Trends in Best-Selling Licensed Merchandise at Sports Museum Stores

By Carimé Lane

Sports museum stores have been standing strong amid the pandemic. We spoke to four stores about their licensed merchandise, purchasing and display tips. We also asked them about how they’re navigating the pandemic.

Camille Cacas, retail manager at the California Surf Museum, said her best-selling licensed items are anything decorated with the 1966 Endless Summer movie poster.

“The movie has reached so many viewers, even those that live in the Midwest landlocked states,” said Cacas. “The poster is immediately recognizable.”

Items with the Endless Summer movie motif include paper and metal posters, coasters, mugs, and lunchboxes.

Bethany Hamilton items are another hot licensed item at the shop. Hamilton is the famous surfer whose arm was taken by a shark in Hawaii, and inspiration for the movie 2011 Soul Surfer. Hamilton’s family lent the board she was on during the shark incident in Hawaii to display at the museum, and the shop sells her sandals, books, and magnets.

When Cacas first started at the shop, they were selling surf shop merchandise, like wax and wall racks. She brought in higher quality merchandise - like reproductions of Woody’s and VWs - and more logoed items that suited a museum store and catered to the majority of the visitors who weren’t surfers, but were interested in the culture of surfing.

At The Olympic Museum (TOM) in Lausanne, Switzerland, the best-selling licensed product is a key chain. The key chain features the word ‘Lausanne’ (the city where the museum is located and the IOC headquarters are based), a silhouette of the modern founder of the Olympics, Pierre de Coubertin, the emblem of the museum, and the Olympic flame. Virginie Morin , shop manager, said that 3,000 units of these were sold in 2019.

“It’s very successful because it combines all of the elements of the Olympic experience here at the Olympic Museum,” she said.

The second best-seller is a white swim cap with the word ‘Splash’ printed in colorful lettering on one side, with the French equivalent ‘Plouf’ on the other. Morin often sees swimmers wearing the cap on the nearby Lake Geneva. Wristbands for kids are the next best-selling licensed product at TOM. The wristbands

Trends in Best-Selling (From page 67) are emblazoned with the Olympic values (excellence, friendship and respect), and cost 5 francs, to make them affordable for the many children who visit the museum.

The shop’s best-selling licenced collections are the mid-priced Heritage brand, and the new Olympic brand, for which the items are more technically-crafted and sports-related.

Morin will test non-Olympic branded products and observe the sales figures to ensure she’s catering to her demographic. She also observes how people interact with the product in store to determine whether it’ll be a hit or miss with customers. When it’s a hit, this empirical method will trigger the development of the product with the most fitting Olympic brand.

When there is no product available to perform a test like this, Morin works with a special matrix that gathers multiple criteria as to their target audience. This criteria includes product characteristics such as price, category, positioning, and so on. Then, she’ll make a decision on whether to carry the product based on how many of those criteria have been checked.

After the pandemic lockdown, the Texas Surf Museum in Corpus Christi introduced a new exhibit featuring Pat Magee , the owner of the Pat Magee Surf Shop in Port Aransas from 1969 to 2005.

The shop sells some rare and collectible items that Pat Magee accumulated over the years, along with Pat Magee T-Shirts.

“His merchandise was a major success for years, so re-introducing

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What Is Your Top Merchandise Display Tip?

The key for displaying merchandise at the Texas Surf Museum in Corpus Christi, is making the displays “social media ready,” said Director of Operations Gavin Snider. “Our social media really drives crowds to our establishment and we want their expectation to become reality.”

Snider emphasized that, even though their mission is to educate visitors on Texas surfing history, that doesn’t mean their retail area has to be outdated. Their designer, Cecile Gottlich, has updated the museum to a modern standard through, among other things, using a color palette that makes merchandise pop and bringing the shop to life with bright green plants.

Cacas finds theming displays helps to sell merchandise. For example, her VW display includes replicas of VW vans, T-shirts and books. At the Ty Cobb Museum in Royston, Ga., Manager Leah McCall said they rearrange the store often to keep it looking refreshed.

At Switzerland’s Olympic Museum TOM Shop, Shop Manager Virginie Morin observes the rule of three facings, which means she takes one item and displays it three different ways.

She favors modular furnishings with multiple levels that fit the shop’s aesthetic to display items and signage. She hangs signs on the furniture resembling finishing lines to indicate where items are located. These signs may be labeled The Japan Corner or The Swiss-made Corner, for instance. Many tourists look for specifics, including Swiss-made items, so these eye-catching signage makes items easy to find.

When it comes to furniture, Morin believes that it is not the product that must adapt to the furniture, but the furniture that must be adapted to the product. She’ll sketch a display area out before the furniture is selected. Then, she’ll purchase, or have furniture made, based on that sketch.

As for breakable items like mugs, Morin inserts plexiglass fixtures into the furniture, so customers can still observe the product. ❖