Gift shops in zoos - the good, the bad and the ugly

TheMightyOrca said:
Reading this, I was definitely thinking that zoo gift shops should be a bit more like museum gift shops.
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Unfortunately, more and more (natural history) museum gift stores are also starting to change their line of products in favor of commercial junk. When I went to the main gift store of the AMNH this year, I expected to see a similar interesting product range as at the Field Museum a couple of years ago. What I saw were plenty of visitors running around with plush squid hats...The stores at the NHM of Berlin or the Haus der Natur in Salzburg this year seemed to target a more juvenile customer base, too.
 
@devilfish: thanks for the interesting input regarding Japan; I’ve heard and seen some fascinating and unique things about the stuff sold there. Has anyone been to the okapi gift store at Yokohama Zoo in person?
 
I was in a zoo gift shop several years ago that had a photo gallery section selling excellent framed photographs of some of their animals taken by zoo patrons. There was a sign stating that all proceeds from the sale are split 50/50 with photographer and the zoo's conservation fund. For the life of me I can not remember where this was.
 
It seems to me very small zoos will often sell small photos or postcards of the specific animals at their zoo. Not just a generic tiger photo because they have a tiger, but a photo of "Cassie the tiger" which arrived here in 2009 or the like. I saw this recently at the small Heritage Park Zoo in Prescott, Arizona, which is mainly (but not exclusively) a rescue zoo for unwanted animals. My beloved Cat Haven in Dunlap, California also does this.

Large city zoos, on the other hand, tend to just sell mass produced postcards with generic animal photos (but at least species in their collection). What is really surprising is that even San Diego does this, because they have an extremely talented full time staff photographer and they certainly have the budget to print their own postcards.
 
Arizona Docent said:
It seems to me very small zoos will often sell small photos or postcards of the specific animals at their zoo. Not just a generic tiger photo because they have a tiger, but a photo of "Cassie the tiger" which arrived here in 2009 or the like. I saw this recently at the small Heritage Park Zoo in Prescott, Arizona, which is mainly (but not exclusively) a rescue zoo for unwanted animals. My beloved Cat Haven in Dunlap, California also does this.

Large city zoos, on the other hand, tend to just sell mass produced postcards with generic animal photos (but at least species in their collection). What is really surprising is that even San Diego does this, because they have an extremely talented full time staff photographer and they certainly have the budget to print their own postcards.
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Yeah, I remember looking for postcards at some zoo a while back (don't remember which one specifically) and I was pretty disappointed that they were all just generic city postcards rather than some cool zoo ones. I am pretty surprised that San Diego Zoo does this, not just because of their staff and budget, but because they have such a big collection full of unique and rare animals.
 
I think that there are several trends affecting zoo gift shops.
One is the increasing sophistication of retail marketing; zoos benefit from the techniques pioneered by supermarkets using IT for stock control, planning store layouts and displays etc. This helps to maximise the income from the shops and so there can be no turning back on this trend.
Linked to this is the disappearance of so many shelves of books: the turnover they generate can no longer justify the space. The reason for that can be summed up in one word - Amazon (other, and better, on-line retailers are available). I'm sure the UK is not the only country where small independent bookshops are going out of business because they can't compete on range or price, and neither can zoo gift shops, except in cases of a few children's animal books and books about the zoo itself.
Likewise postcards are effectively obsolete as a means of communication - why buy, write and post a card when you can send someone a selfie as you stand in front of the animal of your choice? Of course there may be enough demand from collectors to justify a rack of cards in a corner of the shop and that's fine as long as they pay their way.
A more positive trend, in my opinion, is niche marketing. Chester Zoo has three gift shops now, which cater for different markets. The main one, beside the entrance of the large 'exit through the Gift Shop' type. It has a pretty full range of the usual merchandise (as far as I can remember, I rarely go into it). The second is at the end of the path through the garden where the special exhibitions are shown. The current exhibition is of animatronic dinosaurs, so half the shop has fluffy dinosaurs in the full spectrum of colours, plus some smaller models, colouring books etc; I took a look around last week as I have a small relative who is dinosaur mad, but I didn't see anything that I wanted to buy for him. The other half of this shop sells refreshments.
The third shop is in Islands and it is for gifts only. As I have written here before, I think it is very good. Near the door are a lot of small, cheap items, branded with the Islands log - including pens, pencils, erasers and suchlike, useful positive items for children. There are also some themed tee-shirts and hats for Islands Explorers, tying into the worksheets that children are given at the entrance to Islands and get stamped near the exit. Further into the shop are some cuddly orangs etc, but the main items are ornaments and gifts imported from the Philippines on Fair Trade terms. Some are quite expensive, but most are interesting, unusual and reasonably priced. I bought several multi-coloured candle holders to give as Xmas presents last year. I think this is a good, progressive idea and I hope it catches on more widely.

Alan
 
gentle lemur said:
Likewise postcards are effectively obsolete as a means of communication - why buy, write and post a card when you can send someone a selfie as you stand in front of the animal of your choice? Of course there may be enough demand from collectors to justify a rack of cards in a corner of the shop and that's fine as long as they pay their way
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Fewer and fewer Zoos seems to carry postcard stocks of their own animals nowadays. Some still do, but many, if they have any postcards at all, have only a small selection of generalised 'wildlife' cards and/or the 3D type. A great pity as they provide a great record but of course, are not really of any interest to the great zoovisiting public.
 
