Pop-Up Retail
Categories: Marketing
It’s September again, and we all know what that means: every vacant storefront in town is about to be occupied by a Halloween costume retailer. These temporary stores are what’s known as “pop-up retail.” They come in, set up shop, sell their seasonal or otherwise temporarily desirable wares, and then disappear back into the ether until their merchandise is in season once again.
Nowadays, pop-up retail isn’t just for Halloween costumes, Christmas ornaments, and fireworks, though. We see pop-up restaurants, er...pop up...here and there, and some year-round retailers have even set up short-term pop-up stores in creative places like art galleries, Conex boxes, yurts in the park, and even on boats and underwater. Seriously. Underwater. Sony did it in Dubai.
Pop-ups can be a win-win: retailers don’t have to pay for retail space for an entire year when they only need it for a month or two, and landlords can recoup some of their expenses on currently vacant storefronts. Also, the retailers themselves can get a lot more exposure when they get creative with pop-ups. Who wouldn’t love to be strolling through the park and suddenly come across a Quonset hut selling their fave coffee? Stunts like that are bound to earn them another customer or two, and they didn’t have to pay an arm and a leg to build or rent space in a permanent structure.
