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What do people buy?
Submitted by jayneleeson on 17 May, 2007 - 14:07.
We took over the running of our museum's small shop last year. We have local history books and a few others from well-known publishers. Many of these turn over quite well, but others do not. The whole place can only open once a week and our exposure to the public is therefore very limited. A number of books are listed on our website but we don't get much income from that.
What we are trying to decide is whether it is worthwhile dumping off some of the poor-selling bookstock at cost-price, or whatever we can get for them, and try to find products that sell more readily and provide a bit more variety other than books.
But, what? We see plenty of ideas around, like mugs, plates, other souvenirs, etc....but do they really sell? Our budget is desperately small; maybe no more than £100 per purchase-occasion. We can't go splashing out thousands on stock and in any case it would be silly to do so, in our circumstances.
It would be useful to know what kind of things people buy in shops, especially museum or heritage-connected charity shops.
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RE: What do people buy?
Many thanks for that reply; though I doubt that we could sell certain of the book titles on Amazon, knowing who the publishers are. I already have an Amazon seller's account, having tried unsuccessfully for over a year to clear some of my own personal books......and we (as a museum) also used to have a Buy.At account, which earned precisely nothing and we eventually dropped it. It could be that we need to look closer at the possibility of Amazon again.
I agree with you that a 24-hour window would be ideal, but its just trying to get the formula right. Possibly a re-look at the Amazon associate thing; as you say, it costs nothing to set up and I am already comfortable with handling website set-ups.
Our website gets around 500 visitors per month, it's not many really, on today's scale, but we are rather a "niche" type of museum.
RE: What do people buy?
I can't answer your question directly, but have you thought of the possibility of listing some of your books on Amazon.co.uk marketplace?
[url]http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/seller/sell-your-stuff.html[/url]
It strikes me that given your shop-window is so narrow in terms of time, it makes sense to have a 24-hour-a-day shop window online - and not on your website alone, if it's not receiving many visitors.
Individuals and organisations, including bookshops, sell books via Amazon.co.uk's marketplace. Amazon handles the transaction, takes its (not insubstantial) cut of around 15% and then remits the remainder directly to your bank account.
Not sure if the publishers you deal with would permit this, but worth checking.
While we're on the subject, you can extend the list of books that you earn income from via your website by setting up as an Amazon.co.uk Associate. You choose which titles to display and you earn around 5-8% on any book sales generated at Amazon from your site.
[url]http://affiliate-program.amazon.co.uk/gp/associates/join/main.html[/url]
Since both of these services cost nothing to join and maintain, beyond your time, I'm sure that would meet your budget requirements.
Also, given you get reports about which titles sold via your Amazon Associate site, you can get an idea of the kind of titles that your website's visitors at any rate are interested in.