[BCMA] Operating a Museum Gift Shop

[Moderated BCMA subscriber listserv]

Hi Katie!

We operate a small gift shop at our Museum, with about 50% of the stock
being books and 50% being souvenir type merchandise. Our merch features
vintage apple box labels and photos from our collection. Our most popular
items by far are mugs ($18 each), tote bags ($15 each), and magnets ($4
each). We ordered t-shirts in December for approx. $15 per shirt and we
sell them in the store for $25 each. The general response from customers is
that $25 is a really good price for a high-quality cotton t-shirt. I think
that $30 would be completely acceptable.

Good luck!
Petra Höller
*Curator*
Summerland Museum and Archives

On Wed, Apr 27, 2022 at 3:15 PM Moderated BCMA subscriber listserv <
listserv at lists.museum.bc.ca> wrote:

> Hello everyone,
>
> Our Board of Directors recently decided that we would open up a small gift
> shop to help add some additional revenue. Currently all our inventory
> includes older books and some older t-shirts that the previous gift shop
> used 5-6 years ago. We share a building with our local Tourism Discovery
> Centre, and they operate a large gift shop and we are trying to avoid
> duplicate products/ limit competition as we start out.
>
> Our question is, what items do other museums or heritage sites find to be
> the most profitable in their gift shops? We've done some online research to
> see what products some other museums sell, but we have no way of knowing
> what is a worthy investment of our funds. We want to order t-shirts and
> tote bags, but we are a little hesitant when the average cost to do a
> t-shirt with full color comes in around $18, and our initial thought was to
> keep shirts around $25-$30. Is this a fair price and should we adjust our
> potential selling costs, or is it on the high end?
>
> We appreciate any feedback that people are willing to share.
>
> Sincerely,
> Katie Edinger
>
> --
>
> *Katie Edinger*
> *Administrative Assistant*
>
> *Museum of the Cariboo Chilcotin*
> *1660B Broadway Ave S. Williams Lake, BC*
> *V2G 2W4, **250.392.7404*
> *www.cowboy-museum.com <http://www.cowboy-museum.com/>*
>
> *Museum of the Cariboo Chilcotin is grateful to be located on the
> territory of the St'exelcemc (Williams Lake First Nation) of the Secwépemc
> Nation.*
> *Serving on the traditional territory of the Secwépemc, Tŝilhqot'in, and
> Dakelh Nations.*
> _______________________________________________
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>
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