Covering all the bases

Zoo and museum gift shops both play an important role in supporting the mission and causes of their organizations with their merchandise mix. It is important that the gifts and souvenirs they carry also reflect the exhibits and appeal to the diverse crowd that explores the attraction. But there are also plenty of differences. Kristin Ely sat down with two prominent buyers from a major museum and zoo during a recent Las Vegas Market.

In this multi-part series, which will run in subsequent issues of Souvenirs, Gifts & Novelties, Ely to spoke Joy Love, vice president of merchandising and warehouse operations, San Diego Wildlife Zoo Alliance and Maureen Ryan, Museum Store Manager, Albuquerque Museum Foundation, about the various operational aspects of managing a gift shop that supports an attraction.

In the first of this multi-part series, participants discuss buying strategies.

Kristin Ely (KE): Please tell us a little bit about your role within your gift store operation.

Joy Love, San Diego Wildlife Zoo Alliance (JL): I am the vice president of merchandising and warehouse operations for San Diego Zoo Wildlife clients. We cover roughly 22 stores across two locations, San Diego Zoo and San Diego Zoo Safari Park. My team consists of about 40 individuals. They oversee the whole buying side. We’ve got three merchandise managers and three buyers who report to them, and we also have the warehouse side of things. Our warehouse side receives the goods, performs quality control, puts away, packs and fulfills product for our online store, shopzoo.com.

Maureen Ryan, Albuquerque Museum Store (MR): I have been at the museum for 12 years. I am currently the buyer and merchandise manager. I was the store manager up until last year and I gave that up so I could focus my time on expanding marketing and buying and other aspects [of gift shop operations] that I prefer to do. We are an art and history museum and the store is 2,400 square feet. When I started years ago, the store was in the red and now were are at almost $1 million per year.

KE: What shows do you attend and what is your approach for meeting with existing and new vendors?

JL: We typically attend both Las Vegas Markets in January and July, and we typically do one or both ASD markets and the Las Vegas Souvenir & Resort Gift Show — that’s the show that my entire team attends. Sometimes we will do Toy Fair in New York. The Gathering West has been in San Diego the last few years so we all attend that and then we’ll send one or two buyers to The Gathering East.

Our approach is we always try to meet with our established vendors to work on ongoing projects and see if there’s anything new, develop product with them, et cetera. We always try to take the first day of the show to walk the entire show to see if there is anything new and different, anyone we’ve spoken to in the past but didn’t have a need necessarily for their product then, but might now. And just because we haven’t had a need for other brands in the past, doesn’t mean we won’t in the future, so we always like to make our introductions and see what’s new out there.

MR: I usually come to both winter and summer Las Vegas Markets. A lot of my sales reps work that market so it’s wonderful because I get to work with people who know my store and the diversity of my assortment. I also go to New York NOW in August mainly because of holiday buying. I really look for some higher-end things and it’s a perfect place to go and buy modern kinds of things. I can always go to my vendors locally, but it’s nice to bring in some other higher-end things to sell at holiday time.

I do also walk the show, especially the temporaries the first day, because I don’t usually set appointment the first day. I call those “my people” because they are smaller vendors and there are a lot of artist-related vendors there, including some really cool products from women-owned companies as well as Fair Trade, and those are certainly categories I like to support as I am doing my buying.

KE: How important is establishing relationships with vendors and reps and how do you foster those relationships?

JL: I think it’s extremely important to have great relationships with you vendors. Great doesn’t mean you’re on the same page 100% of the time, but it’s your tried-and-true vendors who will go to bat for you and who you can trust and know they are going to deliver the product in the quality that they have said they were going to.

A lot of times, seasonally, we’ve got deadlines that we have to hit, like if we are not set up and in full position for our summer season in terms of inventory and our feature tables, then it could mean the difference between a great week of sales and that is huge in Q3 and Q4 for us.

We have a lot of long-term vendors that we’ve worked with a long time. That doesn’t mean there’s not a place for new ones to go to to expand our search as needed, and we enjoy meeting new vendors and building relationships with new ones.

