Pop-up shops: Going from strength to strength

About three years ago pop-up shops were the coming thing and if you’d wanted to be at the cutting edge of the retail zeitgeist, this would probably have been where you’d have turned. Pop-up shops were the agitprop guerrillas of retail – destinations that were an event in themselves and which people would turn up to have a look at merely because of their status as pop-ups.

This kind of thing never lasts and almost as soon as the pop-up shop was identified as a trend, there were those who were forecasting its demise. Yet five months into 2012, the pop-up shop phenomenon is still going strong and, if anything, continues to gather strength.

Things, however, have changed and the pop-up as brand messenger or an event has given way to something rather more hard-nosed. Patrick Hammond, retail director at Hot Pickle, a consultancy that has made a speciality of creating pop-ups and which was responsible for the startling Marmite shop on Regent Street which wowed shoppers at the end of 2009, says: “To us the idea of a pop-up is relevant and whether it’s a store for a day, a week or a month, these are commercial vehicles.

“It’s not about being quick and dirty or cool and interesting because you’re a pop-up. Now it’s about being cool and interesting because you’re a cool and interesting shop, irrespective of how long you are there.”

Hammond adds that over the period, landlords have become more receptive towards the pop-up because they are good space fillers at a time when empty property is a pressing reality for many and because they can occasionally become longer-term tenants. And that perhaps is the other point. In 2012, the pop-up is a toe in the water in unknown markets for many brands and retailers, and a low-risk way for a landlord to assess whether a pop-up tenancy might morph into a potential 10-year lease.

The wild and wacky does still exist of course but more and more, whether it’s a temporary in-store presence or a time-limited standalone store, the pop-up is more about money making than any kind of reassuring feel-good factor.

Paul Smith cycle pop-up, Harrods

Open since the middle of last month, the 185 sq ft Paul Smith cycle-themed installation on the fifth floor at Harrods will be in place until October.

You’d expect any kind of pop-up in this store to be upscale and the space does not disappoint, with cycle clothing from the collaboration between Rapha and Paul Smith and bikes from Condor, Brompton, Merican and Cykelmageren.

For those with deep pockets, a made-to-order bicycle service forms part of the offer and shoppers can choose from the four bike frames that are part of the display to create a bespoke machine.

This may be a pop-up, but the underlying intention is wholly about sales and creating an environment that will appeal to dedicated two-wheel fans.

Anton Berg – The Generous Store, Copenhagen

This store existed for one day only and was in many ways an old-style event-based pop-up. In February, Danish chocolate brand Anton Berg opened a ‘generous’ store in the middle of Copenhagen aimed at helping it reconnect with its shoppers and marking it out as not being just another confectionery brand. Boxes of chocolates lined the walls, but instead of paying with cash, customers were asked to pledge to carry out a generous act.

‘Prices’ ranged from making breakfast in bed for a loved one to the least popular: “not telling your father a lie for a week”. In order that the payees would make good on their generous gestures, pledges were posted on Facebook, ensuring that peer group pressure would do the rest.

The idea worked insofar as shoppers queued to get into the shop and the campaign attracted millions of Twitter and Facebook followers. The idea of giving away stock may seen antithetical as part of a serious retail proposition, but the brand goodwill that was generated is certainly worthy of consideration.

Fiat Click, Touchwood, Solihull

Fiat has a lack of dealers in Birmingham and the Midlands and it therefore opened a longer-term pop-up in Lend Lease’s Touchwood shopping centre in Solihull in July last year. This pop-up has a one-year life and there is only one car in the shop. But anyone who wants a test drive can head to the centre’s car park, where there are a number of models from the Fiat 500 range.

The store’s name derives from the fact that this is part of a multichannel offer from the Italian car manufacturer and the shop is integrated with Fiatclick.co.uk, which lets you specify any Fiat you want online.

As well as providing a dealership for Fiat in the area, the Click store also offers diversity for the landlord with a non-traditional outlet in the mall.

Christian Louboutin, Selfridges, Oxford Street

This is a pop-up that had its own window in the host department store and was in place for the whole of March. The space was housed in Selfridges’ Concept Store area and featured a capsule collection of 20 red-soled shoes to mark 20 years of the designer’s label.

The pop-up was given prominence by occupying the corner window at the store’s western end on Oxford Street. The window featured a carousel suspended from its ceiling bearing legs, shoes and a picture of the designer.

This is a good example of how the pop-up has evolved from the rough-and-ready creature of three or four years ago to a slick temporary space that is a match for many permanent displays. It is also entirely about giving shoppers reasons to buy, as well as providing them with an environment that they will not have encountered elsewhere.

Medwinds, Lamb’s Conduit Street, London

And just to prove that there is cash in pure pop-ups, the Medwinds fashion brand closed last Saturday after a four-week stint at Cube – the pop-up space on London’s aspirational Lamb’s Conduit Street. Medwinds is one of a string of brands and even a men’s style magazine that have used the shop to gain exposure for their wares.

From a landlord’s perspective, this perhaps goes to prove that there really is money in temporary spaces if they are well managed, although it is fair to remark that this is a highly select location peopled by affluent types in search of one-off or limited distribution items. Like all of the new generation of pop-ups, however, every tenant that takes a slot in this space is in the business of revenue generation as well as fostering brand awareness.

M&S’s sustainable fashion lab, ‘Shwop’, east London

Having started on Thursday last week, the M&S sustainable fashion lab, or ‘shwop’ as it is dubbed, runs until next Wednesday and is aimed at “exploring” the future of fashion. Located in the Truman Brewery in east London, visitors must donate an item of clothing from their wardrobes “using yesterday’s clothes as a ticket to the future of fashion”, says a spokeswoman.

The potential of each donated item will be assessed – either for recycling or reuse – and clothing design master classes and fashion designer collaborations will also form part of the offer. As a pop-up, this is less about selling and a lot more about keeping M&S’s Plan A current, as well as its link with Oxfam, which uses the donated items.