The impressive growth of pop-up retail can be seen in the fact that it was a zero dollar industry in 2003 but flourished into an 8 billion dollar industry in 2013. Pop-up continues to drive innovation and offer several strategic opportunities thus adding a new dimension to retail.
Some of the strategic opportunities presented by pop-up retail:
- Retailers can target a niche audience.
- Chance to experiment with an economic alternative to full-scale retail set-up.
- Allow retailers to test new products, concepts, and markets.
- Derive valuable consumer insights economically and with minimum inventory.
- Retailers can create buzz and imprint their products on the customers’ minds.
- Tap into “massclusivity” and stimulate consumer curiosity with elements of surprise and urgency.
- Clear old inventory and stock.
- Aggressively promote merchandise around a finite duration of time such as season, festival or holiday.
- Create a learning center for customer
Retailers have been quick to explore the popup retailing concept:
- In 2003, Target pioneered the pop-up model with a 1,500 sq.ft. store in New York City that for showcasing designer Isaac Mizrahi’s women’s clothing over five weeks.
- Nike created a Runner’s Lounge in Vancouver with free massages, snacks, drinks, and the opportunity to test their new line of shoes designed exclusively for running.
- Collaborating with global brands – Adidas, Levi’s and Sony Ericsson, MTV promoted limited edition apparel and high-tech electronics by setting up pop-up stores in German cities for a week at a time.
- Exploring the idea of a traveling pop-up store, Gap fashioned a school bus with 60’s themed apparel and accessories.
- E-commerce retailer, Bluefly.com opened a brick-and-mortar store in New York to unload slow-moving stock in a temporary boutique.
To set-up a successfully running pop-up store or site, retailers need to employ the right pop-up technology. Web-based point-of-sale (POS) and mobile point-of-sale (mPOS) integrated with customer data and inventory management tools using the right retail software will enable the pop-up store staff or self-serve kiosks to answer customer queries and access real-time information about product availability and provide superior customer experience. Retailers must ensure strong security measures at the pop-up locations for protecting transaction data going across the network while providing connectivity.
