CRISIS SHOPK

Museum Observations:

Kids completing the India Revisited Exhibition at the Horniman

The Museum is broken down into four separate exhibitions, one of which is a temporary exhibition running for 18 months. The exhibitions are as follows: Natural History, India Recycled, Aquarium and Music History

During the tour of the Museum it was noted that the primary audience was young school children, preschoolers and their respective carers. There were many school tour groups operating at any one time.

The children paid little attention to the actual exhibition and carers usually sat down while children went from exhibit to exhibit. In some of the exhibits there were work sheets that encourages the children to interact with the exhibitions, that while targeted them, were not interesting enough o hold a child’s attention.

Shop Observations:

Crammed wall of merchandise

Best Seller - 'Pocket Money' market
Best Seller - 'Pram Brigade' market
Adult Merchandise in the back corner of the shop

The shop is very small, and the product is crammed on to the displays, whilst the walkways are very spacious to allow for mothers with prams.

The shop merchandised in relation to the exhibitions with objects relating to each of the four exhibitions available.

Toys were the primary item for sale, and a lot of very cheap items around the £1.00 to £3.00 mark were available, presumably marketed at the children in their school groups spending their pocket money.

There are three kinds of purchases that exist within the shop: The Pocket Money Buy, The Buggy Brigade Buy and the Adult Buy.

The 'Pocket Money' buys usually consist of the armios of children that come through the museum and shop in school tour groups. The children usually run straight to the back oif the store where the favourite toy and best seller - the shark on a stick is located which sells for £1.50. They then disband around the shop from there bangin musicall instruments and playing with whatever is in reach. this segment also buys a lot of the hrniman branded stationary equipment - the only equipment that is produced exclusively for the horniman shop

The 'Buggy Brigade' is usually young parents with children that areof a preschool or younger age. this segment is attracted to the educational, interactive toys at the very fromnt of the store and work their way around methodically finally ending up ion the adult orientated area next to the till. The best selling purchase and the purchase which makes the museum a great profit is the Rolliphant slides - an interactive and educational bath toy (pictured above) which retails at £18.00. After interviewing the shop assistant it is learnt that parents will often pay a lrager sum if the toy is educational as well as fun. The number of toys in the higher price range that is so successful is very limited.

The Adult Area is very limited, and is the Shop Assistants thing that she would develop in the store as soon as possible (the buyer has just got back from maternity leave and is getting on this case very soon) The objects and books in this department are very vaguely on the topics covered by the museum and often don't sell very well. Except for around christmas time when sales for the adult-area products increase a lot more than other areas in the store.

The average transaction in the store is about £4.00, which is significantly lowered by the masses of 'pocket money' buys however the store assistant believes that this is on the rise and will be arond the £5.00 mark within the year.

Product development for the Horniaman store will focus on the high-end interactive educational toys which make the largest profit for the store and is lacking in range.