Sand Dollars "R" Us

I went to Oakridge Mall today and was taken aback by the number of kiosks that have rolled in of late. These mall kiosks seem to be the bottom of the retail barrel, one step above garage sale. To own a mall kiosk is to say, "I have stuff to sell, buy my stuff isn't worthy enough for walls and a door."

There is one type of mall kiosk that I actually seek out: the $10 sunglasses kiosk, supposedly modeled after hip brands like Dolce & Gabanna and Calvin Klein. Ten bucks is about right, because if I don't lose them, I break them. After the first expensive pair of sunglasses I ever purchased demonstrated that they cannot survive a spin cycle, I began buying these kiosk sunglasses by the half-dozen.

And I once got suckered into buying a $12 nail care kit that has this little buffer that makes your fingernails all shiny and smooth. Only later did I realize that you can get the same kind of buffer for $1.99 at Walgreens, and also that I can probably live just fine without shiny and smooth fingernails.

But today, I saw the most ardent display of the entrepreneurial spirit, a kiosk that sells nothing but sand dollar merchandise. Most of the display area was dedicated to the 2008 sand dollar calendar. January is sand dollars. February, more sand dollars, and so on.

Oh sure, they're cute and cuddly, but this is quite a niche market they're going after here. There may be plenty of sand dollar enthusiasts out there, but how many are likely to happen upon this little kiosk at the Oakridge Mall on an average day? Or do Christmas shoppers come into a mall thinking, "What for Grandma? What for Grandma? Well, you know how much she loves echinoids. If only we could find...over there! Eureka!"

I wonder how the owner came up with this idea. She must have thought people are just sick and tired of puppies and covered bridges and the hunks of the NYC firefighters and Ansel Adams and babies swaddled in pea pods. What people are clamoring for is pictures of sand dollars.

Perhaps the owner has a quirky aunt that's been collecting sand dollars for years and has been bitching that you just can't find a good quality sand dollar calendar these days. "Forget plastics--the future is sand dollars."

Or maybe there's a whole sand dollar community out there that I'm not aware of. Maybe it's a closet obsession shared by millions. If that's the case, then the sand dollar community really needs to elect a PR chair, because you're flying under the radar, sand dollar people.

But I have to be fair. They did have other merchandise at the booth: sand dollar post cards, sand dollar pencils, sand dollar book marks (because who doesn't need a bookmark this Christmas?) and actual sand dollars. Smart strategy--cross-selling will make them big money. Surely, the guy who buys the calendar will hardly be able to resist a few sand dollar post cards.

So, if I happen to be on your Christmas list, you can skip the sand dollar kiosk, because while I am not in the market for photos of babies stuffed into flower pots, I haven't yet tired of the NYC firefighters. And by the way, I'm running low on sunglasses.