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The pop-up shop is a great way to showcase your products to new customers. It is a business strategy that invests little to attract your customers, increase brand awareness, and gather valuable feedback.
Why Launch a Pop-Up Shop?
Current technology, such as chatbots, social media, and virtual appointments, allows sellers to communicate with customers online. However, nothing replaces the personal face-to-face relationship with customers.
Pop-up shops allow you to meet and get to know customers, and customers and fans can put a face to the name through a tangible brand experience.
Moreover, in pop-up shops, customers can test products and provide immediate feedback on the setup.
Open Your Pop-Up Shop with Confidence
Shopify POS is the easiest way to open a pop-up shop. Get a quick setup with the software and hardware you need to accept payments and manage your store, staff, inventory, and customers.
Testing New Methods for Your Brand
You might be considering launching a brick-and-mortar business for your company. A pop-up shop is a perfect way to experiment with potential expansion.
Warby Parker was an online eyewear brand that initially tested physical retail through pop-up shops. Its experience was so successful that the company opened several stores and now has nearly 90 retail locations.
You may be working on launching a new product line or targeting a new audience. A pop-up shop allows you to check demand before investing permanently. It also lets you test new prices, product bundles, and setup ideas.
Building Buzz Around Your Brand
Pop-up shops leverage two powerful drivers for your business: scarcity and word-of-mouth marketing.
The temporary nature of pop-up shops encourages customers to stop by and shop. Market the start and end dates of your pop-up shop to enhance the sense of urgency.
Pop-up shops can also serve as content creation studios, where customers take photos and share content about your products. This user-generated content and referral marketing can create valuable buzz for “intangible” retail brands.
Quick Start Guide for Pop-Up Shops
Are you thinking about hosting a pop-up shop? This free guide includes 3 checklists to help determine what you want to achieve with your pop-up shop, different types of pop-up shops, and design ideas to help you get started.
Get your free guide
Presented by Shopify
Examples of Pop-Up Shops
1. BarkShop Live
It is an online subscription store for gift boxes and gifts for pets. The pop-up shop called BarkShop Live opened in the SoHo neighborhood of Manhattan and invited pet owners to bring their four-legged friends for shopping.
Once inside, dogs were equipped with jackets featuring movement tracking technology. The app provided insights into their dog’s toy preferences along with a way to purchase items that would be shipped directly to their homes.
By treating the pop-up shop as a test ground, BarkShop gathered valuable data about its products. The event was also a test for future retail expansion, leveraging the experiential marketing trend.
2. Penguin
Penguin Life, a subsidiary of Penguin Random House, created a pop-up shop library in London on International Women’s Day – capitalizing on the idea of seasonal pop-up shops.
The shop featured titles by women writers, honoring “the way women contribute, often under the radar, to every aspect of society,” according to the company.
In addition
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book sales, visitors attended workshops and author appearances. Proceeds from ticket sales were donated to the Solas Association to assist with domestic violence. Customers could also purchase books that had been donated to nonprofit organizations.
3. West Elm
The home décor retailer West Elm invited local business owners to set up pop-up shops in their stores during weekends. The opportunity, called West Elm Local, gave artisans a chance to increase their brand awareness and customer base.
Paper artist Megan Alchowiak participated in five pop-up shop opportunities at West Elm to showcase her work and make sales.
4. IKEA Play Café
Furniture company IKEA set up a pop-up store café in Toronto to highlight its food, allowing customers to enjoy the famous meatballs, chicken balls, and veggie balls without going to the giant store.
In addition to the dining experience, homeware products related to cooking, eating, and entertaining were also available for sampling. “For us, it’s really about challenging conventions,” said Stephanie Harnett, IKEA’s senior press spokesperson.
5. Blamé
The YWCA took advantage of the popularity of pop-up shops to draw attention to the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. They established a boutique shop called Blamé that displayed women’s clothing. As guests read the product tags and pricing, they realized that the pop-up shop was not about sales.
Terry Drummond from Juniper Park \\ TBWA, the marketing company that helped the YWCA create the event, noted, “Victim-blaming is something that you can stumble into sometimes. Regular, well-meaning people can find themselves in that cycle and get there without thinking.”
6. Kylie Cosmetics
Kylie Jenner collaborated with Shopify to bring her cosmetics brand from e-commerce to the real world. The pop-up shop in a Los Angeles mall featured a simple design and included a replica of Kylie’s bedroom.
Customers could use a selfie station and shop from her famous lipstick wall. Approximately 25,000 people attended to experience Kylie Cosmetics in person, and many products sold out.
