London deputy mayor Kit Malthouse helped launch a pop up shop on London’s King’s Road on Thursday, giving start up retailers the opportunity to sell their wares on one of the UK’s prime retail destinations.
The shop is the flagship for Pop Up Britain, the not-for-profit organisation which installed a pop up store in Whitehall in January. Pop Up Britain is the retail arm of national enterprise campaign StartUp Britain. It aims to give start-up retailers the opportunity to sell their products face-to-face rather than online.
Kit Malthouse said: “I have run many businesses myself and when I was starting out I would have been delighted if an initiative like this from StartUp Britain had been around at the time.”
The space will hold 10 retailers at a time, who will each lease the shop for two weeks before a new retailer takes the space.
Currently, the retailers housed in the store include clothing and footwear retailer The Gorgeous Company, watch retailer Clicloc, Couth Eyewear and glassware by Laura Smith.
StartUp Britain co-founder Emma Jones said: “Our shop in King’s Road is designed to give start-ups opportunity to test their products in an area that has famously played a key role in supporting independent British brands for decades.”
Housing minister Mark Prisk, who is leading the Government’s initiatives to revive Britain’s high streets, opened a pop up store at the Department for Communities and Local Government based in Victoria, London. He used the opening to encourage local authorities around the UK to do the same and use pop ups to fill vacant shops.
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