(Source: Shopify) the ultimate guide to pop up shops

CHAPTER 1

Why Run a Pop-Up?

Merchants both small and large are flocking to set-up their own pop-up stores and are embracing the trend, from brands that sell exclusively online to big brands like Nike, proving that pop-ups are here to stay. But before we get started in helping you on your journey, let’s first discuss perhaps the most important thing.

What is a Pop-Up Shop?

A “pop-up shop” is a short-term, temporary retail event that is "here today, gone tomorrow". Pop-up retail is the temporary use of physical space to create a long term, lasting impression with potential customers. A pop-up shop allows you to communicate your brand’s promise to your customers through the use of a unique and engaging physical environment while creating an immersive shopping experience.

Now that we’ve got the definition out of the way, let’s talk about some of the benefits of doing a pop-up shop.

What are the benefits to doing a pop-up?

Each brand will have different goals and outcomes that they’ll expect to accomplish through doing a pop-up, or wish to experience different benefits from selling through them.

Here are seven key benefits that will motivate you to consider doing one.

1. Test a New Revenue Stream

If you're an ecommerce business, pop-up shops provide a relatively low-cost way to explore adding an additional revenue stream. Not only is it a fraction of what you'd pay for an actual physical retail location, if the concept is executed and popularized well, you could rake in a significant profit.

2. Engage Customers Offline You've heard it before, but not being able to try on a product before purchasing can be a very real pain point. To be honest, there’s just something about being able to physically touch a product before you buy which makes the shopping experience very enticing for consumers. To further validate the idea, a recent study by Accenture showed that 78% of shoppers are “webrooming” (browsing online, then purchasing in a store) today.

3. Create “Get It While It Lasts” Urgency The beauty of a pop-up shop is that it's a limited window of time for consumers to engage with your brand and purchase your products. The idea that you're not going to be around for long is a huge plus point in getting customers to buy. Scarcity drives action through customers wanting exclusive, limited edition, or other products they can't get otherwise, and a pop-up shop puts you in a perfect position to take advantage.

4. Market Merchandise Around a Sale, Season, or Holiday There's nothing like jumping on the holiday bandwagon, especially when you factor in how much people spend on their loved ones. It doesn't matter if you're looking to sell dresses for New Years, flowers on Valentines, costumes on Halloween, or kitchenware on Thanksgiving, tying your brand closely with a holiday and giving consumers a physical location to access you is a great way to be opportunistic and make a significant amount of cash.

5. Educate New Customers When you’re trying to sell a crazy new invention that hasn’t crossed over into the mass consumer subconscious, a pop-up shop can help you understand how your existing marketing collateral performs with actual customers while getting real-time feedback on how it can be improved. Even if you’re just looking to drive pre-orders before going full throttle on manufacturing, giving your potential customers a live demo or walking them through how your product works is a great way to get through to those early adopters.

Another scenario is when you've got a product that makes people scratch their heads, like beard oil for urban beardsmen, or plastic wrap alternatives made out of beeswax, pop-ups can be an effective way to demonstrate the value of your product and get people intrigued enough to either become customers on the spot or solid prospects.

6. Go to Where Your Customers Are

This is an especially strong reason to do a pop-up shop when you've perhaps had some experience selling online and have a good idea of your customer profile that allows you to identify the areas or locations that they're most likely to frequent. The benefit of being able to select a certain side street, kiosk, or vacant gallery space is that you can match your wares with the personality of a given demographic and go to where they go.

7. Generate Brand Awareness Let's face it, the competition to market and sell online is become just as stiff as offline retailing. Which is why having a one-two punch approach is where the entire retail industry is heading through an omni-channel presence. By engaging prospective customers offline and delighting them with an unforgettable experience and quality products, you can then point them to your online site and social accounts, where they can stay in touch and continue to buy your wares.

What Are Your Pop-Up Goals?

Different sized brands will have different goals for doing a pop-up, however, they typically tend to fall into the three big buckets of: 1. Revenue Generation 2. Brand Awareness 3. Customer Engagement Not to say that you couldn’t have all three goals to aspire for, however, it is important to clarify your primary goal as that will dictate how you make decisions around aspects of your retail store design and promotion strategy. Several well-known brands will do a pop-up for the sole purpose of surprising and delighting prospective customers to capture a larger share-of-mind when it comes to their brand’s positioning, whereas smaller brands want to see if they can sell their wares in retail and get feedback on their brand, shopping experience, and determine which products are winners and which will never sell.

Some questions you can ask yourself to help determine which goals work best for you, consider the following: 

Are you launching a brand for the first time?

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Are you announcing a new product line within an existing brand?

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Are you flushing out the current season's inventory to make room for new merchandise?

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Are you interested in testing new geographic regions in which to establish your brand?

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Are you a highly established brand interested in marketing and customer appreciation?

Budgeting for Your Pop-Up Shop Having a clear and articulate budget for your pop-up store is a critical and vital step which will help you determine some of the most important components when it comes to doing a pop-up. For example, you’ll know how much you can afford for rent which will determine which locations and properties are worth your while to scout and inquire about, or how much you can spend on designing the interior of your store, or marketing your pop-up for that matter. Here's a few items that you'll definitely want to factor in when creating your budget: 

Rent

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Utilities

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Insurance

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Internet

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POS

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Credit Card Fees

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Merchandising Fixtures

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Furniture

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Checkout Counter

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Lighting

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Paint

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Inventory

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Window Display Props

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Marketing and Promotion

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Food and Drinks Depending on the duration of the pop-up and your goals your budget will have additional or less items. However, once you have a rough idea of how much you’re

willing to spend on your pop-up, you’re then ready to start looking for a location, which we’ll cover in the next chapter.

CHAPTER 2

How to Pick the Perfect Location

Once you’ve got your goals, budget, and key outcomes decided on for your pop-up, you’re all set to start looking at a potential location for where you can set-up shop. Bear in mind that finding temporary commercial real-estate used to be a lot more difficult to find, but with more and more property owners and real estate agents trusting and understanding the true value of a pop-up to their location, there are increasingly more and more options ‘popping-up’ all the time.

But before we get started on where to look, we’ll start by giving you an idea of what kind of options you have.

Types of Location for Pop-Ups 1. A Store-Within-a-Store

This is an ideal situation for someone just starting their journey in retail. Not only does it come with the potential of built-in foot-traffic, loyal clientele, and the ability to acquaint your target demographic with your brand, but it also helps the store owner offset their biggest expense, rent.

Start by doing some research and finding stores that best compliment your brand and also overlap when it comes to lifestyle messages, target demographics, and happen to be situated where you'd like your own boutique store to be one day.

2. Gallery or Event Space

Galleries and event spaces are a fantastic pop-up shop venue because of their open concept floors and minimalistic set-up. They can be very inviting and carry an elegance that is great for brands in women's fashion, jewellery, or other high-end apparel.

A great way to get started is to take a look at upcoming events and seeing if there are any booths available. Make sure to ask past participants about their experience and how you can get the most out of doing a pop-up there.

3. Shopping Center or Mall

For many consumer brands, the mall symbolizes the holy grail of retail with its massive amounts of foot-traffic and exposure. It's also a stamp of credibility and allows you to interact with the everyday consumer in hopes of becoming a household brand that they turn to again and again. But, how exactly are you going to "pop-up" in a mall?

