Pop Up Sales with Pop-Up Stores

Each year, October’s the time for pop-up Halloween stores, here now, gone next month. But this year, October was also the month for a Marketing Daily posting which predicts increases in pop-ups year round, although still most common in conjunction with holidays.
     Pop-ups are stores which remain in business for a very limited time. In one case, a Target Corporation pop-up was scheduled to stay open for only four days. More recently, an L.L. Bean pop-up in Boston pulled away after two business days.
     Many retailers see the pop-up format as a way to woo shoppers by generating excitement. When you announce your pop-up widely to the media, people could still be asking, “What the devil happened?” when the store closes, and they’ll be looking for your next pop-up.
     The Halloween stores and those short-lived Target and L.L. Bean ones were in self-contained locations. You can also set up a pop-up inside your existing store. These installations went by a different name when, decades ago, Marvin S. Traub’s “Come to China” event at Bloomindale’s included an entire Cantonese farmhouse within the flagship Manhattan store. Now, according to the Marketing Daily post, Nordstrom is planning French-themed pop-up shops in eight stores and on their website.
     What do consumer research and retailing experience suggest as pop-up best practices?

• The excitement of the pop-up comes from both the short duration and the minimum notice before opening. Shoppers stay alert, looking for where you’ll make your appearance next. A pop-up isn’t a kiosk, which might move among locations, but predictably. 
• It’s better to feature merchandise different from what you sell in your main store. You can peg it to a holiday, a special event in your community, or a special purchase you made. A longer-term advantage in featuring items different from the usual is that you can experiment. If an item sells well, you can start carrying it in your main lines. If it doesn’t sell well in the pop-up, those customers who did purchase the items won’t be irritated if they can’t find it when they visit your main store. 
• Consider arrangements like a shopper’s fair or farmer’s market You might introduce new and improved items by having pop-up stores run by different retailers in partnership with you. Do select store-within-a-store participants compatible with the store image you want to cultivate. Realize this might be different from the image you have now. 

Click below for more: 
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Prolong Your Reputation as Cutting Edge 
Key In on Kiosks 
Open Up Profits Using Stores-Within-A-Store