Dec 10, 2020

MSA details results of 2020 Museum Store Sunday event

The Museum Store Association (MSA) noted this year’s Museum Store Sunday event was successful, despite the pandemic. Retail operations support the museums in which they operate and Museum Store Sunday is an important annual event to not only the retailers, but to the institutions served by the gift shops. This year highlighted some unique challenges as approximately 50% of stores were open for in-person shopping, according to the MSA. The remainder of stores offered merchandise online only.

MSA noted that the 2020 event saw shoppers that “put more meaning into their purchases by shopping with local, nonprofit, or businesses-owned by women and people of color,” and museum stores benefited from this trend.

“Clearly the pandemic had an effect on every aspect of Museum Store Sunday. Many museums were closed and those that were open were generally operating at reduced capacity and timed ticketing, so institutions weren’t able to encourage the large crowds that we typically see for the event,” shared Karen McNeely, first vice president for MSA and director of retail for Milwaukee Art Museum. “On the positive side, many institutions took advantage of times they were closed to start up or greatly expand their online presence. This allowed both stores that were open and closed to move more of the event to their online platform.”

Although stores struggled this year, there were also successes. The Farnsworth Art Museum, located in Rockland, Maine, saw an overall increase, with a bigger percentage of the business coming from its expanded online store, according to Jane Washburn Gates.

Rebecca Petrie from the Ah Tah Thi Ki Museum on the Big Cypress Seminole Indian Reservation reported that they were not open, but did more volume online this year than they did in total last year when they were open.

“The Milwaukee Art Museum had the most elaborate virtual Museum Store Sunday. The event featured product demonstrations, meet the artist videos, plus 10 trunk show vendors. Visitors to the virtual event had the opportunity to register to win 18 different prizes. Overall we had about 200 orders during the expanded online celebration. Our November online sales were over 10 times more than in 2019,” shared McNeely.

According to McNeely, MSA enacted a similar publicity campaign this year as in past years. It utilized press releases, engaged on social media and posted information to the Museum Store Sunday website. “It certainly was more difficult to do something like a Facebook Live event, and where the celebrations were virtual, it’s more difficult to draw people to participate,” she said.