7. Leesa Dream Gallery
Leesa, an online mattress retailer, provided customers with the chance to experience its product in person. To make it memorable, the brand turned the experience into a statement by hosting a pop-up shop in a SoHo gallery filled with pieces from ArtLifting, an online marketplace for works created by artists who are disabled or homeless.
The Leesa Dream Gallery showcased artwork focused on the theme “Everyone has a dream: what’s your dream?” The artworks were sold as originals or prints. Leesa also offered a limited-edition mattress featuring a cover inspired by one of the artists.
8. Pantone Café
Pantone, the global color expert, hosted a temporary event called Pantone Café during Paris Fashion Week, where food was sold in the same vibrant shades as its colors. Shoppers could enjoy beverages such as Jolly Green juice and espresso, and food including éclairs and croissants, each labeled with a corresponding color number.
The café was set up in a bright red shipping container that mirrored Pantone’s own color (Monte Carlo red), and the tableware was printed in Pantone shades. By turning colors into food, the Pantone Café allows shoppers to experience Pantone through a variety of senses.
9. Glossier
Glossier is a popular beauty brand that originated from Emily Weiss’s blog, Into the Gloss. The brand launched a pop-up shop in the Seaport district of Boston. (Seaport is known for The Current, a pop-up shop village that hosted Booty by Brabants, Studs, and Klaviyo.)
In
The first pop-up store for the Glossier brand in New England featured nine shipping containers equipped with the best cosmetics and skincare products it sells. Customers were able to try new products and speak with Glossier consultants to learn more about how to select and use the products.
10. Modify Watches
Modify Watches (now Custom Ink) launched a pop-up store as a way to increase watch sales and gather real-time customer feedback. The brand was selling one product – watches – but those watches came in over 300 designs. The pop-up store served as a way for the Modify Watches team to better understand customer interests and tastes.
Modify Watches also showcased how watches are made, providing customers with a unique brand experience alongside the retail event.
11. ThredUp + Madewell
ThredUp is a retail brand known for its locations across the country – perhaps that’s why the online thrift store and retailer ThredUp collaborated on a pop-up store.
The collaboration, held in Brooklyn, was a temporary store for the online Madewell Forever project that used Madewell products from ThredUp’s used inventory.
This is a great example of a pop-up store benefiting both brands: ThredUp provides cost savings on a physical store, while Madewell benefits from increased traffic from the pop-up. Furthermore, the pop-up store allows both brands to promote their shared values: “extending the life cycle of clothing and challenging the traditional retail structure.”
12. Nike
Pop-up stores are not reserved for digital brands only: companies like Nike, which has been a physical retail brand for much longer than it has offered online customer service, can also benefit from the unique nature of pop-up stores.
In 2017, Nike established pop-up stores in four cities – New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Toronto – to celebrate Air Max Day. The pop-up store featured past and current Air Max models and gave attendees exclusive access to new products, including customizable Air Maxes.
Although Nike stores are widespread across the country, limited-time pop-up stores like this leverage scarcity to help the brand boost sales and build a loyal customer base.
13. The Street Store
A street pop-up store is an unconventional store: it is a temporary store not owned by those renting it where homeless individuals can shop for clothing donated by others. Moreover, anyone can host their own street pop-up store.
The idea of the street pop-up store is a great example of cause-driven marketing. By leveraging the concept of a pop-up store, the brand can engage volunteers to host events that serve homeless communities nationwide.
14. Dolce & Gabbana
Pop-up stores go where shoppers are, which is why the luxury brand Dolce & Gabbana established a mobile pop-up store in the Hamptons in 2021. During July, The Sicilian Cart was available to both locals and visitors as a shopping and cultural experience. It was designed to immerse consumers in the history of the Italian island through the use of historic images and symbols.
The luxury pop-up store offered summer clothing for men, women, and children, along with cultural activities as a nod to the brand’s Italian roots.
15. Paka
Not all pop-up stores need a physical space or even inventory. Take Paka, for example. The brand’s clothing is made from one of the most functional and sustainable materials on earth: alpaca wool. After three months of the pandemic, Paka’s founder, Chris Cody, decided to go on tour with his alpacas – Chaska and Luna – to meet customers in person.
He said
Chris: “While everyone was heading online, I really wanted to go offline and connect with people. I saw how much technology and media were causing fear. I wanted to give people a break from that. The alpacas are magnetic creatures, so I made them the focus of my tour instead of pushing products unnaturally”.
Although the majority of his customer base was on the West Coast of the United States, he organized the Paka tour along the West Coast, with the alpacas and the trailer in tow. He only had a portable point of sale and unique $20 engraved wooden gift cards that could be used to purchase anything on the Paka website. He brought the alpacas to farmers’ markets, gardens, and surfing competitions, offering free alpaca hugs to anyone interested.