Generally, you’ll have two options. You can go with renting a kiosk or booth space that allows you to set up shop right in the middle of the action, or you can look at vacant inline stores that the shopping center may reserve just for pop ups or has had a hard time renting out for a long time period.

4. Vacant Street Level Retail Space

Imagine having your very own thriving street level retail space, it doesn't get much better than that when you're looking to build out your brand. Though perhaps a distant reality for many smaller ecommerce store owners, it's certainly a possibility. In essence, a vacant commercial property that may typically be used for pop up stores or the commercial real-estate agent is having trouble selling and so will settle for more shortterm engagements are ideal for starting with.

For the true sense of the word “pop-up shop,” the last option of vacant street level space is usually the most popular. Now that you’ve got a grasp on the type of locations you can be on the look-out for, next-up we’ll cover where exactly you can look for temporary retail space.

Where to Look for Pop-Up Spaces?

The thrill of the hunt to find that perfect pop-up space is much like finding and securing your dream home, it comes with its own headaches, but when you find the perfect space for your brand and shop, it’s all worth it.

Though pop-ups are embraced by brands large and small, the real-estate industry isn’t exactly known for it’s quick adoption of cutting edge technology. Which is why, here, we’ll mention some traditional and some digital tools you can take advantage of to get started on your hunt for that perfect pop-up space.

Some of the tactics you can employ in your hunt include: 

Ask around and find out how other store owners found their space

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Find referrals for trustworthy real-estate agents

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Walk around ideal destinations and contact property owners directly

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Look in the classified section of your print newspaper

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Look at online classified sites like Craigslist and Kijjiji

But perhaps the most easiest way to find space is through the growing pop-up space marketplaces like: 

thisopenspace (North America)

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The Storefront (North America)

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We Are Pop Up (UK)

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Republic Spaces (US)

Once you’ve done some initial list of potential locations, next-up, you’ll want to start calling and making appointments for viewings. But before you go, make sure you know what things to scout for when checking out possible locations, something we’ll cover next.

What to Look for in a Pop-Up Location?

Now when it comes to scouting a possible location for your pop-up shop, there’s two main category of things you’ll want to keep in mind, the exterior and the interior. Here are some questions you’ll want to keep on hand.

Exterior 

What is the potential target market foot-traffic in the area?

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Who are the other notable retailers and consumables in the area and are they complementary?

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Are there events or community gatherings taking place in the vicinity?

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Is the retail space in a nondescript building with a small entrance sign, or does the building have a grand entrance with a large logo?

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What’s the cleanliness level like?

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Is there parking nearby?

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Is the location accessible by public transit?

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Is there a large window that you can dress up for a display?

Interior 

Is there back stock space?

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What does the lighting communicate? Can lights be dimmed or alternative lamps and lighting brought in?

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Is there a camera to prevent theft and shrinkage? If not, what other loss-prevention tactics can be made available?

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Is there Wi-Fi to carry out credit card transactions with your POS solution? Can it be made available to customers?

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Is there a sink and a washroom?

This is by no means an exhaustive list, but simply the necessities you’ll need to successfully run a pop-up, make sure you come prepared with additional items or questions specific to your location and circumstance. Once you’ve made your pick, up next, we’re going to discuss how to close the deal with the property owner or real estate agent.

Location Scouting Checklist

Use this checklist on-sight to make the most of your visit.

VIEW ON GOOGLE DOCS

How to Close the Deal on Your Pop-Up Location It's important to demonstrate to property managers and real estate agents that you've done your homework and that you have your bases covered. Once you get them on the phone or drop in to see them in person, you should have the following list of questions ready to ask upfront in order to get a complete understanding of what you’re getting into: 1. What is the rental cost?

2. What is included in the rental cost?

3. Are there any additional utility costs?

4. What is the layout of the space?

5. What are the specific dimensions of the ceiling, windows, doors, counters, pillars...etc?

6. Can the space be modified?

7. Who is liable for what?

8. Is there internet or WiFi? 9. Will you need insurance?

10. What is the deposit required to secure the venue?

11. What is the average foot traffic you can expect?

Once you’ve got those questions out of the way, next up, you’ll want to figure out whether you’ll be signing a lease, licence or having to apply for a permit.

Venue Negotiating Checklist

Use this checklist when negotiating your contract.

VIEW ON GOOGLE DOCS

Now, all that might sound a bit intimidating but before you run away from the idea of offline selling because of some technical and legal jargon, let’s break down what each of these three types of agreements can mean for you.

Lease Under a lease, the person using the stated land is considered a tenant, and given exclusive possession for the duration of the time agreed upon, otherwise known as the “term” of the lease. The “terms” will also include what you’ll be able to do the space when it comes to modifications, hours of operation and several of the other key aspects discussed above, including rent, utilities...etc.

Licence This gives legal authority to you, the licensee, to use the owner or licensor’s asset, without which you using it would be unlawful. These are generally given out for more short-term occupants but comes with generally a more limited arrangement and does not guarantee exclusive use of the property.

Permits Each region will have its own regulations, so based on what you’re intending to do, you’ll want to make sure you’re within the bounds of the law. For example, many cities require you to have a permit to sell food and alcohol.

Final Steps

Once you’ve done your homework and assessed whether a potential location is a good fit or not, most likely, the next step is to actually go out and see the place in person during the hours the pop-up will run. Make sure to do this multiple times throughout the week at different times of the day. From there, once you've got your mind made, request to see the lease agreement.

But before you sign anything, take a few days to thoroughly review the agreement, or better yet, have a legal professional take a look to mitigate liabilities and make sure there aren’t any apparent shortcomings in the deal. However, if the price is right, the agreement works with your specifications, and the location is perfect for your goals, then you’ll want to put down the initial deposit to secure the venue and start planning how you're going to make the pop-up a success.

Once you’ve signed, be sure to give yourself a pat on the back and congratulate yourself on your very first pop-up space. Up next we’ll be looking at some DIY retail design tips to help you get started and keep your pop-up shop stick to your budget.

CHAPTER 3

How to Take Your Brand Offline

Once you’ve determined your motivation, goals, and scouted potential locations before finally settling on one, it’s time to start thinking about envisioning what you want that space to communicate to your prospective customers and what action you want them to take. If you’ve only been used to communicating with your customers through your ecommerce store, it can be hard to imagine what your physical retail store will look like.

After all, there is still a world of difference between a website and a physical space, however, the interesting challenge here will be trying to bridge the gap and creating a consistent experience across the board.

You might be thinking, that sounds easy enough, but how do you actually go about doing something like that. In order to successfully create a pop-up shop experience that gives you a taste of success in the retail environment, it’s important to have a good deal of insights on two very important things. They are: 1. Your Brand 2. Your Customer Knowing as much as possible about these two things will allow you to make interior and visual merchandising decisions that will attract your target customers and help them quickly understand who you are, what you sell, and what you stand for.

Defining Your Brand If you’ve been running an online store for a little while now, you may already have answers to a lot of these questions. But it never hurts to revisit and take another look at how you project your company into the public domain and how you’d like to be positioned.

In order to have a good understanding of your brand, begin by jotting down the answers to the following questions: 1. How do you differentiate yourself from competitors?

