The sorry state of museum gift shops

[Pachyrhinosaurus]

I bought a Papo orangutan knockoff from the same "The Collection" line at the Philadelphia Zoo. I didn't even realize it was a knockoff since it was so indistinguishable:

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Also I'm pretty sure the ones you posted, Suspsy, were the same as the knockoffs I saw at the ANSP.

As far as good museum shops I've seen, the Carnegie was a nice one. They've since remodeled their shop, but I remember there being some Dinostoreus skeletons and (surprise, surprise) Carnegies. My local museum used to have a good gift shop for figures, but they remodeled at around the same time the Carnegie Collection was retired so it went downhill pretty quick, but they still have a good selection of rock samples.

[BlueKrono]

It's a shame about the ROM. They've made some figures of their own that were very cool.

[Blade-of-the-Moon]

And it's not just museums, it seems zoo and aquarium gift shops are suffering as well.  I noticed this last year at the San Diego Zoo, which used to have an excellent selection of Safari, Papo, and Schleich figures.  Now they've largely been crowded out by, not necessarily knock-offs, but very cheapy figures.

The book sections in these gift shops also seem to suffering a similar fate. 

It's almost impossible to get folks to buy a book anymore, at least at cover price.  I bought some Discovery Kids hardbacks on Dinosaurs, MSRP was 15.00 I sold them at 10.00 since I bought a box full at discount. They have yet to sell one copy in 2 months.   Everyone I know pretty much reads on a Kindle now if they bother to read more than a magazine at all.  :/

[Cloud the Dinosaur King]

I just went to the museum back in February to check out the new sea monsters exhibit and pick up some Safari Ltd. models which they usually have at the museum gift shop, but all of the dinosaurs they had were not models and rather stuffed animals and books for kids. Luckily at the gift shop for the sea monsters exhibit they did have the CollectA 1:40 scale Pteranodon, so I got that. I didn't see any ripoffs however.

[BlueKrono]

Did they have any sea monsters?

[Halichoeres]

And it's not just museums, it seems zoo and aquarium gift shops are suffering as well.  I noticed this last year at the San Diego Zoo, which used to have an excellent selection of Safari, Papo, and Schleich figures.  Now they've largely been crowded out by, not necessarily knock-offs, but very cheapy figures.

The book sections in these gift shops also seem to suffering a similar fate. 

It's almost impossible to get folks to buy a book anymore, at least at cover price.  I bought some Discovery Kids hardbacks on Dinosaurs, MSRP was 15.00 I sold them at 10.00 since I bought a box full at discount. They have yet to sell one copy in 2 months.   Everyone I know pretty much reads on a Kindle now if they bother to read more than a magazine at all.  :/

That might be location specific. The Field Museum makes a ton of money on books, but it's also in a city with a dozen or so universities.

[SBell]

can't we start an official petition, with DTF letterhead? would be a sign,  wouldn't it?

But who would the petition go to? Not that it would generally matter, since every museum has its own goals and policies anyway. Also, collectors are really far down the list of who the shops are for.

I know from my experience running a museum, including the gift shop, that the goal was to maintain a high quality, wide-range of product that would suit everybody. We brought in books (succesfully) we carried Safari & CollectA (back when those could be brought in...), we carried the usual shirts, facility-made fossil replicas, and fun stuff.

Certainly no knock offs or dollar store stuff. K&M handled the low price stuff.

We were small, but the shop did well (>$1 store/$1 admission, which is a rarity). The main criterion was, "is this a product that I would buy for my kids/myself?" If not, we tended not to carry it. Followed by the focus--did it reflect the local Natural History that we focused on?  Finally, are my staff (high school and university students) asking me to bring these in? Which is why we carried dragons sometimes...and gulper eels. Unrelated, but they sold!


Although, of course, I approached it as a collector, parent and business. And had a budget for the store (one of the few places where the budget worked). The facility has since turned into a bastion of unrelated Canadiana and local jewellery.

[Blade-of-the-Moon]

And it's not just museums, it seems zoo and aquarium gift shops are suffering as well.  I noticed this last year at the San Diego Zoo, which used to have an excellent selection of Safari, Papo, and Schleich figures.  Now they've largely been crowded out by, not necessarily knock-offs, but very cheapy figures.

The book sections in these gift shops also seem to suffering a similar fate. 

It's almost impossible to get folks to buy a book anymore, at least at cover price.  I bought some Discovery Kids hardbacks on Dinosaurs, MSRP was 15.00 I sold them at 10.00 since I bought a box full at discount. They have yet to sell one copy in 2 months.   Everyone I know pretty much reads on a Kindle now if they bother to read more than a magazine at all.  :/

That might be location specific. The Field Museum makes a ton of money on books, but it's also in a city with a dozen or so universities.

It's quite possible, my usual customer demographic is low income families , parents and grandparents with kids 3-10,  who usually spend about 3-5.00 per kid.  books may just not suit them so much. 

I think location specific items sell the best, folks seem to want anything with your logo on it as a souvenir.  A figure or line of figures made just for the location would appease general customers and collectors as well. Having the funds to undertake such a venture though... 

[Moodyraptor]

Best museum gift shop I've encountered recently was the Zoological museum in Copenhagen - a rack full of carnegies which kept me very happy. I guess they'll have to pick a different brand when they run out of stock, though.