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Natural light enhances the environment in the Maine
Wildlife Park’s shop. The store’s mix and match display
units have served the attraction well.
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sk six different store
managers their idea
of the perfect display
fixture and you may get
six different answers unless
the answer is there is no such
animal. Ask why each works
best and answers bear resemblance.
What seems to serve zoo
and aquarium managers and
staff well are characteristics
that really don’t describe
pieces of wood, glass or
acrylic, rather attributes that allow them to make decisions
as to use. Some, where creativity or necessity
reigns as the mother of invention,
don’t even require predefined,
manufactured fixtures
to display their nature wares.
Proceeds from sales at the
Nature Store, open since
1997, make tracks directly to
the animals protected at the
Maine Wildlife Park in Gray,
Maine. Display materials are
largely donated or dug up
somewhere, said store manager,
Sherry Wilbur.
Gratis materials include
glass cases, bookshelves and
tables. Hardwood shelving units were made by an
employee from pine boards placed
on top of 11.2 foot tall hardwood
logs, split to lay flat against the wall,
another free standing unit by a volunteer,
along with a pigeon hole
shelving unit. Peg board shelving
was confiscated from a closing
Ames store and the slot board was
purchased by the Wildlife Park.
“We use anything we can get our
hands on,” said Wilbur, though
she added pegboards are quite convenient.
She wouldn’t mind having
something uniform for a change, at
the same time realizing the added
benefit of recycling of her method.
“Look at nature around them, take
advantage of something that isn’t
manufactured,” she advised.
“The store’s income for 2006 was $95,000. “We’ve
pleasantly exceeded last year’s figures
at this time, so our mixed and
matched display units have served
us well,” she said.
Nothing out of the ordinary is
really needed to fluidly manipulate
the merchandise placement.
“Core, classic retail outlet designs
work fine as long as they allow flexibility,”
said Andrew Fischer, general
manager of merchandise at
the multimillion dollar business
gift shop of the Monterey Bay
Aquarium in Monterey, Calif.
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Classic retail outlet designs that also allow
for flexibility work well for the Monterey Bay
Aquarium in Monterey, Calif.
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The reason for a store remodel
a year and a half ago was to remove
what Fischer definitely does not
advocate, heavy, permanently
fixed, limit imposing units that dictated
what went where.
To create traffic throughout the kidney-shaped main
gift store, glass tower fixtures allow change throughout
the seasons. At times they exhibit $500 to $5000
Richard Satava hand-blown glass jellyfish domes, the
store’s drawing card, other times, high-end handmade
Italian glassware and platters. Well-lit with glass shelving,
customers get an up close and personal look at
these pieces.
In the kids’ store, bin units on wheels allow the flexibility
of pulling out the Plexiglas dividers between
small plush, toys and collectibles. Fischer also chose to
create three-sided fixtures for added product visibility,
the key to success in this category. At kid height, they’re
used for the Safari Company’s scientifically correct animal
program and are still in good shape, said Fischer,
“Durability is a huge factor with 1.8 million people
through the aquarium, and everybody touching it.”
He recently installed a corner unit to aid in plush
display, and is considering a tiered one in another store
for effective use of space. He had added flat wall that
can accommodate slat wall or shelving. “They’re basic,
but if you go with functional fixtures, the right merchandise,
and do it well, you get the same results as
spending a lot of money on fixtures that looks fancy in
the catalog.”
He suggested use of fixtures that work for both highend
items, such as gift and apparel, and for toys and
games, the standard that can be adjusted with accessories.
Within limits, self-service supportive fixturing
moves merchandise, a lesson learned at the Water’s
Edge gift shop of the Virginia Aquarium, Virginia
Beach, Va. Merchandise sells much faster in open display
areas where customers can handle it, said Louise
Costenbader, store manager for Water’s Edge. “There’s
a little breakage, and it doesn’t work for outrageously
expensive things, and I always preach to staff to keep
tiny breakables out of reach of toddlers.”
