Pop-up stores – stores that seem to appear out of nowhere with little or no notice – avoid becoming outmoded by remaining open for only a few days, weeks, months or a year before disappearing or mutating into something else. Their finite lifespan compels consumers to snap up that “prized find” before it regretfully slips between their fingers never to be found again. Unlike clearance sales, pop-up stores rarely reduce their prices and instead operate on the premise of exclusivity or use their “novelty factor” as a drawcard.
Though relatively new to Australia, pop-up stores have been sweeping the US and Europe for several years now. The term was first coined by trendwatching.com, an independent firm that scans the globe for consumer trends. The firm describes pop-up stores as “adding to retail the fresh feel, exclusivity and surprise that galleries, theatres and Cirque du Soleiladepts have been using for years”1.
In 2002 US franchise Target launched its first pop-up store – a temporary floating outlet on the Hudson River for Christmas. The following year it opened a temporary 1500 square feet store in the Rockefeller Centre for little over a month to celebrate fashion designer Isaac Mizrahi’s new women’s clothing line. It has since run a number of other pop-up store campaigns including “Deliver the Shiver” where trucks showed up in high foot traffic areas such as Times Square selling brand new air conditioners complete with a free bulls eye pull cart; a venue called the Target Bullseye Inn – a former antique shop which was transformed into a pop-up store selling fashionable summer goods for the beach and patio; and the Target ‘Pink” Store in Times Square selling its exclusive range of pink products to raise money for breast cancer.
In an interview with USA Today 2, Target’s vice president of marketing, John Remington said the pop-up stores aim to give consumers a hands on experience which might entice them to get into a full service Target store.
The pop-up retail phenomenon has sparked much creativity and has also created a wave of pop-up stores with an avant garde bent. Kangol sold bags and sunglasses while DJs and graffiti artists performed live in a store in Brick Lane, London. High end fashion brand Comme des Garcons broke retail conventions and opened a Guerrilla Store in a former industrial East Berlin neighbourhood with little signage, no overt advertising and not even a phone listing. The shop space was an exbookstore hollowed out with just racks and merchandise. From the outset Commes des Garcons said it would remain open for only a year and despite its success, it stayed true to its word, closing exactly one year after opening. Since its stint in Berlin, it has appeared in cities such as Barcelona, Helsinki, Ljubljana, and Singapore as well as having a joint store with Colette – a French fashion gallery store.
The theatrical nature of pop-up stores has proven to be a successful way to spawn publicity and many non retailers in the US and Europe have also jumped on the bandwagon to generate brand awareness. No frills airline Song ran a store for nine weeks in Soho New York from November until December 2003, selling tickets, travel gear, offering snippets of their in-flight entertainment and samples of their inflight menu. Song’s stint in Soho attracted over 50,000 visitors. Whisky makers, Crown Royal launched a barbershop in downtown New York offering free haircuts as part of a campaign to promote the Canadian brand. Italian coffee company illy set up “Galleria illy” in Soho, where punters could enjoy coffee while admiring photos taken by local art students.
More bizarrely, cat food makers Meow Mix opened a kitty café in an empty store space for three weeks. The café served Meow Mix samples to cats and also had interactive games for cats and their human companions as well as a gift shop selling kitty food and toys. According to US magazine, Promo, Meow Mix used $150,000 of its promotion and PR budget on setting up and running the store, but generated 100 million media mentions and distributed 14,000 sample wet food pouches.3 Grand Central Marketing, the firm that handled Meow Mix’s pop-up store campaign said that Meow Mix made over $20,000 in sales in the three weeks it was up.
Some businesses such as guerrilla store, Vacant, have established their entire operation around the pop-up stores concept. Vacant constantly opens stores for one month at a time in empty spaces in major cities such as LA, New York, Paris, Berlin, London, Stockholm, Tokyo and Shanghai, selling limited edition or one off products from up-and-coming designers and established brands.
Vacant rejects mainstream retail practices by not placing any price tags on products or offering help to customers. Customers are encouraged to come into the stores and explore them as they would in an art gallery. It also does no advertising via mainstream media, but rather sends a few emails to its members just before opening and then leaves the rest to word of mouth.
