Volume 3, No. 3. February 14, 2003
Shop
therapy
Genuine black leather
suede. Quilted lining. Perfect fit. A great price for a Harrison & Tailor
jacket, regularly $99.99 on sale for $59.99. And no Shamu.
Not that I have anything against Shamu, but on a cold day at SeaWorld in Orlando,
Florida, I just needed something to keep me warm. In the park’s souvenir
shops I found this jacket which has become my wear of choice for social events
back home. Shamu is getting just as much mileage from it even without his portrait
embroidered on the chest, sleeve or back because everybody wants to know where
I got such a fine jacket. And what a price!
“It’s the unexpected, and then it’s the price,” said Bob
Podrasky, vice president of merchandise for SeaWorld Orlando. “From my
perspective it’s part of the entertainment experience people have when
they’re in the park, it’s part of that unexpected entertainment. And
it drives impulse sales in the park.”
My new jacket is an example of a new strategy Podrasky brought to SeaWorld when
he moved to the park a year ago after 25 years at Busch Gardens in Williamsburg,
Virginia. “The market used to thrive on tourists. You took your name and
you put it on everything to satisfy the tourist market,” he said. “The
market has shifted, and none of us in Orlando is getting a lot of the foreign
international market we’d like to get; we’re all getting more and
more of the local and nearby market. We’re getting a lot of repeat visits,
we’re selling a lot of season passes.”
Those customers are not shopping for Shamu gear. But they are shopping. So Podrasky
has his buying teams focusing on developing products exclusive to SeaWorld but
not necessarily bearing the park logo. Podrasky himself just returned from Ireland
which resulted in contracts that “are really stepping out of the box for
a theme park,” he said. Fine china manufacturer Royal Tara is making a
table top collection for SeaWorld, with place setting, condiment dishes and
giftware. “It will not carry our name, but the design brings a SeaWorld
theme into the product.”
SeaWorld and Discovery Cove shops will be selling two Waterford Crystal items—a
pineapple vase and an apprentice’s bowl—unavailable anywhere else
in the United States. Podrasky has commissioned artists to develop marine life
paintings for the parks to sell. His buyers are searching for top-line giftware
and apparel to offer in its boutiques where he will “drive the price down
to a point that’s a value for our guest.”
“We haven’t eliminated the Shamu and the dolphin; that’s an important
thing we do,” he said, but “we’ve scaled down the number of shops
that have that product.”
Such a strategy worked for Podrasky at Busch, he said. “I wouldn’t
be here if it didn’t work.” It also better positions SeaWorld to prosper
in the new world that is the Orlando market by putting the park’s stores
on the shopping conscience of the local population. “It brings people back
again and again,” Podrasky said.
©2003, Minton Enterprises
LLC
All rights reserved