Would it surprise you to know that Amazon currently operates several brick-and-mortar retail concepts?
The biggest explosion in the pop up industry since we moved away from the constraints of COVID has been from online brands who want to meet the consumer face-to-face.
This should come as no surprise—it’s worked for brands including Warby Parker, Casper, and Untuckit.
Why is this working so well?
Advantages of Pop-Up Retailing
Running any online brand is expensive, and unless you have deep pockets for your marketing strategy or have been able to capture an audience from a clever viral social media campaign, chances are you’ve reached a ceiling of customers and your business has plateaued.
Using a pop-up strategy to break through that ceiling is the perfect vehicle for growth. When you combine the online and inline together in one retail experience, the results are astonishing.
An Expanded, Interested Customer Base
You already have an existing loyal customer base who are only too pleased to meet the brand “face-to-face.” Believe it or not, there is an odd kind of celebrity factor attachment that drives engagement at the store.
There are all the potential new consumers out shopping who are always eager to investigate new store openings and interesting brands.
Combining your online store with a physical location gets you two bites of the apple. 78% people still want to touch, feel, and engage with product, so having the right products merchandised in store is key. Many digital brands will also have tablets on-site so the full product range is available, and then offer to ship to store or ship to home options.
Cost Savings and Efficiencies
The investment in a pop-up location is not nearly as expensive as brands may think and the ROI can be much higher than they might expect. Capturing the consumer contact information while in-store allows the brand to continue to market to them outside of the pop-up activation, keeping sales growing and building brand loyalty.
Partnering with several brands in one pop-up location and rotating them to keep the experience fresh is another way online brands are achieving success using a pop-up format in malls.
These collectives have become very popular with the online community. Sometimes these operate in a particular niche, or compliment each other with a wider variety of products.
The investment from each occupant is lowered as the cost is split between the brands. It’s a win-win for the shopping center as well—there is a constant parade of new brands and products available to shoppers, which keeps them returning to store and the mall.
Attracting these local online brands into a mall demonstrates to shoppers the malls commitment in supporting the local community and economy. It’s great content for social media platforms and social capital, and with the right support and guidance the mall can play a significant role in the growth of these brands and ultimately their longevity at the mall.
Location Testing and Feedback
Taking that all in to consideration, lets not forget that many larger brands used the pop-up format to test before they invested in longer-term occupancy and have since gone on to grow vast brick and mortar footprints—but they still use the same strategy to test out locations before committing to a longer term.
Brands such as Peleton, Bonobos, Tesla, and Untuckit have all made the leap from online to inline.
Retail is not dead. However, it is however evolving and adapting to the needs of the consumer. While some may have been dinosaurs and not kept pace with new technology and the sophistication of their shoppers, one of the things about digital brands is that they really know who their consumer is: how much they spend, where they’re shopping from, how often they visit their site, and what they ultimately like and buy.
Digital brands can take all of that data and use it to create a pop-up store experience that wows the shoppers and keeps them coming back to the brand over and over again.
Ready to get your pop-up going? We’re here to help you find the perfect space.