Over the past 10 years, travel retail has grown by 8.4 percent each year and among the sectors of travel retail that influence this are museums and more specially, museum stores. Keeping this in mind, the opportunity for museum merchants to strengthen their sales thanks to stronger merchandising strategies is key.
Why?
While travel may be increasing, so is consumer spending opportunities. In other words, today’s stores need to wow their customers to capture their dollars and among the ways to do this include merchandising strategies that gain customer attention and sales. To help, consider the below tips.
Create displays that are easy to engage with. While dynamic “do-not-touch” displays are often great for windows and to lure in customers, within your store environment you should create displays that encourage touch and engagement so that your customers are more inclined to interact with your inventory and ultimately be inspired to make a purchase, as well.
Highlight inventory that highlights your museum experience. What separates your store from 99% of others is – in fact – your museum so leverage this with name-drop inventory such as magnets, sweatshirts, plush goods and more while also leveraging displays to bring customer attention to these items. Remember that customers want to leave your store with what they feel represents a souvenir from their museum experience so don’t fall short in giving them this opportunity.
Use cross-merchandising strategies to help move inventory. Want to increase sales? Do so by merchandising inventory in multiple settings so that you increase your chance of customers seeing your store assortment. The reality is every customer will experience your store differently, so cross-merchandising helps to bring attention to inventory you do not want your customers to miss.
Another tip to consider when it comes to museum store merchandising is that impulse items – such as sweaters, scarfs, umbrellas and hats due to incremental weather – are great items to have on hand and quickly push front and center in your displays when the timing is right. This same strategy holds true for food and beverage items – such as candies, water, taffy and even personalized products such as chocolate bars – that are often both appealing in price and impulse. The key is to put these items in a place that your customers won’t miss and that can be easily reached for quick grabbing and buying.
Finally, remember that merchandising is not just about beautiful displays but rather about effective ways to engage customers. You want to create merchandising experiences that demand customer attention, provoke customer curiosity and encourage customer sales. Collectively, these efforts can help your museum store strengthen its in-store experience while also enhancing sales along the way.
By Nicole Leinbach Reyhle