2. What are your unique value propositions?

3. What the benefits and features of your products?

4. What’s your story? (i.e. how was the company founded?)

5. How does your logo and brand colors exude what you stand for?

6. What are your mission/vision/brand message?

7. What kind of experience do you want your customer to have?

8. Why is the world a better place with you around?

9. What words/phrases/messages do you want people to associate with your company?

Defining Your Customer Side-by-side with knowledge of your brand comes knowing your customer inside-out and again if you sell online, you’ve already got an unfair advantage in being one step ahead in that department. You may already have a good grasp on your target customer profiles, in which case you marry what you know about who you are as a brand and who you want to attract into your store to create a cohesive and immersive retail experience.

Here are some questions you can answer to start to better defining your customer personas: Determining Customer Demographics 

How old are they?

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Where do they live?

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What’s their gender?

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What’s their income level?

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What’s their educational level?

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What’s their relationship status?

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What occupations are they most likely to have?

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What’s their ethnic background?

Determining Customer Psychographics

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How would you characterize their personality?

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What kind of attitudes do they live by?

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What are the values?

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What are their interests and hobbies?

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What kind of lifestyle behaviours do they exhibit?

Putting The Two Together When you’ve got a good handle of your brand and your customer, up next, it’s time to start considering how your knowledge of your brand will translate into creating the ideal retail interior for your pop-up shop. Your newfound or additional insight will help you make decisions around important interior design elements like: 

Wall treatments

1. Wallpaper 2. Paint 3. Faux finishes 4. Wood paneling 5. Mirrored walls 6. Wall systems

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Floor treatments

1. Vinyl tile 2. Ceramic tile 3. Hardwood flooring 4. Carpeting 5. Linoleum 

Ceiling treatments

1. Unfinished 2. Finished 

Lighting



Fixtures

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Shelves

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Display props

Key Areas of Your Store Don’t sweat it if you’re already worried about how well you think your decisions around some of the interior design elements of your store will come to fruition, we’re going to be doing a deep dive into visual merchandising in the next chapter where you’ll learn about everything from signage to window displays.

For now, I want to wrap up with discussing possibly one of the most important metrics in retail called “sales per square meter,” which you’ll calculate by taking the sales you generate and dividing it by the square footage of your retail store. Why is this important?

Simple, it emphasises that your biggest sales asset should be your retail interior, in effect, your displays and merchandise should be selling itself if you play your cards right.

It also means that you need to view your store as a collection of retail properties, with each section having a different weight for its value and potential for sales conversion.

Curious to know about all the different areas that make up a high-conversion store?

We’ll start with the beginning of the customer journey and end with the ideal circumstance of them at the checkout handing over hard cash or plastic in exchange for your goods.

Here we go: The Decompression Zone:

You've probably heard the saying before but you never get a second chance to make a first impression. Which is why the decompression zone is so vital, it's the very first space that prospective customers step into when they enter your store. It typically consists of the first five to fifteen feet worth of space, depending on how big your store is.

It's also the space where your customers make the transition from the outside world into your store where they automatically make critical judgements like how cheap or expensive your store is likely to be and how well coordinated your lighting, fixtures, displays, and colors are along with the unconscious signals that they send. Since they're in a transition mode, more often than not customers are more likely to miss any product, signage, or carts you place there.

The Power Wall:

It's a well known fact in the retail community that in North America roughly 90 percent of shoppers will turn right upon coming into a store unconsciously. Now, the first wall they see is often referred to as a "power wall", which typically acts as a high-impact first impression vehicle for your merchandise, so you should be sure to give it extra special attention in terms of what you choose to display and more specifically how you choose to display it. You'll want to make sure you entice and arouse your customer's attention with the products you put on display, whether it's your new or seasonal items, high profit or high demand products, or a place you design to tell your product's stories and create vignettes.

The Pathway:

Your pathway will vary quite a bit depending on the size of your store, however knowing that your customers want to turn right, your next job is to make sure that as they do that, but then that they also continue walking throughout your store. By doing so, customers will gain maximum exposure to your products which increases the chances of them stumbling upon something they'll end up buying. A well thought-out path can also be a great way to strategically control the ebb and flow of the traffic in your store.

Typically, most stores will use a circular path to the right to get customers to walk through to the back of the store and come to the front again. You can make this even easier for them by covering the path with a different texture or look from the general flooring, paying homage to the old saying "where the eyes go, the feet will follow."

Another thing to keep in mind is that you want to use the path to lead your customers somewhere, which often means putting a eye-catching and attention-grabbing display at the end of an aisle for example.

The Speed Bumps:

Given that you'll be putting in a great deal of time and effort into effectively merchandising your products, the last thing you want to happen is for incoming customers to simply rush past them without a second glance, which will ultimately limit the number of products they'll purchase. One way retailers combat this is through creating breaks or what are sometimes referred to as "speed bumps." Essentially, this can be anything that gives customers a visual break and can be achieved through various means, including signage, and special or seasonal displays.

Ensuring Customer Comfort:

When designing your interior, it's important to be aware of the "butt-brush effect," coined by consumer behaviour expert Paco Underhill who discovered through observation that a typical customer, especially women, will avoid going after merchandise in an aisle where they could potentially brush another customer's backside or have their backside brushed, even f their very interested in a given product. To avoid this problem make sure that your aisle, floor, and displays give customers adequate personal space when browsing your products.

Another way to make your store comfortable is by incorporating some type of waiting area with comfy seats and benches which will indirectly encourage customers to spend more time in your store. This will be especially true if a prospective shopper is accompanied by someone who's not interested in making a purchase or kids for that matter.

The Cash Wrap Area:

Where you place your check-out counter and your POS in a physical retail store is highly debated question and there's many pros and cons to the popular options that generally consist of choosing between the back of the store or to the left at the entrance. However, a good rule of thumb to keep in mind is that the checkout should be located at a natural stopping point in the shopping experience or path that you've purposefully created and designed.

So when customers naturally turn right upon entering, and you've managed to have them go through and circle all the way around, you'll most likely come to the conlusion that the left-hand side at the front is probably the ideal location for your checkout counter. However, it's best to use your gut judgement on what's the most natural point to have that check-out counter.

Up Next Now that we’ve got you thinking about how to start putting the wheels in motion when it comes to taking your brand to a physical retail environment, the next chapter will walk you through the basics of visual merchandising. It’ll give you a solid understanding of what you need to know and do to make your pop-up shop inviting, attractive, and most importantly, profitable.

CHAPTER 4

Visual Merchandising 101

One of the most creative and fun aspects of running a pop-up shop is managing the visual merchandising elements of the retail environment. That means everything from the window display a prospective customer first sees that draws them to your store, to the signage that directs them around, and the merchandising displays that catch their eye and ultimately influence them to purchase something.

With a clear sense of your pop-up shop goals, a location scouted and secured for the dates you have in mind, and an understanding of how your brand can be brought to life in the physical retail environment, you’re ready to start tackling the tough part, bringing your merchandise in and making it come to life right before you.

Before we dive into specific tips, let’s start with a checklist of items you’ll need to start assembling your visual merchandising tool kit.

Here’s a list of all the items you’ll need to get started: 

Tape Measure

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Scissors

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Stapler

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Two-Sided Tape

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Hammer and Nails

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Utility Knife

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Glue Gun and Hot Glue Sticks

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Screwdriver and Screws

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Pen, Pencil, Marker, and Notepad

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Props (Any Non-Merchandise Items) Once you’ve assembled your toolkit, you’re ready to get started. First, we’ll discuss the critical visual elements of the all-important window display.

