How Pop-up Stores Can Support Your Omnichannel Strategy
Posted by Amanda McLaughlin on Nov 22, 2022
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As online shopping becomes increasingly easier, retailers and brands must fight harder to win the hearts and wallets of customers. In response, many brands are relying on the experiential qualities of pop-up stores to tempt customers out of their homes. Their aim? To drive shoppers in-store, improve brand positioning and boost sales, and engage new and existing customers across channels.
Pop-up shops are fast becoming a go-to retail strategy for brands across the globe. According to recent research by Storefront, 80% of retailers have opened a pop-up store and experienced success and 58% intend to do so again. They’re so popular that retail pop-ups are now a $50 billion business.
In this article, we will cover the ins and outs of what makes a pop-up retail strategy so effective and take a peek under the hood at the technology that makes them possible.
A pop-up store is a temporary retail location. Unlike traditional stores, pop-up shops allow brands to bring their products and services to customers anywhere they gather and build experiences that people flock to.
Typically, they are retail spaces that are only open for a short period of time, giving off an air of exclusivity that helps a brand generate buzz. Many retail brands use pop-up stores to drive traffic to their permanent locations through immersive and interactive experiences, test out new markets, and meet customers where they already are.
Pop-ups let brands experiment with new looks and locations with less risk. Brands also sometimes use pop-ups during the holidays to add another location in the mall or shopping center they’re already in. This tactic disperses foot traffic and makes it easier to serve all customers and eliminate lines.
According to Storefront research, here are the most popular use-cases for pop-up shops:
Above all, pop-ups are about creating unique and memorable customer experiences.
Successful retail pop-ups rely on several key technologies to be effective. First and foremost, because of their temporary nature and small footprints, pop-ups don’t have room for checkout counters and fixed systems. They’re focused on experience per square foot, so they need to utilize systems that blend into the background.
Enter the mobile point of sale (POS). Beyond being handheld and easy-to-use, it features native solutions like mobile checkout and inventory management. That means all the store team needs is one system for two critical pop-up priorities: inventory and sales.
Oftentimes, pop-ups carry limited inventory or even just display stock. So, when a customer wants to buy something, the associate must be able to order that item from the nearest store or distribution center for delivery to the customer.
With endless aisle on a mobile POS, this is an easy task. The associate can pinpoint where the item is available, order it for the customer, and even choose the last-mile delivery option that is most cost-effective and convenient.
Or, to drive customers to a permanent location, they can arrange for the item to be picked up there. This puts the customer in-store where your full assortment is available, making it likely they’ll buy a complementary product, too.
For maximum efficiency, seamless inventory management should be paired with seamless checkout. Mobile checkout, with modern mobile payments like Tap to Pay on iPhone, make checkout effortless for time-conscious consumers in pop-up locations.
The beauty of Tap to Pay on iPhone is that associates can accept all kinds of in-person contactless payments with only an iPhone. No terminal or additional hardware needed. That’s one less piece of technology to stock the pop-up with, making for an easier setup and breakdown of that location or event.
With a quick and simple checkout process, shoppers are free to continue browsing and immersing themselves in the pop-up’s experience.
Often pop-up stores are one component of a much larger strategy – an omnichannel retail strategy. Brands employ pop-ups with the following functions in mind:
Increasingly, customers are taking up the mantle of the ‘educated buyer.’ They bounce around all touchpoints with your brand as they gather information and narrow down their decision to buy.
Pop-ups can become the springboard for this omnichannel journey. They tie all channels together – serving a similar purpose to physical stores in being a place for completing transactions, fulfilling purchases, building community, and encouraging discovery.
Below are the ways pop-up stores can support an omnichannel retail strategy by boosting brand visibility, sales, and engagement.
Pop-ups are a supremely valuable way to grow awareness of your brand and its offerings. In fact, nearly 66% of brands state that brand awareness was the primary reason for launching a pop-up event, with connecting with consumers (63%) a close second.
Pop-ups are where the best of both worlds come together – a perfect pairing of digital and physical. They create a buzz around a brand, making use of “pull” marketing tactics – a sort of “build it and they will come” mentality. As consumers become overexposed and desensitized to traditional “push” marketing tactics like paid ads, pop-ups offer a fresh reprieve. They encourage customers to take part in communication and advertising, ultimately flipping the script.
It’s proven that inspiration and excitement are powerful pull forces in marketing – so that’s where to focus your efforts with pop-up spaces. This is easy to do online, but it’s even easier to do when you invite your customers into your shop that’s dripping with your brand ethos.
