Name-Dropped Products and Souvenirs

manager last fall, and for now is “sticking with what works” in the name-dropped category. Many top sellers are common products like coffee mugs or reusable tote bags featuring Grand Rapids imagery. “These are things you use every day, and that way, you’ll always see our name,” Gartner noted. “They are things that create a memory — and tie into what grows that passion for our zoo and our area.”

That connection is why Lisa Hurd , store manager at the Buttonwood Park Zoo, is hoping to bring more name-dropped items into a gift shop that traditionally didn’t carry them. “Anything with our animals, these are going to be things people can relate with,” Hurd said.

Popular merchandise at the store includes a new line of sterling silver animal charms, as well as the perennially best-selling apparel line for adults and kids featuring zoo animals like coyotes, black bears and sloths. Ball caps, messenger bags, Christmas ornaments, and “Baby on Board” decals featuring the zoo’s popular baby sloth are also doing well this year.

When guests walk into the 700-square-foot store, the first thing they see is a zoo-specific merchandise display along the back wall. “It’s a colorful wall, and we have constant foot traffic,” explained Hurd.

Name-dropped and logo apparel is the runaway best-selling category at the Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium. Hoodies and T-shirts top sales, along with logo fleece blankets, according to Stacey Wade , district manager for retail at The SSA Group, which manages the zoo and aquarium store.

To boost sales, Wade merchandises apparel “on a focal table or on mannequins, to showcase how clothes look on a body form,” she explained. Whether wearable or not, branded items are consistently the top sellers at the Pittsburgh gift shop. “Most guests want to leave with a memory of their trip,” Wade observed, “and nothing is better than leaving with a namedropped souvenir.” ❖