Anthony Inquires After Museum Stores

Have you ever sold items to a Museum gift shop/market?

***Yes, they are great! Buy lots and pay their bills.***

Assume you are going to import items like this...



http://www.madeinmuseum.com/home.html

It's an Italian company.

They are taking already existing designs from museum
art, and creating gifts from them. Reminds me of your
gift card story. The ideas for design are already
there. There is really no innovation, or problem to
solve? Would I have to compete on price?

***well... the museums are nonprofit so have been obliged to limit their items to collection-related themes, so they do not have an advantage over other retailers and mail order catalogs... the thing is themes... etruscan-inspired fits the bill. So you would have your own designs, and thus notr compete on price. An alternative, which I have done, is get a license for owned images, and then again you are not competing on price.***


Or selling fossils to a Natural History museum gift
shop. No innovative thought, just rocks. Is this the
realm of conservator?


***some rocks are mass market, some are specialty...***

And, Museum gift shops are a finite in number. Could you
skip the step of finding the independent sales rep and
sell/market directly to the Museum Gift shops? I bet
with a little work, you could find every museum
related gift shop. And these are stable retailers.
Grade A customers.

Can you become your own sales rep in this case?

***there is a museum store show, a museum shops association, I think based in Denver, it's hard to get into, but I'd say get a rep. There is a finite number of every kind of store... I think for museums there are too many for you to handle... again, you make money coming up with products, not schlepping it...***

I saw the Roman Art from the Louvre exhibit at SAM.
Of course many things in the gift shop had a Roman
theme, and were supplied by...

http://www.madeinmuseum.com/home.html

SAM gift shop carried Roman busts, vases, coins,
jewelry etc... In general, they were reproductions
of the original items, or items that had Roman motifs.
For example, there were Hermes Scarves with a Roman
motif. The exhibition got me thinking....

***Yes, exactly how it is done...***

Bookmark this post --- Email this post