening, and Tracey reached out to us to let us know as well.

Our merchandise arrived in a padded envelope, which was more than adequate to protect them during shipping.

Final Thoughts

Our experience using a Disney Personal Shopper was a positive one.  The personal attention and effort is what you are paying for, so be sure to get some feedback from other people who have used their services.

Even if you know a friend or family member who lives nearby or is heading down to the parks in the near future, sometimes it’s worth the extra money to have someone who is dedicated to getting you that Disney Parks item that you just have to have.

In our case, Tracey from Wishes and Dreams Concierge Shopping certainly provided great service.

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