This article from NYTimes.com has been sent to you by [log in to unmask] /-------------------- advertisement -----------------------\ Share the spirit with a gift from Starbucks. Our coffee brewers & espresso machines at special holiday prices. http://www.starbucks.com/shop/subcategory.asp?category_name=Sale/Clearance&ci=274&cookie_test=1 \----------------------------------------------------------/ When the Going Gets Tough, Some Go Shopping at Museums January 10, 2002 By CELESTINE BOHLEN At a time when New York museums were still hurting from the shocks of September and shoppers were hunkering down for a national recession, the Metropolitan Museum of Art still managed to do a brisk business selling $35,000 amethyst pendants and one-of-a-kind embroidered Indian shawls, at prices ranging from $2,000 to $6,000. The success of this kind of high-end merchandise, inspired by the dazzling opulence of the special exhibition "Jeweled Arts of India in the Age of the Mughals," offered a small dash of comfort in what was otherwise a bleak holiday shopping season in New York's museum stores. "The jewelry seemed to hit a note that people liked," said David E. McKinney, the president of the Metropolitan, who said that sales from the gift shop connected to the Mughal exhibition were two and a half times higher than anticipated. While sales at the Metropolitan's national retail empire, now numbering 15 stores from Long Island to Los Angeles, were down about 10 percent for the last six months of 2001 (compared with the same period a year ago), the shops inside the museum's Fifth Avenue building were down just 9 percent - buoyed largely by the success of the shop for the Mughal show (which closes on Sunday). Shopping long ago became an integral part of the museum experience in the United States. According to a 1999 survey of 1,800 museums by the American Association of Museums, revenue from gift shops and publications accounted on average for 25.5 percent of earned income (general admissions is the next highest source, at 19.8 percent) and 7.1 percent of gross income, a figure that also includes philanthropic gifts, sponsorships and government grants. Usually, the most extravagant shoppers are tourists, and late last year it was the tourists who were missing from New York city's museums, causing two - the Solomon R. Guggenheim and the Whitney Museum of American Art - to lay off staff members. The slump in attendance, which began sharply in September, continued through the holiday season: at the Metropolitan for instance, attendance last month was still down 25 to 30 percent from a year earlier. Coming on top of the decline in attendance, the drop in sales revenues has been a particularly painful blow. "This is the one area which has been really brutal," Glenn D. Lowry, director of the Museum of Modern Art said in a recent interview. "Retail makes most of its money in the last quarter," Mr. Lowry added. "This came at the worst time for us." Last year, as Christmas approached, gross revenues at the Modern's celebrated design store were $3 million below an expected level of $30 million, he said. "Right now, we are losing money in retail," Mr. Lowry said. "We will be really lucky if it breaks even." But as bad as the news was, some museums could take comfort from the fact that the drop in sales revenues was less steep than the drop in attendance. In other words, while fewer people were visiting museums, those who went shopped - sometimes even a little more than usual. For the Met's managers, the lessons learned from the Mughal gift shop, which offered original items specially made by the heirs to a Jaipur jewelry-makers' dynasty, was that high prices can be overcome when shoppers feel inspired by the art. "It was a special event because the exhibition was a special event," Mr. McKinney said. "It was a one-time thing, but it may mean we can be more optimistic with what the market will bear, particularly if it ties in to a show." Similarly, at the American Museum of Natural History, the popularity of the "Pearls" exhibition helped push the gift shop's sales of pearls well beyond anticipated levels, an official at the museum said. At the Brooklyn Museum of Art, sales were up 25 percent over the same day in December 2000 during the one-day Members Only annual holiday shopping day. "We were offering a 20 percent discount, but then we always offer a 20 percent discount," said Sallie Stutz, vice director for marketing. "I think people just wanted to come and support their institutions." At the Whitney Museum of American Art, "store sales were outpacing admission," said the director, Maxwell Anderson. "There is a holiday bump every year, partly because we are on Madison Avenue, which is a spending location." The American Folk Art Museum also saw its special hand-crafted items fly off the shelves at the museum's recently opened new home, on West 53rd Street. "We have to factor in that it was a new building," said Marie DiManno, director of museum shops, "but it was phenomenal." But at the Folk Art Museum's outlet at Lincoln Square, sales were down, just as they were at most other museums in the city. And at the Brooklyn Museum, poor attendance at the "Eternal Egypt" exhibition, brought here from Britain, lowered anticipated gift-shop sales by 25 percent, Ms. Stutz said. Museum stores have an edge over their commercial competitors because their profits are exempt from business taxes, provided that the items they sell are in keeping with the educational mission of their collection. But the lines between mission and commerce have often blurred, as museum directors succeed in defining as educational tools baseballs bearing artists' signatures and packages of pasta in the shape of works of art. As a result, only a tiny percentage of museum retail sales are eligible for what the I.R.S. calls the "unrelated business income tax." The Metropolitan Museum, which began selling art reproductions and publications soon after its doors opened in 1870, has been perfecting the art of retailing ever since. It now operates shops in SoHo, Rockefeller Center and La Guardia Airport as well as stores across the country and several franchise operations abroad. In 2000 the Metropolitan Museum's gift shops reported gross sales of $76 million, of which just less than half came from the shops in the museum, according to recent financial reports. The net revenue, however, from the entire retail operation is only about $1 million a year, Mr. McKinney said. In addition to usual expenses like the cost of the goods, personnel, distribution and commercial rents, the Metropolitan Museum also offsets its profits with rent, utility and security costs charged to the main building's gift shops. Eighty-five percent of American museums do not charge their stores rent, according to a recent survey for the Museum Store Association in Denver. Mr. McKinney said the Met did so in order to keep closer track of the performance of the shops at the Fifth Avenue museum, which can then be realistically compared with satellite stores in other locations. The most recent addition was a store that opened in the Aladdin Resort and Casino in Las Vegas last June, in the same city where the Guggenheim opened its latest satellite museum in October. Like other outlets in tourist meccas, the Las Vegas store has lagged behind expectations since Sept. 11. But while tourist-related dollars were hard to come by, catalog and Internet sales were generally up, several museums reported. The Whitney reported a 100 percent increase in business conducted through its Web site, while sales from the Metropolitan's Web site were up 40 percent during the last half of last year. "People are shopping more from home," Mr. McKinney said. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/10/arts/design/10MUSE.html?ex=1011660393&ei=1&en=6b030159d6ee4670 HOW TO ADVERTISE --------------------------------- For information on advertising in e-mail newsletters or other creative advertising opportunities with The New York Times on the Web, please contact Alyson Racer at [log in to unmask] or visit our online media kit at http://www.nytimes.com/adinfo For general information about NYTimes.com, write to [log in to unmask] Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company ========================================================= Important Subscriber Information: The Museum-L FAQ file is located at http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ . You may obtain detailed information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "help" (without the quotes). 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