Creating an Effective Window Display When putting together your window display, its important to remember that its going to be one of the first things people see from across the street or while they’re walking by, which means it has to have the right amount of pull to intrigue them and get foot traffic through your down. But what makes for a good window display.

Here’s a few window display principles to keep in mind: Start With a Story Based on a Theme

It's important to start with a story based on a theme, versus starting with a theme alone.

The reason being that you could go crazy wanting to assemble all your orange and black products when it's halloween, all your red and green products when it's the holidays, or all your red and pink products when it's valentines and so on, without thinking about the bigger picture. Instead, what you want to do is to start with a story based on a theme and then use your storytelling prowess to turn it into something more sophisticated with the products and props you decide to use.

For example: 

Instead of "Christmas", think "Nut Cracker"

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Instead of "Halloween", think "Sleepy Hallow"

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Instead of "Valentine", think "Cupid's Mischievousness"

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Instead of "Thanksgiving," think "Dressing Up a Turkey" Create a Focal Point

One of the things you'll want to do repeatedly while constructing your window display is taking a moment to step out onto the street and really give your window a good look.

When you do so, you'll be able to determine a couple of really important factors, things like where your customer's eye-level is going to be, where the center line is, and whether you can incorporate elements like items suspended from the ceiling and so on.

It'll also give you a good idea of what that central or focal point should be, as in where do you want your prospective customers to look and how big should that focal point be so that even if your prospective customers are on the other side of the street, you still have a fighting chance to catch their attention. Also, this is the point where you can start thinking and experimenting with things like the arrangement of products given your focal point, and whether they'll consist of straight or curved lines, will they be a pyramid or circular shape, and so on.

Be Bold in Every Way

Our attention span is shrinking to about less than a millisecond with all the multi-tasking we do these days, sometimes the only thing we pay attention to even when walking down the street is our phone. In fact, you can bet that most people walking by your store will either be juggling a conversation with a friend, texting, looking at their step-tracking device, or walking their pets. That means that you've got to pull all the stops to make sure they stop on a dime and if you're lucky be so surprised and taken away by your display that they'll not only look, they'll want to take photos with their smartphone and share them with the world.

So, how can you be bold enough to demand their attention? Simple, be bold with colors, shapes, and props. That means you should really consider thinking outside cookie cutter colors like red and thinking more along the lines of in eye-catching fushsia – but exercise your best judgement and keep everything consistent with your brand and products of course.

Props are also a great way to think unconventionally, especially given the availability of all the different art materials readily available at your local art store. Think about cutting up foam boards, creating papier-maches, or anything else you think would be appropriate for your brand and store. Pretend like you're in elementary school and try to limit your hesitations or reservations, keeping in mind that the end display must not only be eye-catching but attractive and pleasing to the senses.

Keep It Simple

One of the biggest problems with constructing your window display is that, it's also pretty easy to get carried away and try to stuff every one of your product lines into the display. However, instead of drawing attention to your window, you'll end up creating the opposite effect. Don't try to do too much or you just end up with a busy, unfocused display.

Always, keep in mind your goal the principle of KISS (Keep It Simple Sweetheart), and the idea that ultimately you want to draw attention to your products and help customers quickly recognize the logic in your product arrangement and why certain products are grouped with others. That also means keeping your display clutter-free and being able to justify why each component of your display is included.

Balance Is Key

As mentioned throughout the points above, when you're creating a display, you're going to have a multitude of things to work with, from large objects and small objects, dark colors to light colors, lights and shadows, and so on.You're main task will be to balance the different elements you'll be deploying in order to create a pleasing aesthetic to the eye.

For example, typically you'll want to place larger, darker items near the bottom, with items that are lighter and more colorful at the top. What you don't want however is a situation in which you you place all the large items to one side and all the small ones on the other side, which will only give you an unbalanced window display.

As always, trust your judgement and really get a sense of what emotion your display is looking to evoke. With a balanced display, you're more likely to create feelings of happiness, excitement, and enjoyment, whereas an unbalanced display may signal anxiety or instability, even if on a subconscious level, it really does matter.

Pay Attention to Lighting

When it comes to smaller retailers wanting to create effective window displays, lighting can sometimes be an after-thought or something to think about if you've got the budget for "extra-costs," however, lighting can be a crucial component in getting people to stop.

It's recommended to not light displays directly from the top as doing so will only lead to unattractive shadows. Instead, you should consider having the lights be lightly to the sides and to the front of the display. This will bring out the 3D quality of the display and you can really have some fun when you have light coming at it from different angles.

Next up, we’re going to look at how to effectively create merchandising displays to have customers explore the entirety of your store with

Creating Effective Merchandising Displays This is where we get into the meat of visual merchandising, the displays themselves.

Again, we’ll be highlighting some general principles to keep in mind when creating merchandising displays for your pop-up shop.

Show, Don't Tell

As a merchant, it's hard not to tell that before people purchase something, they typically want an idea of what it will look and feel like. Now, there are plenty of ways to accommodate this need, and a lot of them revolve around how you set up your merchandise display. Creating a display that let's people identify with the product and enabling them to envision in their own home or on themselves allows you to help them get one step close to making the purchase.

For example, the sales floor in furniture stores are set-up with displays that make it easy for people to envision how the same products could be set-up in their own homes, or kitchenware stores having their merchandize displayed like how it might look in a given kitchen and so on.

Another prominent way apparel retailers do this is by creating policies that require their sales staff to wear the clothing they're selling. And of course, the most tried and true example of this would be the mannequin, who you could style according to your latest releases and style.

Group Like With Like

Grouping like products with like products gives your customers additional reasons to buy more items from you, but it also has a more utilitarian reasoning behind it, namely that it saves them time from looking around and trying to mix and match things.

You can also think of it as creating categories, but you don’t need to limit your creativity there, you can also create “groupings” within categories.

That means having merchandise that might be the same color, price, size, or type together.

The Rule of Three

In creating displays, most visual merchandisers will often defer to the rule of three. The rule suggests that when creating a display, it's a sound idea to try and work in sets of three. For example, if you were arranging things by height, you’d have items that were short, medium, and tall.

You might be wondering what the reasoning behind this is, and it's something you can observe for yourself. Our eyes are most likely to keep moving and looking around when we’re looking at something asymmetrical, because as you might have found, when we see some symmetrical or balanced our eyes tend to stop dead in their tracks.

Retail Signage 101 Before we dive into the different types of signs that you’ll want to look into for your popup shop, let’s start with some retail signage best practices that apply across the first.

Here we go: 

Be specific: A customized sign can give you just the right message in just the right place, known as narrowcasting. When designing a sign, include specific details, such as location-specific instructions and relevant product information.



Keep it simple: Your sign’s message needs to be clear, yet one with too much information is often ignored. Use the five-second rule which states that if you can convey the main themes of the sign in less than five seconds, you pass. If it takes longer, shorten your message or use a series of signs.



Write in headline text: This should help you be concise and simple all at once.

Understand the first principle of print journalism: the punch line matters. Can you

simplify your text? Can you take out prepositions and extra words? Effective custom signs use a message hierarchy: headline, explanatory text, and finally, a call to action. 

Make a call to action: Signs are advertisements, and as any good advertiser knows, you need to get the customer to do something; that’s the call to action. An effective sign needs to have a simple goal.

Alright, now let’s look into all the different types of signage that you’ll want to take care of when it comes to your pop-up shop.

