When Target opens 25 Disney “stores” in October, it will mark the first time the retailer has deployed the store-within-a-store format that has been championed by J.C. Penney, Macy’s Best Buy and others. And it is another step by Target aimed at expanding its merchandise mix with “exclusives,” a strategy that has increasingly focused on private label brands.

For Disney, which will stock the average 750-sq.-ft. “stores” inside Target locations with 450 toys, games, books and apparel that will be a mix of licensed and Disney-sourced products, it will be a less expansive strategy than that which accompanied the roll out of 850-1,100-sq.-ft. “Disney Shops Inside J.C. Penney back in 2013.” Those launched in 520 J.C. Penney locations and had grown 680 stores by 2016. The Disney stores at Target will expand to 40 locations in 2020.

Disney shops can still be found inside J.C. Penney stores, but not with the high profile they carried six years ago, when the agreement was central to then CEO Ron Johnson’s long-since-abandoned plans for opening shop-in-shops featuring 100 different brands inside the J.C. Penney stores. J.C. Penney stores continue carry exclusive Disney products sourced for it by the Disney Stores organization, says a J.C. Penney spokeswoman.

Disney and Target discussed the plans for this latest in-store shop concept for about a year before landing on format that will feature 100 items from Disney’s standalone stores, along with music, interactive displays and a seating area where consumers can watch clips from Disney movies, a Disney spokeswoman said.

The merchandise will be built around Pixar, Marvel, Disney and Star Wars films, a contrast to the Disney Jr. programming, Tangled and Monsters University-themed items that were part of the J.C. Penney launch, which was timed to coincide with the 2013 release of Monsters University’s DVD. The Disney products at Target will be priced $2-$200, higher than the $5-$90 original range for merchandise in the J.C. Penney shops.

The J.C. Penney shops have been “quite successful” in proving that the shop-in-shop concept works, Robert Chapek, chairman of Disney’s parks, experiences and products, said during a conference call with reporters. But the shops inside Target will be “distinct” from those at J.C. Penney, Chepak said. There will also be little overlap between them and Disney’s 214 largely mall-based standalone stores in North America, which average 12,000 square feet, a Disney spokeswoman said. But there will be overlap with customers, 90% of whom, data shows, have an affinity for both brands, Chepak said. Target also will open a small format (sub-49,000 square feet) store near Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, FL in 2021, the companies said.

“It is not that malls are bad, but this does give us an opportunity to go ahead and expand our footprint well beyond those malls,” Chapek said.

For Target, Disney stores also are another push, albeit on a smaller scale, to expand its toy business. The stores will be located near Target’s toy department, which last year was expanded in 500 locations in advance of the holiday selling season as retailers scrambled to take advantage of Toys R Us’ closing.