The store is being moved, assuming an entirely new
design concept and aquarium visitor exit. Having gone
through three stores in her 22 years with the aquarium,
Retail Director Ruth Ann
Steenburgh is pleased to
have had input on some of
the fixture design, confident
they will work this time.
“We’ve lived with some for
10 years now that just sit
there, taking up space and
people can’t get to things
under the glass. These will
work and be very customer
friendly.”
An innovative feature of
the new store to be unveiled
at the September grand
opening is that its design and fixturing is largely an
extension of the exhibit area, with an underwater feel.
Steenburg designed tall thin spinners and magnet racks
dramatically shaped like seaweed. Wall and moveable
floor units are made of bluish green acrylic, that will
blend in with similarly colored
fish suspended from
simulated dropped pool
areas on the ceiling. Pilings
of poles with barnacles and
mollusks crowding around
the base will have pegs
spaced apart to hold wind
chimes and fish mobiles.
With much more detail,
top designers in the industry
have been much more savvy
on what works in retail, said
Costenbader. “It will be a
real showplace.”
Another Virginia Aquarium store, Fiddler’s Cove,
complements the Salt Marsh Pavilion exhibit connected to the Open Ocean Pavilion by a third of a mile
nature trail. Its natural approach to its woodsy marsh
theme incorporates wood structure fixturing, a lattice
work screen in one corner and rustic wooden multilevel
shelving in another.
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Display fixture durability is a huge consideration for the
Monterey Bay Aquarium, which has 1.8 million visitors a year.
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Variously sized wicker baskets hold toys, or marsh
animal illustrated rubber balls. A 3 feet tall wooden
Manzanita tree on a base originally supplied for magnets
was painted a dark blackish color to contrast with
store-themed ornaments. A wooden trellis, suspended
from the ceiling, spans the width of the store for hanging
wind chimes and mobiles. Reconfigurable metal
and glass shelving and a shirt wall with waterfall hangar
bars are both handy, allowing self-service and an easy
view of every size of a style.
Proper lighting, which must work hand in hand
with fixturing, is a key element in both stores, each of
which have had spectacular sales well over a million
dollars, with increases every month, Costenbader said.
For the unique, new plush display fixtures she hopes
to obtain soon, Charman Selena, supervisor of the
Wings of Paradise gift shop in Cambridge, Ontario,
Canada, which approaches $50,000 in annual sales,
will likely incorporate the best features of those already
in place when she came on board.
For full view of product from both sides, freestanding
open wooden shelves, a stacked wooden box crate
type structure that fits snugly in a doorway area, easily
moveable wooden or metal units on wheels, all might
get a vote for duplication. Any with slats for shelves or
hooks get high marks for multipurpose use. And just
for enjoyment, wooden market-like baskets store
Edufun toys, are arranged on freestanding shelves for
small kids to choose from.
The three attractive wooden hutch style shelving
units for toy display wouldn’t be a choice, Selena mentioned,
“Because without light they don't advertise
product very well.”
A custom built fixture applied to a column in the
center of the shop displays rubber banded hat/T-shirt
combos, the hot seller at the Cargo Hold shop in
Ripley’s Aquarium Cargo in Myrtle Beach, S.C. The
four-tier assemblage resembles a ship porthole, or lookout
tower. “It fits in well with the whole cargo hold
theme inside of a ship,” said John Mula, a retail
manger who definitely prefers a table display for fixturing.
That way, there is no set spot for things, nothing
fixed with arms or pegs, rather, items can be spread out
uniquely and changed weekly.
The table is simple and leaves room for incorporating
further ship décor, such as brown and neutral colored
crates brimming with stuffed animals, turned sideways
on top of tables with various items displayed in
and around them.
Mula intends to add more of the table units, custom
built in-house, nothing purchased, in various heights,
and rounding the edges of the square tables.
“It’s not just about fixture, its how everything is set
up on it,” attests Mula. It’s up to the stock supervisor
and employees to merchandise attractively, he added.
“That’s why flat table works best for us because we have
really good employees that know how to merchandise.
No pegs on a wall or toys in a straight line, which doesn’t
look like anybody spent any time with it. I like it to
jump out at you.” That’s the merchandise, not the animals.
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