Outdoor Signage

Outdoor signage is arguably the most important kind in physical retail because it’s what gets customers in the door, the largest hurdle to beginning a relationship. Exterior signage is the first impression customers have of your business.

These signs need to do more than simply announce who you are, they need to draw in customers and make them want something from you. Effective signage may encourage people who have passed your store many times before to finally give it a chance.

Outdoor signage can take the form of sidewalk signs, entrance signs, awnings, or window signs. Place signage where it is visible to as much walk-by and drive-by traffic as possible. Outdoor signage in particular should be branded effectively to draw the customer in and help to convey the experience that they can expect inside the establishment.

Informational Signage

Informational signage may also be known as departmental, directional, organizational, or wayfinding signage. These signs help the customer navigate your space more easily.

The easier it is for a customer to find what they came in for, the more likely they are to rely on that convenience in the future.

Directional signage is self-explanatory: it tells customers where to go. All types of informational signage need to be concise and easy to read so that clients can understand the message with just a split-second glance. Large, bold fonts in highlyvisible color schemes best accomplish this goal.

Once you start putting up informational signage, it becomes clear to you if your store is arranged in an orderly fashion with some rhyme or reason behind decision-making. Not only does systematicity benefit your customers, but it also makes your internal structure more organized.

Persuasive Signage

Persuasive signage influences consumer behavior through convincing language or attractive imagery. These signs can advertise a particular product or promotion.

Persuasive signs or displays can influence customer flow and improve interactivity with otherwise unnoticed products. Signs that showcase a particular type of product offer an opportunity for retailers to communicate specific details of new, seasonal, or featured items.

Using persuasive signage allows products or brands to more effectively communicate with customers. These displays can turn an otherwise ordinary product into a popular “hidden gem.” Effective persuasive messaging can also create a higher perceived value for products, increase brand awareness and improve retail sales.

Remember: While persuasive sales signs should be eye-catching and witty, they are not the main attraction. The most effective signs draw the customers to the product.

Putting It All Together Hopefully, by now, you have a strong understanding of the fundamentals of visual merchandising and already have ideas for how you can start applying what you learned to creating your very own pop-up shop. Don’t be afraid to experiment and trust your gut with some of your creative decision-making as long as you get into the mind-set and habit of trying something out, testing and measuring it, and using the feedback to adjust as necessary.

CHAPTER 5

Marketing Your Pop-Up Shop Pt. 1

The old saying “if you build it, they will come,” is long outdated and far from the truth when it comes to surviving in today’s retail environment. When you’re doing a pop-up shop, you have a little bit more of an edge. You can entice consumers with the appeal of being temporary, here for a short time period, and hope to have their attention with the “here today, gone tomorrow” appeal of a pop-up.

There’s no arguing that one the biggest draws to a pop-up shop is its temporary nature, but even that might not be enough to ensure your success. If you’re going to invest the time and effort to scout and secure a location, put in your best foot forward by ensuring your merchandise displays, layout, signage, and window display are all top notch, then you’re going to have to pull all the stops when it comes to marketing and promoting your pop-up shop.

It’s also going to have to be a mix of traditional marketing channels as well as all the latest digital channels and tying them all together into an integrated marketing plan that’ll ensure consistency of your brand and draw attention to your story.

The first thing to remember when trying to market your pop-up is that you need to bake in elements of virality into your temporary retail event. This means a high degree of event programming, a fair bit of reaching out to influencers in your niche, an effective media outreach strategy, and using social media throughout to amplify your reach.

Let’s start with event programming, or how you can use events to build up anticipation, exclusivity, and more than enough attention throughout the term of your pop-up shop.

What Type of Events Should You Throw?

The type of events you choose to throw to promote and market your pop-up shop are limited on by your imagination. Think of your pop-up as your one opportunity to connect with an entire pool of journalists, bloggers, influencers, customers, and admirers that you never would have cross paths with (literally), so why not make the most of it?

Here’s a few event ideas to get your mind jogging: 

Press Preview: This event is exactly like what it sounds, an invite-only, and exclusive look at your pop-up shop for the city’s local journalists and bloggers interested in having the first look at what you have to offer.

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Launch Party: This is when things get interesting, as in, when you announce and celebrate the launch of your pop-up shop to the world, or your friends, friends of friends, press, bloggers, influencers, and family. All it takes is a dj, loud speakers, food, and some booze, and you got yourself an event where people are exploring your products, getting to know your brand, and sharing what’s happening at the party to their audience and amplifying your reach.

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Live Day Events: Entice people to pay you a visit with live experiences they can’t get anywhere else and think about what type of workshops, speakers, and individuals practicing their craft work best for your brand. For example, HutchLA ran a pop-up shop

with a tattoo artist on premise because it aligned with who they were as a brand.

Another neat element was including the Hit-and-Run crew, a collective of individuals who do live tee-shirt printing, enabling HutchLA to offer exclusive designs that were a limited time availability. 

Influencer Hosted Dinner Parties: This can be an highly effective means of tapping into an influencer’s audience in your niche by allowing them to host, curate, and be the “star” for the night. You can not only get them to build anticipation before the fact by blogging about it, sharing updates via their social accounts, but view the opportunity as a highly valuable co-branding that can end up paying big dividends for both parties.

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Sponsored Events: The best press has to be free press, or in other words, press you don’t really have to work for. How do you obtain free press? Through strategic and wellplanned sponsorships and partnerships. Whether it’s a one-day sponsored party by a local men’s magazine that’s looking to reach the same audience you’re catering to or your entire pop-up store, this can be a worthwhile strategy to pursue as it means that rather than just a one-off piece, the publication can provide coverage before, during, and after your pop-up happens.

Influencer and Press Outreach Before you get jazzed up about throwing a launch party with the “who’s who” of your neighborhood, you’re going to have to put in a great deal of effort up-front doing the outreach, following-up, and confirming each of your major attendees. Now, you’re probably wondering about where you should start?

To help you get started, here’s a list of tools you can use to created a targeted, local, and powerful list of influencers to reach out to and get them on your side to promote your pop-up shop: 

Klout.com: Whether you like the Klout’s scoring system or not, they’ve got a very handly tool with their topic lists, where you can jump right into the Top +K recipients for a particular topic relevant to your industry and ideally in your location.

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Followerwork.com: This a great tool for finding Twitter influencers using specific keywords in their bio. However, the best part is that you add a location filter to uncover Twitter users in a particular region.

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Iconosquare: Instagram has skyrocketed when it comes to user growth and engagement numbers, so getting an influencer from the platform to jump on board your pop-up shop plans can have big ramifications for your store. Using Iconosquare’s placeform you can search for users directly or search through relevant hashtags and sort by location.



Pinterest Search: Pinterest has updated its search bar and has a very handy keyword search engine that lets you be as targeted as you’d like.

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Google: The holy grail of search, use keywords like “fashion blogger toronto” and then scope out their social media audience to get a holistic perspective for bloggers and influencers in your particular niche.

Crafting a Pitch to Get Influencers and Media Attention

Effective outreach is a skill you’ll need to master regardless of whether you’re looking to get press coverage or inviting influencers to come out to your event, the end goal is the same, to get them to spread the word with their audience. To start your outreach efforts on the right foot, here are some insider tips to not getting ignored: 1. Research Your Target Publication’s or Influencer’s Focus: Becoming intimate with the target audience of the publications you’re looking with is vital because it will give you a sense of what type of news they cover and why. Once you discover the particular angle or beat of a particular publication, you’ll know how to spin your story accordingly.

