Bringing the museum into the home
To help promote understanding of paleontology and fossils in Taiwan, in 2003 Hsiao founded Shi-Shang Science Shop, selling natural science products and letting people take a little of the museum home with them.
In the shop, customers can immerse themselves in the distant past amongst the massive models of fossil dinosaurs. The store has also arranged with major science museums and centers like the National Museum of Natural Science in Taichung and Taipei’s National Taiwan Science Education Center to sell replicas of exhibits, offering a unique retail experience completely different from your usual museum gift shop. However, this expansion of the business also led to operating costs double or tripling and some outlets doing less than stellar trade. The early days of the store’s operation were anything but easy.
However, those hard times didn’t last long. Soon enough Shi-Shang was able to catch the attention of the Eslite group, which at the time was actively expanding across Taiwan. Hsiao remarks that although back in 2004 Shi-Shang won the operating rights for the National Museum of Natural Science store over Eslite, the two sides have maintained a good relationship since arranging for Shi-Shang’s products to be stocked in Eslite stores. Thanks to this Shi-Shang has enjoyed a growing level of visibility through Eslite’s strong distribution channels.
With its wealth of knowledge, global network, and unrestored fossils accumulated from around the world, Shi-Shang and its almost 10,000-strong fossil collection have become a major backstage player in big paleontological exhibitions at home and abroad.
For the permanent exhibition of dinosaur fossils in the old Land Bank building on Taipei’s Guanqian Road, everything from the exhibits, lighting and displays to the guides and information brochures was planned by Shi-Shang. When the Chi Mei Museum was preparing its new natural sciences section in 2005, they sought out the help of Shi-Shang, and to this day Hsiao continues to work as a consultant with them.
Having already helped people bring the museum home, now Hsiao’s goal is to take the museum to the department store. This way, while shoppers are getting all the usual goodies, they can also learn a bit about the prehistoric world.
In 2005, Shi-Shang set up an exhibition in the Shin Kong Mitsukoshi department store in Taipei, drawing almost 10,000 visitors. In 2013, the company organized an exhibition of mammoths which was held at the Taipei World Trade Center and broke records for attendance, with over 500,000 people visiting in just four days.
“A decade or more ago, mothers would point to fossils and tell their children, ‘Oh, those are all fake.’ In the past few years, we’ve heard that less and less,” says Hsiao. From a niche interest to a popular attraction, fascination with the prehistoric world has begun to bloom. And, as Hsiao remarks, Shi-Shang has played an important part in promoting it.
Today Shi-Shang is continuing to strengthen its business, with more than 40 stores around Taiwan carrying their products. Last year, that growth branched out in a new direction as Shi-Shang expanded into mainland China.
The permanent exhibition of dinosaur fossils and related items at Taipei’s old Land Bank building, curated by Shi-Shang, is quite the spectacle. Pictured here is the section devoted to bird specimens.