When I was in the UK earlier this year, I met a Lebanese woman who had created a business for herself and her sisters and was selling organic soaps and body products in Harrods in fashionable west London using their father's old soap making recipes. This woman avoided the prohibitive cost of starting a new business, which usually stands in the way of young entrepreneurs, by opening a pop-up shop with other entrepreneurs in an empty north London shopping parade. The three sisters managed to start their soap making business paying initially as little as SR300 a month in rent that went up to SR1500 as the business picked up. Pop-up shops are temporary retail spaces used by businesses that prefer a short-term hire to the traditional long-term lease. Vacant shopping center spaces in key consumer places and vacant high street shops are usually used for this purpose. These shops are not just good for businesses but for real estate companies and landlords who are now looking to lease short-term real estate in a down economy until the market picks up. Short-term leases greatly minimize the heavy overhead that new businesses are commonly burdened with while they offer the merchants an opportunity to test their products and learn what the market prefers as well as situating them, sometimes, in strategic positions that indirectly promote their products and their brands. The idea is based on the concept of “popping-up” one day, then disappearing. This can last from one day to a year while the landlords consider what to do with their buildings. Pop-up shops started in 1999 after some Los Angeles entrepreneurs went on a business trip to Tokyo. There, they were fascinated by how consumers would line up to purchase limited edition products from niche retailers. Once the products sell out, usually within hours, the store closes until more products are received. When back in LA, the businessmen decided to apply the concept so they closed their shop permanently after selling the merchandise in it and moved to another location. Eventually, they set up a business for pop-up retailing and marketing in LA. It took them four years to open their second shop in New York in 2003 after which the concept acquired momentum in the US, Canada, and the UK. In the UK, Emma Jones founded StartUp Britain, a project which matches empty spaces with new small businesses that would benefit from the exposure. She saw in it a good business opportunity as well as a way of reviving ailing commercial centers. The idea was eventually used for pop-up shops, restaurants, cafes, product launches, sample sales, experiential marketing, meetings, training days, events, exhibitions and filming locations. Later the concept was used by some well-known brands like Target, Gucci, and Louis Vuitton which copied the idea and started their own pop-up shops as part of their PR campaigns. — The writer can be reached at [email protected]