For example, for your pop-up store, you should ideally be targeting local or hyper-local publication meaning anyone who covers happenings in your city or particular region needs to be on your radar.

2. Research the Players: What I mean by this is you don’t want to begin your email pitch with the words “Dear Sir/Madam.” Not only will a generic email just get trashed or marked as span, you’ll be out of luck if ever you try to contact the blogger, journalist, or influencer in the future. Take time to research and get to know who’s covering what in your city, what their interests are, and craft your pitch accordingly.

3. Have a Plan B and C: You should have a few angles in your holster when you’re thinking about pitching, which means maybe you have a fashion pitch for fashion bloggers, city event pitch for event listings, and so on.

Now that we’ve got those three rules covered, let’s talk about the actual pitch. In today’s world, reporters and bloggers are scrambling to break stories, keep up to date with what’s happening, and get their inboxes flooded with press releases. So, how do you stand out from the pack? Simple, keep it short, be considerate, and make it as easy as possible for them.

Here’s a quick format to pitch journalists that you can follow to ensure success: 

Paragraph 1: Introduce yourself, give them a link to your online store, and show them you've done your research with a compliment (2 birds with one stone).



Paragraph 2: Give them the news (link), tell them you have more to offer (bit of a tease), give them another angle in case the 1st one doesn't suit their fancy.

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Paragraph 3: Offer phone or email. Don't say "I look forward to hearing from you" or any of that crap... it's presumptuous. If your pitch is good and they're interested they'll write you back.

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Paragraph 4: Thank them and be sure to use their name again. People love seeing and hearing their name.

Here’s a quick format to invite influencers and press to your events:



Paragraph 1: Introduce yourself, give them a link to your online store, and show them you've done your research with a compliment (2 birds with one stone).



Paragraph 2: Give them the date, who else is going to be there, what they can expect, and hint towards the ideal result of them being there (i.e. coverage).

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Paragraph 3: Provide the address, your email, phone, and RSVP link (either a Facebook Event page or a Eventbrite link)

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Paragraph 4: Thank them and be sure to use their name again. People love seeing and hearing their name.

Influencer Outreach Email Template

Get more responses by using this free template.

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For publications that you think won’t cover you unless you’ve got a shiny press release, we’ve got you covered with our next section below on the art of writing a press release journalists will actually read.

Writing the Press Release You don’t have to be journalism grad to have the basics of writing a working press release down. In this section, we’re going to break down the effective elements of a good press release and provide you with a sample press release from popular online retailer J.Hilburn for good measures.

So, what does a good press release consist of? Typically, any press release will have the following seven elements: 1. Heading: This needs to be strong. People are interested in how a business expands, who it sells to, and how much money it makes. Craft your headline with a strong title that grabs reader attention right away.

2. Sub-heading: A single sentence summarizes the entire content of the press release. It can be just as important as the heading because it gives readers a taste of the content to follow.

3. Opening paragraph: The opening paragraph has to be strong and include pertinent information, namely what the press release is about, who it affects, and why they should read or act upon it. If you talk of an event or launch, you also need to mention when it will take place.

4. Middle paragraph (/s): These add weight to the article and can include testimonials, statistics, research details, and case study excerpts.

5. Conclusion: This is a summary of the article and must include either a call to action or details of where more information on the subject matter could be found.

6. Boilerplate: Include a brief company profile and contact information.

7. Notes: Also include your company logo and the press release date. Traditional press releases always conclude with # symbols underneath the last line to signify the end of the release.

Press Release Template

Get more responses by using this free template.

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Now that we’ve got the nuts and bolts of a good press release covered, here’s a sample press release from a made-up luxury men’s brand J.Foster and their first pop-up shop.

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J.Foster Presents: Vintage Never Dies Luxury Menswear Brand Debuts First Ever Pop-Up Shop in New York City New York, NY-- (March 28, 2014) - J.Foster, the fastest growing luxury menswear brand, will unveil its first ever physical retail location,Vintage Never Dies, a temporary menswear experience store. Until now, J.Foster has sold exclusively online and through their direct sales model. From April 9th through April 20th, customers will be invited to experience the brand like never before, in-person at the J.Foster pop-up shop in New York City's NoHo district.

Known for delivering sophisticated style directly to men at their home or office, J.Foster will now introduce New Yorkers to an unmatched elegance men can experience in real life. A variety of the brand’s products will be available for purchase, including custom shirts, personalized suits, made-to-measure trousers and off-the- rack items such as cashmere sweaters, scarves, ties and other accessories.

"The J.Foster experience has always been a unique blend of the personal offline interaction and e-commerce, with the goal of making everything about shopping better for men," said James Wood, J.Foster co-founder and CEO. "For two weeks, we're bringing this to life in New York City and creating the ultimate menswear experience.

We hope customers will come in, get inspired, and leave with a greater appreciation of their own personal style."

Joining J.Foster at Vintage Never Dies will be Craig Daniels, maker of timeless, classically-designed monocles. Guests are invited to try out the monocles, which are available with interchangeable chains, making them perfect for every occasion.

J.Foster: Vintage Never Dies will be open April 9th to April 20th from 11am-8pm ET, 7 days a week.

About J.Foster J.Foster seeks to enrich men’s lives by delivering timeless fashion right to their door and office without them ever having to enter a store or mall again. We carry ready-to-wear apparel and men’s accessories that include ties, gloves, and scarves made from the finest French fabrics, hand-stitched and made affordable for any man. If you're ready to join the revolution, go to www.jfoster.com to learn more.

Throw a Party to Remember When you get you A-listers confirmed, just remember that putting on an event is no easy task. The logistics, staffing, and expenses alone can make it a daunting task, especially if you’ve invited press, bloggers, and others who you want to cover the event or share photos, update their statuses, and the works while they’re there. Just remember that people will usually most vividly remember the food, booze, and music for a party, just make sure you’ve got your bases covered in those departments, sprinkle in some details that are unique to you and whether its your launch party or the wrap-up party, make it a party for the invitees to remember.

CHAPTER 6

Marketing Your Pop-Up Shop Pt. 2

Amplifying Your Reach with Social Media Hopefully prior to concepting your first pop-up, you’ve been busy building your social audience and getting people to spread the love when it comes to your products. Not only will this make getting the word out easier when you announce your first pop-up shop, but it can make a night-and-day difference in the amount of foot-traffic you can expect your social presence to drive to your store.

The easiest way to structure your social media strategy for your pop-up is to think of it around the life-cycle of your temporary store. In other words, before your pop-up, during your pop-up and after your pop-up.

However, before we even jump into that, we’d like to cover one of the most important aspects of your social media promotion strategy: picking the right hashtag. Why is this hashtag picking business so important? Simple, it’s going to create a point of consistency across your multi-channel campaign while giving you the ability to track, measure, and engage with your key evangelists.

So, how do you know if you’ve picked the right hashtag? Start by asking yourself the following key questions: 

Are people already using the hashtag in conversations?

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Is your hashtag easy to understand?

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Is your hashtag catchy or memorable?

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Is your hashtag easily relatable to your brand?

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Is your hashtag short and concise?

Once you’ve picked the perfect hashtag for your pop-up store social media campaign, you’re ready to start thinking about how to take advantage of the web throughout the entire experience, from concept, to launch party, to tear-down time.