I visited Zoobotanico Jerez (Spain) shortly after they opened what was at the time the only public Iberian lynx exhibit. It was a huge deal, with posters promoting it on the city bus and the train station. I stopped in the small zoo gift shop on my way out to look for a lynx shirt or poster or other lynx related souvenir. They did not have one single lynx souvenir item in the entire store!
 
gentle lemur said:
Likewise postcards are effectively obsolete as a means of communication - why buy, write and post a card when you can send someone a selfie as you stand in front of the animal of your choice?
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Because selfies are stupid.

I buy and send a fair amount of postcards from wherever I go. They're great for any number of reasons -- animal trivia, random thoughts, quotes from books, etc. I once copied down a recipe and mailed it to myself.

Postcards are generally horrible at zoos, though. San Francisco Zoo had postcards for nearly everything including things they didn't have in their collection; i.e., pandas, cheetahs, and elephants.
 
Buldeo said:
Because selfies are stupid.

I buy and send a fair amount of postcards from wherever I go. They're great for any number of reasons -- animal trivia, random thoughts, quotes from books, etc. I once copied down a recipe and mailed it to myself.

Postcards are generally horrible at zoos, though. San Francisco Zoo had postcards for nearly everything including things they didn't have in their collection; i.e., pandas, cheetahs, and elephants.
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So 20th century! Just like me! ;)

Alan
 
Amazon certainly impacts book sales; but I would have thought that zoos gift shops would still be a prime selling point for books of a certain niche level. Amazon is great for finding a book that you already know about or for searching for the highly popular listings. However for niche titles there's often few reviews and thus the books often get hidden away in a sea of others*.

Thus I would think zoos could promote the sale of at least intermediate level books with regard to animals they keep to generate sales. Considering they expect an adult to pay in the region of £20 just to get in the door they must be expecting an adult to carry enough in their pocket to finance at least one good quality book.

I'd also say its a way of sifting wheat from chaff; where educational books tend to get few reviews on Amazon a zoo stocking and selling a particular book would be seen as endorsement by that zoo of that publication (which might also explain why some zoos don't want to stock that level of book and prefer to more neutral photobooks).

*it also doesn't help that a lot of specialist interest books are high priced even on Amazon - which of course lowers the number of people buying them.
 
Back from France and a 2-day-visit of Zoo de Beauval, I also checked their gift shop.
To make it short: A lot of rubbish. Cheap stuff for high prices. Mugs, the well known toys such as animals in plush or plastic, but no clothes for adults (or at least none you would wear). The book selection was limited to 3 books for kids, while the only book for older ones ("Beauval, les plus belles photos") was sold out and even not available on amazon.
What a shame for a otherwise great zoo!
 
I have noticed that a lot of US zoos and aquariums have started carrying these black mugs with a prominent animal from the collection and the name of the zoo on them. I must admit, as a mug collector, I don't mind this unified/same warehouse type sale so much, as the matching mugs look good together. My only complaint with them is that some of the animals are very stylized. I didn't purchase the mug at the Shedd because I couldn't actually tell what animal was on there for sure -- maybe a super squished stylized beluga?
 
Copenhagen Zoo actually has quite a nice (yet rather expensive) gift shop featuring old poster motives. Spent a lot of money there...;)
 
I just returned from Alaska. Alaska Zoo and Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center have mediocre gift shops. However, Alaska Sealife Center has a very nice gift shop. There were several books on Alaska or ocean life, plus fine art photos and paintings and handicrafts. Also postcards of the building printed from a watercolor painting (and only ten cents each!). A nice surprise.
 
I know this an old thread, but I do have a bit to add.

I personally think that some of the best zoo gift shops are the ones that have part of the zoo's collection inside them. For example, the gift shop at Racine Zoo is mostly that same junk you would find at any other gift shop. But is is one of my favorite zoo gift shops I have visited. This is because the gift shops includes the indoor exhibit for the African Spurred Tortoises, as well as a tank with a Siamese Fighting Fish. Sure, nothing out of the ordinary. But having, you know, actual animals in it does help. One more thing Racine has going for its gift shop is the fact that a good portion of the shop is devoted to painting done by the animals there. When I visited, I walked home with a painting done by the zoo's Fossa.

Another think about zoo gift shops is the setting. An gift shop that is filled with junk is better if it looks good. At Special Memories Zoo, the gift shop (while mostly stuffed animals that aren't even realistic :eek:;):p) does have some cool things, like ostrich eggs. It even has the the live animal going for it (a cage with a Patas Monkey). However, it is a garage attached to the owners house. It's very dark; the only light that comes in is through windows (small ones on the doors).

Another thing that infuriates me is when the stuffed animals in the gift shop don't match up with the animals in the collection. Menominee Park Zoo has a decent gift shop. No books, but the stuffed animal collection is nice, as most of it looks realistic. However, none of animals featured here are actually at the zoo! :mad:

As for the best zoo gift shop I have ever seen, that goes to the International Crane Foundation. wonderful collection of (realistic) crane stuffed animals, very nice books for all ages (both fiction and nonfiction), and even some tabletop games (all of which relate to birds in some way).
 
Bristol Zoo in the UK has been working toward reducing the number of plastic gifts they sell. They are doing this by going a little upmarket with wooden toy animals and jigsaws along with books etc and generally clearing out the tat. It's good to see a zoo acknowledge the impact of the gifts they are selling.
 
I wish the Bronx Zoo had more enticing gifts besides plastic toys I could buy on Amazon for 10% of their price. Things like local NY artwork, artwork from people who live with wild animals, shed peacock feathers, etc.
 
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