MR: It’s hugely important. We pretty much change a third of our store three times a year. We have major shows that are generated from our curatorial team or a traveling show, and those are what bring people into the museum. We still have our local people who come to see exhibitions but the big blockbuster things usually come from outside so I am buying specifically to augment and support the exhibition.

To the people that I work with on a regular basis, they all know and they are scouting for me as well to help me find that one special thing that I might need. As I develop the vision, I will then be in touch with them. That’s where special projects and products come into play, and we have to have enough time to get them produced. The people you work with on a regular basis, they go to bat for you and say, “No problem. We can get that done for you.” It works out great.

KE: Where else do you go aside from shows to procure merchandise and how effective are those methods (i.e., online platforms, rep visits, social media)?

JL: Often times vendors will invite us to visit their showrooms. We do a lot of competitive shopping, so whether it be malls or other amusement parks or other zoos, we’d like to see what’s going on.
We like to see what they stand for, what they are featuring, what they have in depth, what items are on their markdown rack. We are really looking to see what they are doing in their businesses that may be different from ours.

We don’t rely solely on trade shows. Our younger buyers use Instagram and TikTok to capitalize on the trends we see there — not exactly that exact merchandise, but it provides a lot of inspiration.

MR: I live in a state where there are as many artists as you can imagine. I go to a lot of artist markets in New Mexico. People also come into the store. I always make time to see anyone who comes in because it might be the one thing I didn’t know I needed, and they just brought it to me.

There are a lot of studio tours, especially in the spring and fall, and you can go to a beautiful area like Abiquiú where Georgia O’Keefe is from and meet all these wonderful creative people and sometimes we find some really remarkable things.

Last year I went to The Sunflower Festival in a little mountain town called Mountainair and there was this woman there and she had the cutest what she calls “ouchless cactus.” They are fabric and they’re adorable. She makes big ones, small ones; she makes a prickly pear and a saguaro. It’s a happy product. I thought, “Well, let’s just see,” and it’s been working. I think we’ve reordered three times already. Sometimes I am in a store and I see a goofy little thing and it’s like, “Oh I have to research that.” I am always on the hunt.

KE: When is your busy season, and when do you do your buying for your busy season? How often are you refreshing/rotating merchandise throughout the year?

JL: Basically our busy season is when kids are out of school. Think spring break, summer break and then holiday break. We prep for those by building up our bestsellers, buying in bulk quantity probably the prior month just so we’re ready. We’ve got it ready to go in the warehouse and fulfill the replenishment required of the stores on a daily basis. That is for the everyday core items.

For any trend or fashion merchandise we have to buy further out. Apparel is pretty quick. It can take four to six weeks but for hard goods (souvenirs, magnets, keychains, water bottles, and mugs), it is more like eight months and even longer at times. There’s a lot of year-round planning that goes on for various events that we know will happen at the zoo or park.

For example, every year at Safari Park we do Butterfly Jungle, so we know that that is going to happen and needs to be set up in February. We’ll start planning for that about six to eight months in advance. Then, there’s the tried-and-true items that will go into that assortment on a yearly basis, but we want to change up the designs. Feature tables — the tables that are front and focal in the stores are changed out four to five times per year as well as the window displays.

MR: Our big seasons include our Balloon Fiesta, which is in the fall. We have a million people who come to Albuquerque to look up into the sky and see our beautiful hot air balloons. Because we are an art and history museum, I don’t really buy merchandise specifically for that. I believe they are coming to the museum for yet a different experience because we also have a balloon park and a balloon museum.

Holiday is huge for us because that is a great time for locals to come. Sometimes they don’t even go into the museum, they just make a hard left right into the store shop.

Then we are definitely driven by our exhibitions. The museum is planning three or four years out on them so we know when those will fall.

Part II of the Souvenirs, Gifts & Novelties Zoo and Museum Q&A will run in the January-February 2024 issue, and will cover destination-driven souvenir and gift trends.