Chris said: “Without any product, we created an amazing channel from the outside world to the virtual world simply by collecting emails for gift cards”.
Pop-Up Shop Ideas
Special Guests
Special guests such as designers, influencers, and experts can bring in customers eager for a chance to meet them. If you have special brand ambassadors or a relationship with a designer of some of the products you sell, set up a pop-up shop around their attendance and encourage them to share your shop with their audience as well. This can bring in customers outside your typical age demographic.
Collaboration with Other Brands
When you collaborate with other brands for your pop-up shop, you expand your reach while sharing costs. Before collaborating, ensure that the brand partners align with your goals and values and that your audiences are compatible.
Exclusive Discounts
Your pop-up shop could offer exclusive discounts and sales available only to in-person attendees. This can increase the appeal to draw more customers in and make those customers feel special.
Contests and Events
Hold contests or giveaways to encourage customers to visit your store, and have them enter via social media to spread the word about your pop-up shop experience. Reward winners with free products, limited-time merchandise, or special shout-outs on your social media channels.
Better yet, hold a contest and announce the winner on the last day of your pop-up shop, as this can encourage customers to return to your pop-up shop multiple times.
Complementary Services
Alongside your products, offer complementary services that make your pop-up shop customers feel special. For example, if you sell cosmetics, provide free application services by beauty experts.
Product Demonstrations
If your company sells products that require additional education, consider hosting a product demonstration at your pop-up shop. You can also ask current customers to showcase your products and explain their use cases, which also serves as user-generated content.
Mobility
Like food trucks for restaurants, pop-up shops allow vendors to be mobile in a way that a physical location or online store cannot provide. Consider hosting your pop-up shop in a truck or trailer so you can visit different parts of your city.
Free Samples
Free samples, whether food, cosmetics, or other consumer products, can stimulate impulse purchases. Draw customers into your pop-up shop with complementary products that build trust and encourage them to buy more.
Exclusive Releases
Keep
With new product releases or launches for your pop-up shop. This will not only increase demand for your pop-up shop but also make attendees feel special and appreciated.
Customization
Like an Air Max pop-up shop day, think about making your store an opportunity for customers to customize your products as they wish. This will not only set your pop-up shop apart from regular product offerings; but it will also encourage customers to share their customized products on social media, promoting your pop-up shop in the process.
Interactive Elements
When executed correctly, pop-up shops can be a playground for consumers. E-commerce stores don’t give customers the chance to touch, feel, and try out products. Take advantage of your pop-up shop as a way for customers to interact with your brand, learn more about your products, and have a little fun.
New Product Sneak Peeks
If you’re not ready to release new product versions, let your pop-up shop be a place to preview or explain upcoming releases to customers. They can still purchase your current products and get a sneak peek at what’s to come.
Charitable Tie-Ins
Leverage the buzz generated by pop-up shops for charities that align with your brand values. Donate a portion of your revenue to a nonprofit, or collaborate with an organization so it can tap into your audience and traffic to raise awareness for its cause.
Get Started with Your Pop-Up Shop
Pop-up shops offer unique ways to engage with customers and make your brand tangible while generating buzz around new campaigns, products, or other issues. The benefits of a pop-up shop far outweigh the low investment required to launch it.
Use the examples above to launch your first pop-up shop, expand your brand, and bring your small business idea to more customers.
Research and additional content by Alexis Damen.
Common Pop-Up Shop Ideas
Are Pop-Up Shops a Good Idea?
Yes, there are many benefits to hosting a pop-up shop event. You can engage with customers face-to-face, test out new ways for your brand, build hype around your brand, and create a sense of urgency that can boost your sales.
What Can I Sell at a Pop-Up Shop?
You can sell anything at a pop-up shop, but typically items should be non-perishable and small enough to transport easily. Temporary pop-up shops can also be a great way to build hype around a new product.
How Can I Attract Customers to My Pop-Up Shop?
You can attract customers to your pop-up shop by building buzz on social media, offering one-time discounts, exclusive products, product sampling, free samples, exclusive editions, interactive elements, and celebrity guest appearances.
What Are the Downsides of Pop-Up Shops?
Pop-up shops can be a great way to increase sales and brand awareness, but there can be a lot of work involved. You may need more staff, and you’ll need to do some research into local regulations to make sure you’re legally allowed to set up a pop-up shop in the chosen location.
Source: https://www.shopify.com/retail/pop-up-shop-ideas
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