1) Building Buzz Before Your Pop-Up

Building hype, anticipation, and excitement around your pop-up store with your existing and hopefully growing social audience is key to having a successful launch and sustainable foot traffic throughout the duration of your pop-up. The key social channels we’re going to focus on are Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest with the following tips: 

Create a Facebook Event Page and invite all your followers, friends, and encourage them to invite their friends.

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Snap photos of exclusive or limited time products you’ll be offering during the pop-up using Instagram with your hashtag.

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Create a Pinterest board for all the different types of furniture, displays, and interior design props you’ll be using or taking inspiration from for your pop-up.

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Document the building out of your pop-up space using Instagram.

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Keep your Twitter audience updated with reminders, countdowns, and entertaining content throughout.

2) Keeping the Momentum Going During Your Pop-Up You’ve put in a great amount of sweat, blood, and tears into launching your pop-up and then comes the launch party and the doors officially open for your first (hopefully, few) customers to walk through your doors and get a taste of what you have to offer. It’s vital that you don’t lose steam after building up the necessary buzz prior and keep your social efforts dialed-up. Here’s a few tips for key social media activity during your popup store:



Run a promotion or contest using Instagram, Twitter, or both by encouraging customers to share photos of your store, or taking selfies wearing your products, and hashtaging their photos for a chance to win a prize. It could be free products, cash, or whatever you can afford, just make sure it’s worth people’s while to participate.



Lock and load your Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook guns during any and all events.

Try your very best to make people who aren’t there but could be very jealous of what they’re missing out on. Hopefully, this will get them to walk through your doors the very next day.



Share memorable selfies with customers, press, influencers, and anyone else you make a special connection with.

3) Keeping In Touch After Your Pop-Up Time will fly and soon after you begin, you’ll have to start tearing down that grand popup store of yours. But don’t the end of your temporary retail adventure keep you from slowing down on social, this is prime time to take the valuable connections you made during the event and turn them into evangelists and loyal customers. Here’s a few things you can do:

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Thank customers who shared photos on their social accounts individually.

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Take photos of the tear-down to elicit people’s reactions and gauge interest for another pop-up.

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Share a coupon code for your online store for all those who missed the pop-up, or those who wanted something that was out of stock.

Go Wild with Guerilla Marketing

Although it’s very easy to spend the majority of your time behind a screen and feel like you’re getting a great deal done, it’s equally important to get out and talk to people. This means having a presence where you’re going to be opening up shop and putting together flyers to giveaway or free goodies to create a solid first impression. Chances are if they’re shopping there when you meet them, they frequent the area enough to want to come pay your pop-up shop a visit.

Tying It All Together With An Event Calendar By now your head might be running wild with all the different marketing and promotional activity you need to be planning for in order to have a successful pop-up shop. One way to make this far more manageable is to create an event calendar where you meticulously note down what you will be doing and when, and we mean everything, from when you’ll be reaching out to media and influencers, to when your social media campaigns will be going out. Also, if you’re thinking about going at it alone, you’re in for a shock in regards to how much work it will end up being, so best to get some help.

Now it’s time for the rubber to hit the road and for you to put everything in action. Good luck!

CHAPTER 7

How to Evaluate Your Success

Holding a pop-up shop can be akin to running an event. There’s a great deal of pressure that builds up during the planning and marketing phase towards the actual day of the event, then the event happens, and though it’s easy enough to intuitively guess whether it was a success or not based on the number of people that showed up, there’s a lot more you want to pay attention to. Evaluating your pop-up’s success will enable you to learn what you can do differently next time around and whether selling offline is an effective sales channel for you.

To help you do just that, we’ve put together some sales metrics that you can do a deep dive in to derive some invaluable insights when it comes to your financial performance as well as five tools you can use to gauge the effectiveness of your online marketing efforts.

Sales Metrics There's certainly more to measuring your pop-up store's success than just looking at sales metrics alone. In fact, when you sit down after the final tear down and start digging into the thick of things, you'll undoubtedly encounter the following metrics being just as important as knowing how much money you made at the end of it all. 

Sales by Date: Depending on how short or long your pop-up shop is, this can be a vital metric in helping you determining dates and timing for next time around. Not only will you know which date or even hours were particularly busy, but you can use that information to plan things like special promotions and giveaways or knowing when you need to add more staff.

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Sales by Customer: This refers to the the total cart size per customer, which breaks down on average how many total items customers bought and the total amount they spent on average at your pop-up shop. The beauty of it is that you can then use this quantifiable data to create a much more refined customer profiles that will go further than just looking at qualitative insights like gender, age, and income, but will come to also include things like price sensitivity, purchasing habits, and product preferences.

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Sales by Product: Now it's time to evaluate your products and the decisions you made around them, for which you're going to want to zoom in on things like sale by SKU, variants like color, size, along with tracking sales by vendor. This is invaluable information you can use to know which product lines to invest in and which to consider scraping. Not to mention the fact that your best-sellers will also actively inform your decisions when putting together merchandising or window displays.

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Sales by Employees: Lastly, even if you're not necessarily running a traditional commission-based compensation structure for your employees, knowing who's generating the most sales can provide you a unique opportunity. To make the most of it, you'll want to take time to do a deep dive and really understand what's working and what's not based on your own gut feel and the new data you'll be analyzing. Because you'll have intimate knowledge of your sales staff, you'll know their personality traits, sales experience, and personality style and be able to come up with a complete profile of successful sales associates. The great thing about this is that you can then incorporate these insights into your process for hiring and training your future employees.

Measuring Social Media Success Once you've finished dissecting your sales data left, right, and center to derive all the necessary insights you need to assess your pop-up shop's success, it's important to remember that sales are one side of the coin, the other is recognizing the marketing metrics your pop-up shop helped generate for your brand. Or in other words, how many conversations your promotional hashtag inspired and how customers engaged around it through the creation of user-generated content.

This isn't just something you look at when it's all said and done, it's something you should actively monitor before, during, and after your promotional campaign finishes.

Especially, if you created a specific hashtag, an important facet of being able to track and measure branded impressions or conversations, and if you ran a contest or specific giveaway.

To help you get to the bottom of the ripple effect of all your social media activity, I've put together a list of 5 tools you can use to get a clear picture of just how much traction the pop-up shop brought to your brand.

1. RebelMouse

RebelMouse can be used to gauge both instinctively and through the site's analytics functionality the conversation that took place around you and your brand by pooling all the activity around your pop-up shop's promotional hashtag and will bring all the activity from your Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and Tumblr accounts into one visual website.

2. Tagboard

Tagboard lets you create a single "tag" board to better understand the complete conversation that took place around your pop-up shop hashtag. Another great use for this tool is to take advantage of it as an in-store TV display that pulls all the activity around your brand for visitors to see and engage with.

3. Talkwalker

TalkWalker lets you really dive into the data being generated by the audience engaging with your hashtag and provides insights on things like sentiment analysis, gender distribution, and more, while providing similar functionality as the tools mentioned above.

4. Iconosquare

Iconosquare quenches your thirst to know the answer to questions like how many times people liked, commented on, or uploaded a photo with your hashtag on Instagram. With Instagram becoming more and more important to retailers, knowing how many followers resulted as a direct outcome to your pop-up shop is a great metric to track along with more engagement oriented metrics like comments and likes.

