Nowhere to Go But Up Museum Retailers Hope for a Picture Perfect Recovery

As everyone is painfully aware, 2020 was a brutal year for the souvenir and gift industry. Museum gift stores were hammered as many were impacted by a state order mandating that the host museum be closed. As they start to reopen, albeit maybe in a reduced capacity, their shops are noticing a definite uptick in sales.

Stella Moraes Gutberlet , guest services manager of the Children’s Museum of the Upstate in Greenville, S.C., said they have opened at a reduced capacity. They spent the lockdown period renovating and enlarging the store. They also set up better financial controls and established an offline store. When Moraes Gutberlet looks at her top sellers like plush animals, magnetic toys, and, particularly, Kineticsand, she is optimistic for the year.

They are planning to attend fall trade shows such as Myrtle Beach and Gatlinburg, and she said she believes the industry is headed in a good direction.

The Sioux City Public Museum in Sioux City, Iowa, offers an eclectic collection and the best-sellers in the gift shop reflect that. Mary Green-Warnstadt , store manager, points out pioneer bonnets, coonskin caps, cowboy hats, engineer hats, rock collections and related jewelry, and history books as their top sellers.

Susan Kelley , executive director of the Children’s Museum at Holyoke in Massachusetts, has an interesting dynamic: attendance at the museum is down but buying is up at the museum shop. Visitors seem to be happy to get out and they feel the museum and the shop are safe and clean.

Kelley likes to tie her merchandise to items in the museum so that a purchase is often a reminder of items in the collection. For example, they have a front end loader on display that kids can climb in so, not surprisingly, construction vehicle toys are big-sellers. They have a fabulous collection of Pez dispensers and sell Pez in the shop. They offer a lot of $1 products and don’t carry anything over $25 so visitors to the 40-year-old establishment feel they get good value. Kelley does most of her buying online, rather than at shows, and calls out fire trucks, a grocery basket full of pretend fruits and vegetables, Beanie Boos, and craft sets (especially a unicorn bank) as top sellers for the under-11 crowd she is usually serving. Museum members get a discount and she always has sale racks. The member newsletter also highlights new items in the store.

Melissa