Vacant has taken the pop-up stores idea even further by setting up Vacant Mobile, a group of four wheel drives that travel throughout Europe and North America selling exclusive clothing, toys and footwear. It has also set up its first permanent space in a Chicago department store, but retains its exclusivity by only allowing members entry and constantly changing its limited stock.
The pop-up stores trend has yet to come this far in Australia, but it is starting to make some headway. Chic footwear brand Kowalski opened its first pop-up store in Oxford Street Paddington after struggling to find retailer representation in the Sydney market. The shoe company decided to take matters into their own hands and tease the market with their product range and then leave the opportunity up to retailers. The store contains an eclectic gallery of shoes, videos and photographs which play on the shoe fetish theme.
In Melbourne, two friends came back from a shopping spree in Tokyo and, with the assistance of a designer, set up a pop-up store in an unused Fitzroy boutique for three days. The only advertising was an email to 3000 subscribers to a fashion website. Although items weren’t discounted, the store called “Kumi and Ayumi’s excellent adventure” made thousands, moving their entire stock of designer t-shirts, purses and vases within the three day period.
Franchise, Krispy Kreme donuts opened up a pop-up store in QV in Melbourne’s CBD in early 2006 to introduce the brand to Melbournians. The chain did no advertising, simply sending consumers emails and text messages to alert them of the new outlet. Not even a year down the track and the donut franchise, which had been previously operating in Sydney a couple of years, now has five permanent outlets successfully operating in Melbourne.
Another group of enterprising friends found a dishevelled car park in Melbourne’s CBD and transformed it into a hip bar constructed from two shipping containers (one as a bar and the other as rest rooms), a platform of timber packing pallets and a square of tarmac. The group commissioned an artist to paint one of the containers, hooked up water and electricity and hung dozens of Chinese lanterns in the space. In an interview on ABC’s Inside Business, owner Maz Salt said the bar only cost $60,000 to set up. The group, who didn’t have a lot of start up capital, negotiated a lease agreement with local businessman Yin Lam who could see the potential in what they were trying to do. The agreement stipulated that Mr Lam was entitled to ten percent of the takings or a minimum of $500 a month. The bar opened unannounced on a Thursday night and by 7:30pm Friday evening they were turning people away. Mr Lam’s open mindedness paid dividends. During the winter Section 8 averaged $10,000 a week and in summer the turnover hovers at close to $30,000 per week. Despite the bar’s popularity, the owners plan to close it once the lease expires and perhaps open a Section 9 elsewhere.4
Another entrepreneur, Georgie White, has been setting up pop-up clothing stores in fashionable inner city Melbourne pubs such as the Saint Hotel in St Kilda and the Station Hotel in Prahran. Ms White’s business Agent Thrift, started out as a couple of sales in Masonic halls after Ms White purchased overstock and samples from local designers. By moving around, she has attracted new customers through walk in traffic and at the same time plays on the hype of a sale, which urges consumers not to miss out on a once only opportunity. Though the pop-up fad is catching on in Australia, it is still in its infancy and there is immense opportunity for retailers with a little creative finesse. The trend is evolving quickly and is now serious business overseas. Singaporean company, Venue, has even developed the V.Box which they describe as a “shipping container turned luxury store” specifically designed for pop-up retail (see http://www.venue.com.sg/vbox.html). The container is like a plush mini gallery that features ultra-chic street wear, CDs, mobile phones and ipods. The V.Box moves around like a roving circus and avid consumers can call a number to find its whereabouts at any time. Pop-up stores bring a new vibrancy to the retail sector that gives the more flamboyant retailer or marketer scope for real creativity while at the same time generating real sales and, depending on the nature of the business, invaluable publicity. The novel aspect of some pop-up operations can act as a drawcard to certain areas regenerating regions that may have lost their liveliness. This might explain why councils such as The City of Melbourne have backed ideas such as Section 8. The beauty of pop-up retail is the success of a campaign is not necessarily dependent on the amount of capital a retailer has, but rather how a retailer can combine creativity, ingenuity and financial prowess to come up with something novel that will entice, titillate and entertain consumers. By nature, most of us love something fresh and new and that is exactly what pop-up stores tap into. Just when the shine wears off, the pop-up store disappears. The only trace of its existence – usually, a healthy profit statement or publicity that will make the competition envious.
