There are various benefits of opening pop-up shops and together with concept stores, they might be the future of retail. Some of the advantages are: test different markets, increase sales, get to know your clients if you are online based business, increase awareness and generate buzz. Based on our recent experience in London we have a few pop-up shop ideas to share.
TRY NEW MARKETS
Research the area and find a suitable location for your target market. This can be tricky if you are not local but try and spend some time in the area. Check out the competition and chat with people, have the local food and coffee (for research purposes of course). Our client chose Shoreditch area of London often described as arty, trendy and smart which was in-line with their ideal customer profile.
BE TRUE TO YOUR BRAND
By this, I mean consistency in how you are portraying yourself online and your other shops. For our client MacGregor and MacDuff which prides itself in the craftsmanship and tradition with a modern twist, we made sure that we reflected that in the way we used the space, displayed the merchandise and what props we used. In designing their pop-up shop, we created an atmosphere that reflected the brand’s personality using industrial style tables, brass frames, vintage trunks, vintage sewing machines, glass cloches and flickering lights.
PERFECT DISPLAYS
There is no room for error here. Pop-ups are temporary and you only have a limited amount of time to woo your customers. This requires a lot of thinking and planning. For this shop, we drafted every detail and knew the place of every object before we went to London. We used our knowledge of visual merchandising, product layout, POS, and window dressing to make it a success story. This is also helped to bring a bigger revenue.
MARKETING
My advice on this one is, the more the better, and use different types of marketing. Plan well and create buzz before the store opens using content marketing. Describe what the shop is going to look like, your amazing products etc. The shop is open for a limited time only and this is the time to be loud. Once the store is opened you will have fans, clients and collaborators sharing their content. You can do press previews, launch party and invite influencers to get bigger media attention.
ENCOURAGE FEEDBACK
Very important! Make sure you find a way to hear what people thought of your Pop-up shop. You can either use social media or in-store feedback. A little incentive always goes down well. Find out what they thought of your products, what was good, what was missing…This is your way to find out if the area has a potential for brick and mortar investment or do you want to do a Pop-up shop again in the same location.
Photography by Dom Martin
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A video by Scaling Retail giving 3 reasons why pop-up shops work
