The National Museum of China (NMC) Art Workshop has an e-commerce and marketing department, which focuses on promoting cultural and creative products to customers, and on precisely meeting customers' needs. The workshop has developed approximately 5,000 products, in 12 categories.
To meet customers' needs, employees of the e-commerce and marketing department conduct surveys, regularly, to analyze the popularity of different products. They work hard to determine customers' preferences. Hui Rong, manager of the department, says women make up nearly 81 percent of NMC's online shop's followers who are active on the Internet.
"We try to ensure every spectator, who has been to our museum, can find something they like in our shop," says Wang Xiaolan, manager of the store operations department. Young customers prefer to buy products that highlight integration of innovation with items' historical and cultural value. When it comes to families, the customers tend to buy functional products, which help enhance parent-child interactions, she adds.
The NMC has both online and offline shops. Employees of the shop in the museum often explain to customers the stories about cultural relics related to the designs of various products. Employees of the museum's online shop often answer customers' inquiries about products, during which they help promote cultural knowledge. The women, who make up the majority of the employees, are generally meticulous and patient. As customers are purchasing cultural and creative products at the museum, the women offer information about the historic connotations hidden behind the products.
The NMC Art Workshop also has a new-media-operations department. The department's employees tell stories about the vivid interactions between customers and the cultural and creative products. They hope NMC's products will serve as a bridge that connects cultural relics' historical value with customers' emotional needs. Xu Zhuoya, manager of the new-media-operations department, recalls a touching interaction between a Chinese customer and a renowned American friend, Evan Kail. A pawnshop manager from the United States, Kail donated to China a photo album dating back to World War II (WWII), which documented the atrocities committed by Japanese invaders in China. Kail, who made the donation in 2022, embarked on a month-long visit to China, in November 2024, during which he visited NMC.
At that time, due to the museum's purchase-restriction rule, extremely popular cultural and creative products, including the fridge magnet inspired by the phoenix coronet of Empress Xiaoduan, had to be ordered in advance. Kail had missed the chance to book the product, Xu says.
"However, a young woman gave the fridge magnet she had purchased to Kail as a gift. Later, we were able to contact the warmhearted spectator and give her another fridge magnet, for free. Although this cultural product is not too expensive, it represents a priceless treasure, which connects people's kindness and respect to each other, regardless of their different nations," Xu says.
Employees responsible for the workshop's publicity efforts collect customers' suggestions and feedback to improve the cultural and creative products, so they will better fit customers' needs and tastes.
"Based on the information we have obtained, we have reached the conclusion that exquisite imperial decorations are suitable to be designed into ornaments. Pottery figurines and animal-shaped relics, which feature vivid images, can be developed into decorative goods. Fridge magnets, which are practical and easy to carry, are the top-option souvenirs for more than half of our survey recipients," Xu explains.
In recent years, the workshop has paid greater attention to the combination of cultural relics' intellectual property (IP), especially the items with popular cultural phenomena.
For example, near the end of 2025, a prop, shown on a Chinese TV drama, was inspired by a tiger-patterned, round-and-gold ornament collected by NMC. Coinciding with the increasing popularity of the TV drama, the fridge magnet that highlighted the tiger-patterned ornament quickly sold out. "Quite a number of fans of the TV drama contacted us to ask when they would be able to buy this fridge magnet. Combining cultural relics' IP with hot cultural phenomena makes it easier to promote the charms of traditional culture to the public. If our products are close enough to people's daily lives, the products will be seen and loved by more and more people," Xu adds.
Social-media platforms have become an indispensable channel for promoting the cultural value presented by cultural and creative products. "Every time a customer shares an item on his/her social-media account, the customer helps spread the value of a certain relic to the public. If more people join in this kind of sharing, the stories about cultural relics collected by NMC, as well as the fine traditional Chinese culture, which is deeply connected with the relics, will be better promoted throughout the world," Xu says.
Video by Pei Zhaoyue
Photos from Interviewees and VCG
(Women of China English Monthly March 2026)
Editor: Lei Yang
