Temporary retail space, by nature, lets you have all the best bits of a brick and mortar store, without the commitment. It serves as an ideal opportunity to test new ideas, make mistakes and learn from them. From reaching your audience through creative avenues to launching in a new market, here are just some of the ways that a pop up space can benefit your business.
Test a market.
Whether you’re launching your first-ever store or planning to expand, temporary retail space is an effective way to gauge the demand in a new area. Amsterdam fashion label Daily Paper used a London pop up space to see if their concept would translate to a UK audience. Not only was this pop up a great way to soft launch, but they gained the confidence to take their label to New York after their UK sales increased by 300%. With pop up spaces, you can experiment with new locations without the commitment of a long term lease. If you don’t get the reaction you expect from your new market, there’s considerably less risk involved.
Create an experience.
An in store experience does more than operate as a retail space. It creates a lasting impression with customers and press alike. Wrangler’s store-turned-studio pop up shows us how the experiential can make a brand stand out in this way. The brand paid homage to their musical heritage by designing their store like a recording studio, putting on live concerts and events to give back to their customers. With the flexibility of temporary retail space, you can put on a show without having to worry about how it will be sustained in the long term.
Connect to a moment.
For a brand unsure where to launch – this could be a good starting point. Whether it’s a national holiday, food festival or bank holiday, converging your launch with a busy event is an effective way to attach your brand to a moment. In fact, it’s how our CEO started eight years ago. Positioning his store in the heart of Soho for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, the space was crowded with customers who wanted to get their hands on one of his bootleg t-shirts. Consider how your brand could do the same: take a look at the cultural calendar in your city and go from there.
Create real-world relationships.
There’s nothing like interacting with your favourite brand face to face. It’s for this reason that many online brands are making the transition from online to offline – using physical space to forge meaningful relationships with customers. Take womenswear designer Paloma Wool, who wanted to meet her 350,000 Instagram followers in real life. To do this, she took her brand on tour, launching a series of pop up spaces around the world. In each city, Paloma was able to meet her customers and get feedback from her audience. Remember, your store isn’t just for you to meet customers, it’s a place where they can connect with each other too. More and more brands are using pop up space as a social platform for people to meet IRL. Perhaps you could take this one step further and put on a series of events that would resonate with your community.
We hope you feel inspired to take your first steps towards launching your own pop up, but if you want to learn more about how it could benefit your brand, get in touch with our concierge team by giving us a call or creating an account. We’re here to help.