Bristol Culture, which includes Bristol Museum and Art Gallery, M Shed and the Red Lodge Museum, uses an e-commerce platform to run its online shop.
The website, launched in November, is operated by Shopify – a system that is also linked to the tills in its physical shops, allowing top selling items to be made available online immediately.
Such commands can be made via an accompanying app, which can be activated on a mobile or tablet. Systems like Shopify are typically paid for on a monthly basis, and can be customised to provide a fully branded website build and accompanying content management system.
This kind of e-commerce software can be set up to monitor stock levels, customer behaviour and integrated with dropshipping, whereby customer orders are passed on to a manufacturer, retailer or wholesaler.
Dropshipping, says Zac Mensah, the head of transformation at Bristol Culture, is an effective way of managing the risks associated with holding lots of stock, which might be difficult to shift within the financial year.
“If a new edition of a book comes out, you might still have 1,000 copies of the old version that no-one wants and you’re not going to be able shift. Dropshipping reduces your overall risk,” explains Mensah.
However retailers that use dropshipping run the risk of having to rely on a third party’s customer service and dispatch processes. “If they don’t deliver promptly, the customer will not go to them but the museum to complain,” says Mensah.
Not all items sold online were chosen because they reflect the museum’s collections or exhibitions, or even Bristol’s heritage and culture. Mensah says he is happy to stock items that he knows will be bestsellers, including homeware inspired by the designs of William Morris.
It would make sense, adds Mensah, for museums around the UK to sell each other’s stock. “If a museum in Birmingham or Newcastle found that their bestselling item was a particular kind of mug I would potentially sell it here because it might be popular.”
Bespoke products are expensive to produce and don’t automatically become bestsellers, explains Mensah. Bristol Culture offers a range, including prints, magnets, notepads and postcards, inspired by its fine art collections. “It is popular but it’s not in our 20 bestsellers,” he says.
Street art prints (by artists such as Banksy) and homeware items are among the most popular items. Profits are boosted further by the provision of associated goods. “It is about secondary spend. If they buy one of our prints there is a good chance they will buy one of our frames as well.”
So far retail profits have been healthy. In 2015-16 retail revenue totalled £320,000, £16,000 of which came from online sales. One of the key reasons behind the online shop’s success, says Mensah, is that costs were kept low during the initial stages. “Be careful about how much is invested at the outset. You need to build demand for [online retail] and then it can be developed.”
The website, launched in November, is operated by Shopify – a system that is also linked to the tills in its physical shops, allowing top selling items to be made available online immediately.
Such commands can be made via an accompanying app, which can be activated on a mobile or tablet. Systems like Shopify are typically paid for on a monthly basis, and can be customised to provide a fully branded website build and accompanying content management system.
This kind of e-commerce software can be set up to monitor stock levels, customer behaviour and integrated with dropshipping, whereby customer orders are passed on to a manufacturer, retailer or wholesaler.
Dropshipping, says Zac Mensah, the head of transformation at Bristol Culture, is an effective way of managing the risks associated with holding lots of stock, which might be difficult to shift within the financial year.
“If a new edition of a book comes out, you might still have 1,000 copies of the old version that no-one wants and you’re not going to be able shift. Dropshipping reduces your overall risk,” explains Mensah.
However retailers that use dropshipping run the risk of having to rely on a third party’s customer service and dispatch processes. “If they don’t deliver promptly, the customer will not go to them but the museum to complain,” says Mensah.
Not all items sold online were chosen because they reflect the museum’s collections or exhibitions, or even Bristol’s heritage and culture. Mensah says he is happy to stock items that he knows will be bestsellers, including homeware inspired by the designs of William Morris.
It would make sense, adds Mensah, for museums around the UK to sell each other’s stock. “If a museum in Birmingham or Newcastle found that their bestselling item was a particular kind of mug I would potentially sell it here because it might be popular.”
Bespoke products are expensive to produce and don’t automatically become bestsellers, explains Mensah. Bristol Culture offers a range, including prints, magnets, notepads and postcards, inspired by its fine art collections. “It is popular but it’s not in our 20 bestsellers,” he says.
Street art prints (by artists such as Banksy) and homeware items are among the most popular items. Profits are boosted further by the provision of associated goods. “It is about secondary spend. If they buy one of our prints there is a good chance they will buy one of our frames as well.”
So far retail profits have been healthy. In 2015-16 retail revenue totalled £320,000, £16,000 of which came from online sales. One of the key reasons behind the online shop’s success, says Mensah, is that costs were kept low during the initial stages. “Be careful about how much is invested at the outset. You need to build demand for [online retail] and then it can be developed.”