On Thu, 16 Oct 1997, Henry B. Crawford wrote:

Chris Dill said:
:| >     " placement of gift shop merchandise cases (platforms
:| >     and vitrines) within or adjacent to exhibits?  What is
:| >     the general opinion of this practice?"
:| >
:| >     Sounds like good marketing to me.  I certainly
:| >     appreciate them as a consumer (read: museum shop
:| >     junkie) when I travel.  Obviously, you don't want the
:| >     marketing to interfere with the exhibition's
:| >     presentation, but that's just a matter of design.
:|
:| I've been in, and worked in museums which did this well and quite
:| tastefully.  Of note, years ago when the Art Institute of Chicago did
:| Pompeii, the exhibit traffic flow went right into a special Pompeii gift
:| shop.  Among the items for sale were the two volume set of exhibit catalogs
:| (which I bought) and posters of surviving Pompeii art work.
:|
:| It was a stroke of marketing genius, and I don't think the public
:| complained about it.
:|
:| As a museum professional visiting, I appreciated the effort.  The only way
:| that it would not work, is if it created a bottleneck at the exit of the
:| exhibit, but that's a matter of design, not of concept.  There was no
:| bottleneck at Pompeii.   Nor was there a problem during the " Cenote of
:| Sacrifice" exhibit which we did at Milwaukee Public Museum back in 1987,
:| when I was Registrar.  The gift shop did quite well, as I recall.

You've got three major items to address: traffic management, product
selection and staffing.  The exhibit store should be easy for both
customers to navigate and non-customers to bypass (but make it
easier for the customers).  The products carried in the store have
to be very tightly focused on the exhibit but you should have a
couple of "generic" museum items (pick your best sellers) for the
folks who want to do "one-stop souvenir shopping."  And your staff
has to be well-educated in exhibit and merchandise knowledge along
with strong customer service skills.  These people should be your
best workers.

Rich Johnson
Director of Marketing
Cotton Expressions Imprinted Apparel
http://www.cottonexpress.com