SPOTLIGHT ON SOUVENIRS
Bringing a Bit of the Beach Home Souvenirs at Beach and Resort Stores
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op selling souvenirs may change, but at beach and resort stores, offering a mix of unique and location-oriented souvenir items always translates into strong sales and happy customers. After all, if life is a beach on vacation, many visitors want to bring a little salty taste of fun back home. At California Seashell Company in Seal Beach, Calif., Manager Rachel Robilotta said many of the shop’s top-selling souvenir items are handmade. “Every year we make a couple thousand shell ornaments from scratch. People travel from all over to purchase them. We also do shell garlands with pieces of driftwood and we hand-make those as well. We carry decorative signs of all kinds with a beach and nautical theme that do very well, too.”
Display is extremely important Robilotta said, both to show off the product and draw attention to new items as they come in. “We hang our shell garlands from a ceiling or a hook, so that people can see them easily. And we keep a holiday tree up year ‘round to display shell items, too.” Additionally, with new items, she explained, “We rearrange the front window displays frequently so that every time I get a new item in, I put it in the window. Everyone who walks by on the street can see what we have, and the window displays really bring people in. I display it in such a way that everyone can see it with the price, too. And, we also have an online business, caseashell. com, so we do a lot of photographic displays that we can put on the website as well.” Most of the new best-selling merchandise that is not crafted in-house comes from vendors the store has dealt with for many years, she said. “Many vendors are people that the company owner knows personally.” In the past, and currently, the store sells coral of all kinds, and it was the coral pieces that sparked the idea to put new items in the store’s front display windows, Robilotta attested. “It brought people in, and that made us decide Sonora Cameron and Claire Albright, of Finn Ware of Oregon in Astoria, Ore., photographed wearing the store’s new hoodie we would do the same and T-shirt styles, holding souvenirs. The owner said any item Continued on page 92
with Astoria on it sells well.
www.sgnmag.com | October 2021 | Souvenirs, Gifts & Novelties
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