Museum & Science Center
Shop Benchmarking
The first comprehensive international benchmark of museum retail — measuring how shops actually perform, and where the sector is heading.
Retail matters more than ever — yet the sector is flying blind.
Museum shops carry growing commercial and strategic weight, but the field still lacks shared benchmarks and comparable data. Without them, retail managers cannot tell whether their conversion, spend-per-visitor, or margins are strong or lagging — only that they are on their own.
For museum retail to develop strategically, institutions have to exchange and analyse data across the field.
WHAT IT IS
A benchmark museum shops can hold themselves against.
The Museum & Science Centre Shop Benchmarking is the first comprehensive international benchmarking study of museum retail — launched by Museum Booster and Museum Connections, and built on research conducted within the Future Museum project.
It sets out to understand how museums and cultural institutions develop, operate, and strategically position their retail activities — from shop operations and visitor profiles to financial performance, product strategy, online retail, licensing, and sustainability. The result is a shared overview of where museum retail currently stands, and what developments are likely to shape the sector next.
WHO IS TAKING PART
Shops from across the museum world.
Institution types
Art Museums
History / heritage museums
Science centres
Natural history museums
Children's museums
Multidisciplinary museums
Specialised / single-subject museums
Corporate / Brand Museums
Pilot participants
A first round drawn from the Future Museum community, spanning Europe, North America, Asia and Australia.
ACMI, AHHAA Science Centre, South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology, ArtScience Museum Singapore, Bata Shoe Museum, BELvue, Belvedere, Detroit Institute of Arts, DomQuartier Salzburg, Driehaus Museum, Finnish National Gallery, Heureka, High Museum of Art, KMSKA Antwerp, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Medieval Museum Stockholm, Moesgaard Museum, Musea Brugge, Museums Victoria, Serlachius Museums, Peabody Essex Museum, Perlan – Wonders of Iceland, Swarovski Kristallwelten, Swiss National Museum, Universum Bremen and more.
WHAT THE SURVEY MEASURES
Nine sections. One honest picture of retail.
The questionnaire takes 15–20 minutes. If your institution runs more than one on-site shop, you share data for the one generating the highest annual revenue. All responses are fully anonymised and aggregated — no organisation is ever identifiable.
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Museum type, location, visitor volume and organisational size — the context that lets benchmarking results compare like with like.
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How the shop is positioned strategically: its role within the visitor experience, storytelling, and overall retail maturity.
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Audiences and customer behaviour, including visitor composition, target groups, customer insights, and retail analytics practices.
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The operational setup: management structure, staffing, visitor flow, and physical retail infrastructure.
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Commercial performance, pricing structures, assortment strategy, and the KPIs used to evaluate retail success.
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Online retail activities and the role of e-commerce within the overall retail strategy.
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Licensing activities, external collaborations, and partnerships connected to museum retail and brand development.
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Sustainability policies, sourcing practices, packaging, and ethical considerations within retail operations.
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Innovation, emerging retail trends, strategic priorities, and the future developments shaping museum retail.
WHY PARTICIPATE
Contributors get the whole map.
And it costs nothing but your time.
01
Contribute your data.
02
Understand your position.
03
Strengthen your retail strategy.
04
Shape the future of museum retail.
OTHER ONGOING SURVEYS