ature’s fine and all, though some little fashionistas cannot resist the sparkle just like their adult counterparts. Heads turn toward the jewelry counter particularly when choices combine bangles and beast, or something functional like telling time, and better yet, feature the fascination of answering a question seemingly as private as a person’s feelings.

Jewelry may not be a major component of PHX ZOO gift shop at The Phoenix Zoo, Phoenix, Ariz., though when kids venture near the freestanding pegged fixture visible when they enter the store they might be lured to the pendants of the main animals at the zoo, dangling at the bottom of a black string necklace or to the glitter line. The braided tribe bracelets on top of the fixture are of interest to boys, some related to the stingray exhibit, carrying a shark tooth replica, a bonus for them because so much of the category is geared toward girls, noted Assistant Store Director Theresa Sanchez. Whether for girls or boys, the selections are best when age appropriate, and she added that more are geared for youth rather than for the very little children.

Overall, by the time they make it to the register area, both sexes are attracted to the mood jewelry, Best Friends line, a set of matching mood necklace on its own hanging fixture and ring on a ring insert fixture on the countertop. Sanchez noted that they often buy the two, one for themselves and one for a friend.

Now that the store has been remodeled, it is doubled in size, and as the temperature calms into the mild 80s range, the clientele to stop into the store tends toward the snowbirds, school groups, and young families out for Breakfast for Toddlers.

Jewelry is one of the highest selling items at the Kibongi Market Gift Shop in the Denver Zoo of Denver, Colo., and an inexpensive and most popular souvenir for kids is the mood necklace and ring topped with animal shapes, said Marlina Roybal, store operations manager. Sales soar too, for the initial necklaces, those with dolphin, turtle and butterfly pendants on a chain, favored by the toddler set, and the woven bracelet styles with fimo clay animal pendants. The irresistible super seller at the market are the glitter rings, a busy inch of a water-filled plastic bubble, packed with giraffe, frogs, glitter, beads, sequin stars, blue seaweed, bubble images, that all shakes around, and topped with the Denver Zoo logo.

The display policy allows the ring to stand out, as if it needs any help. “We make sure jewelry is grouped together, keep it clean and simple, so as not to overwhelm as when carrying a lot of SKUs,” explained Roybal.

The jewelry choices are hung on a spinning rack of five 4-foot separate columns that are double sided, front and back, on top of two boxes. The store is 5,000 square feet in size and serves mostly the local, diverse inner city community.

The Pueblo Zoo in Pueblo, Colo., a small zoo attracting membership-holding family groups that visit frequently, many packing a picnic lunch or buy one at the cafe, and then shopping in the 525-square-foot gift shop. Many of the one-drop pendant animal chain necklaces, hanging on the slot wall hook fixture near the book area sourced from Phillips International and representing turtles, ladybugs or daisies are popular with young children. Those from GeoCentral arrive with the distributor’s display easy to mount on the counter. Necklace-bracelet sets are available from both and will contribute to the near $25,000 annual net sales and will be popular sellers at Christmas time, said Store Manager Betty Wilkerson, along with animal themed $12 watches with penguins or fish for hands, which she recommends as an attractive gift suggestion for the coming holiday season.

Girls favor metal wire bracelets with animal shapes affixed, boys tend to stay with more natural-looking necklaces, and all love mood rings embellished with either giraffe, tiger, elephant, or butterfly shapes, said Chris Schiefer, store manager at the Fresno Chaffee Zoo, Fresno, Calif. “We have a wide variety and most everything sells, but the mood rings and necklaces mostly because the colors change as moods or temperature changes. It’s a fun interactive item.”

Also popular with boys are the puka shell necklaces and many requests come in for clear Lucite glow in the dark necklaces with bugs and scorpions, popular because they are unusual, and boys like crazy stuff, said Schiefer, who recommended, “Keep your ears open when kids gather around the rack because they’ll tell you what they’re interested in or looking for.”

The kids can spin the selections around on the freestanding fixture, while rings are viewable in the ring inserts of a counter display at the front of the 1,500-square-foot store in the zoo that serves the Fresno metro area.

White or green gator necklaces, plastic or leather necklaces supporting dangling gator shapes or real gator teeth, gator watches with green or orange bands, bracelets that latch with metal gators, it is all about gators at the Gatorland Gifts in Gatorland, Orlando, Fla. And that is the idea, said Store Manager Philesha Mercer. “Try to keep it simple instead of a lot of choices, a few items specializing in the animals that fit the featured theme of the park.”

Mercer noted that the watches are hot sellers for the 10,000-square-foot store, where jewelry for children is displayed on racks here and there as provided by vendors and also in the children’s section. She added, “Eventually everything sells, because the zoo has been here since 1949 and what doesn’t work has been weeded out.”

Sound advice for buying children’s jewelry comes from April Hampton, The Jackson Zoo Trading Co. store manager at the Jackson Zoo, Jackson, Miss. “Choose colorful pieces to catch the child’s eye that have animals related to your zoo, and are durable. You don’t want them to break and become a hazard to children.”

That is just what Hampton stocks in beaded or shell bracelets, necklaces, earrings, with animals or insects such as ladybugs, butterflies, penguins and frogs attached. She notices that parents tend to like the necklaces with one animal dangling and babies like the bracelets with a charm animal to bat at.

Hampton displays like pieces together, rings on a spinning rack and necklaces on hooks protruding from the fixture and lets the animals and the bright colors do the rest in charming the children toward their style of pizzazz.

August/September 2010

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