Lastly, Metrics You Can't Measure However, perhaps the most meaningful metric for retailers getting into the pop-up shop game is what they can take away from the in-store customer interaction. It can be an eye-opening experience, especially if you've only sold online before, to have the ability to see customer's react in real time to your products. Not only that, but being able to talk to them and get their feedback on everything from your branding, displays, products, and your layout can be vital for getting the necessary feedback to thrive in a retail environment.

Keeping that above point in mind, continue to stay vigilant, make sure to keep close tabs on your key sales metrics, as well as your social media engagement, along with those human-to-human customer conversations in order to learn as much as possible and reevaluating your strategy constantly. You can then use those insights to take your

future pop-ups to the next level, or once you get good enough and like the idea of retail, maybe you'll even take the leap and open up your own boutique retail store.

In the next chapter, we’ll discuss why pop-ups are here to stay and how brands big and small are using them as an effective medium to build their customer base and build brand recognition.

CHAPTER 8

Pop-Ups & The Future of Retail

Pop-up shops are here to stay and they’re fueling the retail revolution occurring as we speak. Consumers today having comparative pricing data right on their phones and are actively shopping around even as they browse retail stores. Whether it’s the phenomena of “showrooming” where consumers go into stores to physically see a product only to buy it online at the lowest price, or that of “webrooming” where consumers walk into a store having thoroughly done all their research and know exactly what they want, shopping is changing at a rapid pace.

Bridging the online and offline gap is a necessary next step for small businesses to thrive in today’s economy. Retailers who don’t have an ecommerce site are selling themselves short just like how successful ecommerce merchants are missing out opportunities that selling offline could provide.

Pop-ups are the perfect avenue for online stores to make flash appearances and get customers they couldn’t reach before to connect with them in-person and if done properly, have them become intrigued enough to follow them online.

In fact, when you take things into consideration, despite the fact that ecommerce sales grew 5 percent to roughly $65 billion in 2013, it's still a sliver of total retail sales.

Actually, we're talking less than a sliver, more like only 5.8 percent out of a $1,126.2 billion market just in the U.S. alone. Pop-up shops alone according to Retail Specialists are a $8 billion market.

So, regardless of where you fall on the spectrum when it comes to selling exclusively online or in-store or are somewhere in the middle with a mix of sales channels, pop-ups can be that perfect opportunity to try something different and cash in.

To illustrate how brands small and big are taking advantage of temporary retail, I’ve highlighted the pop-up activities of well-known brands Bonobos and Warby Parker in addition of brands with a more niche but massive following that include the likes of KithNY and HutchLA.

2 Big Brands Making Pop-Up Waves Bonobos: Taking the Leap

Started by two Stanford business grads in 2007 by selling what it dubbed simply a “perfect” pair of khakis, Bonobos has grown to become a ecommerce heavyweight with their hands in a number of men’s products lines. Despite the company's massive online success, CEO Andy Dunn wanted to experiment with physical retail spaces after repeated requests from customers who wanted to try on items before they buy them. So just what did he do? He posted two sales representatives in the lobby of their office showcasing their products and found them generating more than $250,000 in sales each.

After seeing those results, his solution to the "online vs. offline conundrum" was the Guide Shop, a place where prospective customers could make an appointment, try on their wares, place an order online, and have their purchased goods delivered the very next day. Today the company has more 10 locations across the U.S. where they deliver a seamless and vertically integrated shopping experience.

But you don't need to splurge on a permanent retail location or expensive POS technology to give your customers the "Guide Shop" experience, consider these much more accessible locations and open a pop-up shop to start testing the waters with as as little as an iPad or your mobile phone.

Warby Parker: Going to Your Customers

Originally started as a online only eyewear business in 2010, Warby Parker has leveraged ecommerce to its fullest potential by designing everything in house and cutting out the middlemen to offer its high quality products at significantly lower prices.

However, the company has never been afraid to experiment with pop-up stores and satisfying peoples desires to try and feel their glasses before making a purchase. True to its brand, the company’s latest retail adventure called “Class Trip” involved driving a big yellow bus across America and stopping in select cities to set up shop. Another avenue Warby Parker has attempted are kiosks in hotels it calls “The Readery” where it pairs its 1960’s look to its glasses with vintage books and periodicals from the era. It shows no sign of slowing down its retail experiments anytime soon.

Inspired to take your business on the road? Check out some tips from our "50 Ways to Your First Sale" guide and you'll be well on your way to starting your engine to grow your business.

2 Smaller Brands Doing Pop-Up Magic HutchLA: Keeping It Real

Streetwear apparell is big in LA, where everyone is after the latest and exclusive designs from their favourite artists and to support different movements, interests, and values. It’s no surprise then that HutchLA, founded by Grizzly Atoms, decided to take its dedicated audience and loyal customers of its online store and treat them to a pop-up shop experience to remember. The company sells unique designs on posters, prints, tshirts and more.

Not only did they blitz their Instagram feed with photos of them building and renovating the actual store to build buzz, but they went all out for the actual one-day event to make it successful. The secret sauce behind it all was having a really good idea of who their target demographic was and what type of add-ons they’d be attracted to. So, what did they do to make it feel like a must-attend, exclusive, and limited-time event? Well, to start with they had guys from the Hit+Run Crew printing one-of-a-kind t-shirts live, next they had a tattoo artists onsite, limited-edition products from distinct artists and brands like Cryptic that people would wait in line to get their hands on, as well as plenty of food and drinks from popular and local restaurants.

Top it off with a beautiful sunny day in August and the end result is an extravagant and memorable shopping experience that further solidified HutchLA’s place in the minds of its most loyal customers while exposing their brand to their friends from all the social sharing that took place that day.

KithNY: Taking on Paris

With an established brand and a well-known figure in the sneaker world like Ronnie Fieg manning the helm, KITH has a sneakerhead following that expands the globe. The company has a popular storefront in one of the hottest shopping districts in New York and has an ecommerce store that ships its sneakers around the world.

So then why go all the way to Paris to do a pop-up shop? Simple, to give their following in Europe an opportunity to connect with the brand in-person and do it in style. Dubbed the KITH Coat of Arms (COA) Pop-Up, it coincided with Paris Fashion Week, and brought with it exclusive products KITH developed via collaboration with partners like PUMA, John Elliot + Co, ISAORA and Focused Space. The key idea being to bring

together sneaker enthusiasts around the city together to celebrate what makes them unique, their love for sneakers.

Lastly, Have Fun Popping-Up As you’ve seen, you don’t need to be a household brand to connect with customers and followers in the real world. All you need is a willingness to see the opportunity in taking advantage of all the ways pop-ups can open door for your business. The gap between the online and offline world is decreasing at a rapid pace and just like any other industry, retail is trying to keep pace with the way consumers and their shopping habits are evolving. Pop-ups are just one piece of the puzzle that will continue to become a bigger and bigger part of lives, with that, we hope you found this guide practical, informative, and inspiring. Here’s to creating pop-up experiences that customers can’t help but fall in love with. Good luck and happy selling!

CHAPTER 9

About the Author Humayun Khan

Humayun Khan is a Retail Content Specialist at Shopify where he joined the marketing and growth team in 2013 after the company's acquisition of UX design agency Jet Cooper. Previously, he was the Sr. Writer at emerging technology publication BetaKit where he covered early-stage startups from around the globe. Follow Humayun on Twitter.