[BCMA] Operating a Museum Gift Shop

[Moderated BCMA subscriber listserv]

Hi Katie,Self branded items have an exceptional design to sell to most anyone other than your own supporters. The only potential exception to that is if there a limited amount of material for sale in your community that has the community name on it... but I suspect the VIC might have that covered. So what is the purpose of the shop? I am a big believer in museum shops. For me their first purpose is as an extension of programs, secondary are support for local artisans and to generate revenue.  The product mix needs to complement your mission... well mostly......For us, clothing, books, jewelry, FIrst Nations and unique local products ( as an example we have a salt maker that uses solar stills to make salt from the sea) are the big sellers.As for a "fair" price, that has to be fair to you as the seller,  not the consumer...with the exception of books, a minimum of 100% markup over wholesale, ideally closer to 110 or 120%.. the cost to sell has to be covered.  Lots of other things to discuss like consignment, etc.My immediate thought would be looking at your photo collection as a image source for the shirts, tote bags,  but  also consider post cards.Would be happy to chat in a week or so,  to busy the next few days. We sold around $130,000  in 2019 and that has stayed steady during the pandemic with the  80/60% loss of visitor in 20/21 because locals stepped up to uses us for gifts. I am hoping we can break 150,000 this year,Lee Boyko Sooke Region Museum Sent from my Galaxy
-------- Original message --------From: Moderated BCMA subscriber listserv <listserv at lists.museum.bc.ca> Date: 2022-04-27  3:07 p.m.  (GMT-08:00) To: Listserv at lists.museum.bc.ca Subject: [BCMA] Operating a Museum Gift Shop 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 EdingerAdministrative AssistantMuseum of the Cariboo Chilcotin1660B Broadway Ave S. Williams Lake, BCV2G 2W4, 250.392.7404www.cowboy-museum.comMuseum 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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