If you’re considering starting a souvenir shop, you will need to know who your target market is. Who are you hoping to attract to your shop? Tourists? Locals? People in the area for a specific event?
These are all important questions that you need to answer before you can start designing and stocking your store.
Once you know who your target market is, you can begin to create marketing materials and products that appeal specifically to them.
In this article, we will discuss the target market for a souvenir shop and the reasons why someone may walk into one.
Who is the Target Market for a Souvenir Shop?
To best understand the target market for a souvenir shop, we need to ask ourselves: who buys souvenirs? And why?
Once we understand our ideal customer’s needs and wants for a souvenir, we can analyze their motivations. With this knowledge, we can divide the market into segments. And then to truly understand the market, we study each segment independently of the other.
Following this process, we get the following main segments of the target market for a souvenir shop:
- People who are on vacation and want a physical reminder of their trip
- People who want to buy gifts for friends and family back home
- People who want to bring home a piece of the local culture
- People on a business trip who want a gift for their colleagues
- Locals following a tradition
- People who want to support businesses in their community
- People who appreciate handmade or unique items
Let’s look closely at each of these market segments.
1. People who are on vacation and want a physical reminder of their trip
The largest segment of the target market for a souvenir shop includes tourists on a vacation in a new place. Tourists often buy souvenirs as a physical reminder of their time in the new location.
So it’s no surprise that souvenir shops are often found near popular tourist destinations.
Sometimes tourists may also want to purchase gifts for friends and family back home, which brings us to our next segment.
2. People who want to buy gifts for friends and family back home
This segment is similar to the previous one, with a few key differences. First, these customers are not necessarily on vacation themselves.
They may live in the area and have come to the souvenir shop specifically to purchase gifts for friends and family who do not live nearby.
Second, they are usually looking for items that represent the area where they live – something their loved ones can’t find anywhere else.
For instance, someone living in New York City may want to purchase a souvenir like a snow globe or keychain with the Statue of Liberty on it for a friend they are visiting in Los Angeles.
3. People who want to bring home a piece of the local culture
This segment includes customers who are interested in purchasing items that represent the local culture of the area they’re visiting.
They may want to buy items that are handmade by local artisans or that are otherwise unique to the area.
This segment is often interested in purchasing souvenirs that they can’t find at home, which makes them willing to pay a bit more for a high-quality item.
To some degree, this segment of the target market for a souvenir shop is like the first segment with one major distinction: People in this segment are interested in bringing back a piece of culture and not just a memory of a visit.
4. People on a business trip who want a gift for their colleagues
This segment includes customers who are traveling for business and want to purchase a gift for their colleagues back home.
They may want to buy an item that represents the area they’re visiting, but it’s not as important to them that the item is unique or handmade.
Instead, they’re usually looking for something that is high-quality and that their colleagues will appreciate.
5. Locals following a tradition
This segment of the target market for a souvenir shop includes customers who live in the area and where buying a souvenir during a special occasion is part of a local tradition.
For example, each year the village of Nospelt in Luxembourg hosts a village festival called the Emaischen in which locals make earthenware whistles in the shape of birds. Each year locals (and also some tourists) buy such a toy bird as a tradition.
6. People who want to support businesses in their community
Some locals will buy souvenirs from shops in their communities as a way of supporting local businesses.
This segment is usually interested in purchasing items that are locally made, locally sourced, unique to the area, and that represent the local culture.
They often don’t mind paying a bit extra for such items because the motivation is altruistic anyway.
7. People who appreciate handmade or unique items
Many souvenir shops target customers who appreciate handmade or unique items, as these are often the most popular types of souvenirs.
These customers may be interested in purchasing items that are made by local artisans, that are sourced from the local area, or that represent the local culture.
For example, the Sud Tirol region of Italy is famous for its woodcarvings, and so many souvenir shops in the area target customers who appreciate such items.
Similarly, the Black Forest region of Germany is known for its handmade Cuckoo clocks and so many tourists carry these back home with them.
Souvenir shops also carry other locally made products. Popular ones include handmade soaps, handmade jewelry, candles and wine.
Conclusion
Interestingly, the target market for a souvenir shop isn’t limited to tourists. Sure, tourists make the bulk of the market, especially for a souvenir shop located close to a famous tourist destination, but there exist other market segments as well.
For instance, sometimes people will visit a souvenir shop close to where they live to buy a local specialty to take to friends or family who live elsewhere. The same people may shop at a local souvenir shop as a way to support local, small businesses.
Many people go to souvenir shops because they have items that represent the local culture and sometimes these are the only places where a part of a historical culture still exists.
Locals may buy from such shops because it is their local tradition. In parts of Europe, such traditions go back hundreds of years.
And finally, sometimes souvenir shops are also places where local artisans and handcraftsman have their products for sale. People who love such items will often look for them in a souvenir shop.
