Running a shop, be it in a museum or gallery, or in an opera house or theatre, can prove both profitable for the arts organisation and rewarding and enjoyable for the customer. But how can you make sure you get it right? John Prescott gives some valuable advice.
If you are thinking about opening a shop or sales point, or you already have one and are unsure about how you should develop it, the first thing you need to do is to decide why you actually want one. The most common reason is to generate additional income, but shops also provide a valuable outlet for educational material relating to exhibitions, collections and activities. If a shop is run well, it can make a significant contribution towards a visitor?s overall enjoyment, but if it is done badly, the damage to your reputation can be huge!
Regardless of the type of shop, there are certain basic elements of good retail practice that need to be respected if the enterprise is to be a success.
Setting objectives: It is important to remember that if you have not agreed objectives for the shop before you begin, you will have nothing against which you can subsequently measure its performance. Not every shop has profit as an objective (occasionally shops are used to provide an outlet for subsidised educational literature), but it is essential that financial budgets are established at the outset and are compared with actual results on a regular basis.
Staffing: In a small venue it is unlikely that a shop will be profitable if it is run entirely by paid staff. The most efficient way to run one in this situation is to staff it either with volunteers or with paid staff who have other duties to perform, such as selling admission tickets or providing information at the entry point. Whether or not the staff are paid, the golden rules for a running a successful shop are:
? Only one person can be responsible for the day-to-day running of the shop ? the ordering, the maintenance of the stock control system and other records, the standard of display and the cleanliness of the stock and fittings.
? This ?responsible person? can either be full-time or part-time but they must actually work in the shop for part of their week and not merely run it from an office.
? Small shops very rarely require more than one person to be in them at any one time. Two people are often less productive than one!
? All staff, paid or unpaid, need to be trained in the tasks they are expected to undertake. Standards should be set for acceptable levels of performance, for example, tills must balance at the end of each day regardless of who is using them.
Shop location: It is always better to place the shop at the end of the visitor route rather than at the beginning. If your venue attracts a large number of people it is not necessarily a good thing to have everyone exit through the shop ? it merely causes congestion, reduces the spend per visitor and increases the potential for theft. In these circumstances, it is better to have a shop that is clearly visible, has good access but is just off the visitor route.
You should also consider whether it is possible to make the shop visible from outside. A shop can often present a very attractive introduction to a building whilst at the same time letting passers-by know of its existence. Regardless of its position, make sure that the shop is well sign-posted.
Shop size: What is the right size for a shop? In most cases, the maximum size will be determined by the physical constraints of the building. The optimum size is difficult to assess and is dependent upon the number of visitors ? customers will not spend money if they are packed into a confined space or have to crowd around the admission desk/shop display.
If you can only afford to stock or only wish to stock a limited number of products, the shop will be more appealing if it is kept fairly small so that the merchandise does not become too spread out. If you are forced to use a room that is too large, make it look more interesting by using strategically placed graphics panels on the walls to give it colour and bring it to life.
Fittings: If shops are to be successful, they must have appropriate fittings. They not only need to complement their immediate environment but they must work in retail terms. If they are to be suitable for a wide variety of merchandise, the shelves will all need to be adjustable in height. If they are to be used for books, a high percentage of the shelves will also need to be angled so that titles can be displayed ?face out?. Incorporating cupboard or drawer bases into the fittings immediately beneath the shelves is very important, not just to provide additional space but because it is very difficult to display merchandise effectively below a height of approximately 400mm from the floor.
If your budget allows, purpose-built shop fittings can represent a very good investment. To be efficient, they need to be well designed by someone who understands both retailing and the needs of your particular venue. Exhibition designers and architects are not always the best people to choose to do this for you although they can give you valuable advice on colour schemes and the materials to be used.
Merchandise selection: The selection of merchandise will depend very largely upon the objectives that were set for the shop. Assuming that it is to make a profit, be educational and generally meet customers? expectations, it needs to offer, in addition to relevant publications, a mixture of souvenir and gift merchandise across a fairly broad price band but with an emphasis on good value for money.
Making the merchandise appropriate is an essential part of the buying process if the shop is to be successful and enhance the reputation of the venue as a whole. However, the appropriateness of the merchandise should not be limited to being relevant to your collections, exhibitions or your main activity. It also needs to be suitable for the public you attract. If your audience is predominately young children and the stock is aimed at middle-aged, middle-class women, no matter how well themed it is, it cannot possibly be said to be appropriate.
Systems:You need to have systems in place if you are going to monitor your results and manage your business efficiently. The principal areas in which clearly defined systems are essential are:
? Buying control:You need to set a budget, based on the expected level of sales, for the amount of money that can be spent on purchases. It is essential, however, that this budget is flexible. It must be capable of being increased if sales are better than expected or reduced if they are poorer. A fixed budget is very dangerous ? it can cripple a business by either restricting the sales or allowing excessive spending.
? Stock control: In order to manage the business properly, you need to know the rate of sale of every product so that you can re-order good sellers in the correct quantities and at the right time, and discontinue anything that is slow. You also need to know how much space to allocate to the various departments in the shop. It would be a very poor use of resources if (say) books were taking 20% of the sales but were on 40% of the space! A stock control system does not need to be computerised or complicated (or both!) to be effective. A simple manual system can be a very efficient way of managing your stocks unless your shop is taking many hundreds of thousands of pounds a year.
?Cash control: Systems should be in place to ensure that all monies received are accounted for. This is not just to protect you against losses but to protect staff from the suspicion of carelessness or worse if the profits at the end of the year are below expectations.
Running a good shop is very rewarding. It contributes towards an organisation?s finances and is a very valuable marketing tool ? just think about all those own-label products and carrier bags! It is greatly appreciated by the public and has been shown to add to their overall visiting experience. The other good thing about running a good shop is that it?s great fun!
John Prescott is Managing Director of retail consultants Retail Matters. t: 01225 851600; e: retailmatters@aol.com; w: http://www.retailmatters.com