No longer confined to traditional stores, opportunities for POS are spilling into a multitude of spaces - into restaurants, yoga studios, co-working spaces and many more via the rise of Pop Ups. This is essentially a temporary / short-term retail trend named so because stores "pop up" in a retail space, and then clear out in a few days, weeks, or months. The benefits of them being higher flexibility and advantages in terms of rentals, agreements, unique spaces among more.

Once decided that an Offline Pop-Up is what your business needs, there are some pertinent decisions and concepts that need to be kept in mind to ensure maximum success of the same.

Here are the top 5 considerations while planning a short-term retail or marketing activity:

1. The Objective

While the benefits of a Pop Up are many, you need to be able to clearly identify your specific purpose of having them for your brand because it is on the basis of that other factors will be chosen.

To give more context - start-ups across categories can setup Pop-Ups to test the market and as part of their market research. Online stores may need an occasional brick-and-mortar presence to physically interact with customers. Even well-known retailers take advantage of these flexible leasing options for the launch/introduction of new products rather than just announcing a product through advertisements as pop-ups give customers a hands-on look at it and maybe the chance to be the first ones to own it.

Another reason to open a pop-up can be to unload inventory. Renting a temporary space to sell old, unsold inventory at great offers to make room for new merchandise can be a fast way to clear out your warehouse and recover some profit from unsold items or otherwise dead stock.

2. The Venue

The location and venue can be significant success markers of your marketing efforts. The chosen location and venue need to be relevant and in line with your brand and target audience for it to bear fruit. The location denotes the area of the city in which you plan on setting up your Pop-Up while the venue refers to the kind of space within that location you want like malls, corporates, colleges, markets, etc.

You'll want a space where there's lots of foot traffic and where you'll get noticed. Consider the demographic you're after – where are they likely to be present? 

To decide about this, think about the target audience or potential customer base that you want to reach out to. In order to have access to lakhs of people for raising awareness and promotion of your brand; commercial venues like malls, markets, etc. are a popular option. If the target segments are working professionals or the youth then Corporate Hubs and college campuses respectively would be great viable alternatives. The list goes on like this, you can check out a detailed blog post regarding this here

3. The Duration

Pop-Ups feature very flexible terms, with length of agreements as short as one day or as long as one year. Hence, depending on the budget set aside for such ventures combined with the objective of the Pop-Ups, the duration needs to be decided.

In case of creating buzz around new product by an already well-known company or a brand looking to promote their business/for brand activation, a short-term or medium-term popup can be good. In case of a brand wanting more physical sales; a long-term duration in an appropriate venue can be helpful and so on and so forth.

4. The Setup Design

The main objective of any sales and marketing effort, especially for Pop-Ups is to attract lots of customers who may or may not already be aware about your brand or business. It is natural human tendency to be drawn towards interestingly and beautifully curated and decorated stalls or Pop Ups. Thus, make sure the aesthetic and showcase of your popup reflects the vibe of your brand and catches the attention of the people moving around so as to instantly grab their attention.

Entice customers using the five senses of sight, sound, scent, taste and touch, centring it on your brand and creating a hard-to-forget experience. Employ technology to make your shop modern and chic. Sight and sound can be provided with monitors and a speaker system like plenty of other shops, but go above and beyond giving both your storefront and interior a unique atmosphere and style. Let shoppers know how your brand is visually represented.

For more context and ideas, you can have a look here

5. The Engagement 

The next consideration, after attracting customers is to engage them and keep them interested. This can be done by making them participate in fun activities and contests, give away free samples, demonstrate uses of products, organise flash mobs etc. Some good examples of the same can be the VR (Virtual Reality) Experience organised by Hotstar in their Pop-Ups, free short massages offered by brands of comfort furniture/recliners in their Pop-Up stores, quick quizzes with gifts devised by brands like Aashirvaad, Ghee and Oil companies at food fests and malls.

Ultimately, the success of a short-term retail and marketing activity depends on how well the brand-owner defines and executes the above factors.

If you're looking to plan your Pop-Up and need help with the above, get in touch with PopUp72!