Museum stores perform integral and multi-faceted work for their institutions -- from earning income and extending mission-related programs, to visitor engagement and educational outreach through store products, programs, and experiences.
Dedicated directly to, and an integral department of, their institutions, museum stores operate as nonprofit retailers under section 501(c)3 of the Internal Revenue Code and are a key earned-revenue department of the museum. As nonprofit retailers, museum stores further the educational mission of their institutions through the offering of products that allow the public to “take home” a part of the museum for their enjoyment and ongoing memory of their museum experience.
Museums traditionally have broad market bases and those attending will range from schoolchildren to professionals, from college students to retirees, and from families to single adults. Museum stores effectively serve these diverse visitors by offering a wide variety of items and price points that help capture the interest of each of these various patrons. In addition, museum stores create long-term patrons of the museum by specifically engaging children, teens, and young adults with store products that are educational. By reaching out to this important demographic via the museum store, the engagement helps to create future audiences that can support the museum.
Museum stores and their staff are vital frontline ambassadors for their institutions -- ensuring visitors receive welcoming and enhanced experiences as well as knowledgeable and meaningful engagement from their museum visit. Through their essential work, the stores extend the brand of their parent institutions, helping to communicate, reinforce, and amplify their unique offerings and experiences to the public.
Products sold in museum stores reflect the mission, collections, and programs of the museums and cultural institutions to which they belong. Every item offered is curated just as the works selected and displayed in their respective institutions. In addition, many items are developed exclusively by the museum store, resulting in distinctive and unique offerings for consumers that are mission and program related. Museum stores and their products are one of the strongest marketing tools that a museum possesses. When a patron wears a piece of jewelry, looks at a print, reads a book, or plays with a game purchased from the museum store, these products subtly communicate key marketing messaging and reinforcement of the institution. And finally, when consumers purchase items from a museum store, they help to sustain the institution’s service to the public into the future.