As part of your omnichannel strategy, pop-ups can help generate excitement to visit your other channels. For example, you can incorporate QR codes into the pop-up experience that direct shoppers to your mobile app. Instead of dedicating space and signage in the shop, the app can help you tell your brand and product stories.
The same can be said for social engagement and ecommerce, too. Creating exciting pop-up experiences means die-hard social users won’t be able to help themselves from sharing their time at your event. And once their followers start seeing it, they’ll either start flocking to your stores to get a slice of the action or to your website to see what all the fuss is about. It’s a win either way.
Traditional brick-and-mortar stores continue to show signs of growth in foot traffic, with a 43% month-over-month growth rate in July 2021 – but have since dropped to 28%.
That’s nothing to scoff at. However, McKinsey research shows that omnichannel customers make purchases 70% more often and spend about 34% more than customers who shop one channel exclusively. This means driving omnichannel customers to your stores to boost foot traffic, where you can capitalize on your store experience and expert associates, is in every brand’s self-interest.
Over a third (35%) of customers plan to engage with a brand through experiential moments in the next year. With this in mind, brands should use pop-ups as a chance to understand what customers like in a physical retail experience, and then use that knowledge to improve their stores.
To do so, many omnichannel brands look to their pop-up strategy to experiment with new format ideas and customer policies and gather critical customer insight to help them understand:
These insights can be used to better refine your store offerings. For example, you might learn that your customers like a more open store layout for a smoother browsing experience. Or, you might learn about product placement and how to display your assortment in a way that catches your customers eyes at the right moments. Maybe you’ll even realize your store opening times need to be adjusted based on when your customers generally like to shop.
Further, how shoppers buy products plays a significant role in driving store traffic. With limited inventory on-site, store fulfillment is a critical capability for a smooth shopping experience. Using your stores as fulfillment centers naturally drives more, and more highly qualified, footfall to your permanent installations. Encouraging customers to pick up their products in-store gives your associates further opportunities to entice them to buy more.
Every brand should have its own community of brand lovers, evangelists, and ambassadors. Why?
First, it’s easier to interact with and learn from customers that feel part of your brand than casual buyers. Second, communities turn the average consumer into true ambassadors and subtle marketeers. And finally, by involving people that feel a part of your community, you get more comprehensive and valuable feedback, making it easier to improve.
Remember – it’s not all about fast transactions (though that is a must-have for building experiences that customers engage with). Making connections is the aim, not necessarily making sales. Because with the right connections, sales will come organically.
In fact, emotionally connected customers spend double (or more) with their preferred retail brands than with others, have over 300% higher lifetime value, and stay loyal longer.
The pop-up experience is about selling feelings. In a world dominated by unlimited content and social media, physical experiences like pop-up shops can be a particularly powerful tool in making your brand something to rally around – and not just for older, non-digitally native consumers.
Pop-ups are especially powerful in the local arena, letting businesses connect on a deeper level with their most loyal customers. Face-to-face interactions help build trust with consumers and instill confidence in purchase decisions because shoppers can judge the quality with their own eyes and hands.
However, perhaps the most powerful thing about pop-ups for community building is how they enable brands to engage customers globally. You likely can’t be everywhere. But a pop-up strategy lets brands establish a presence in any city, helping them engage members of their online community who otherwise would need to travel to visit a store.
Pop-ups also present opportunities for brands to insert themselves into local communities. Since the pandemic, there’s been a major push in ‘going local,’ with 82% of consumers supporting local businesses. By partnering with local businesses, and using their stores as the pop-up location, brands can tap into strong existing communities while building brand relevance.
Pop-up stores are designed to immerse people in your brand and drive engagement with your other properties, whether that’s a physical store, mobile shopping app, or a website. That begs the question – are store visits and brand buzz more important than overall sales?
Pop-ups are unlikely to be your sole method of making sales. So, yes – it is all about footfall and eyeballs to measure success. Once your pop-up is over, pay close attention to the following:
Activity in these metrics will give you a greater understanding of how popular and impactful your pop-up store was. But we can go a step further.
Many brands create a unique hashtag for their pop-up events and encourage visitors to share their experience using that hashtag. By monitoring social media interactions through that hashtag, you will gain a greater understanding of how shareable your experience was – and which parts customers interacted with the most.
Many pop-up strategies also leverage limited-time voucher codes and discounts, redeemable only at the pop-up itself. Not only does this incentivize customers to visit your pop-up and purchase on the spot but monitoring the use of those voucher codes and discounts is another way to measure how successful your pop-up was.
Pop-ups let retailers and brands play with the synergy between online and offline. As part of an omnichannel retail strategy, they offer a unique and engaging experience for consumers.
Omnichannel proves that retail has surely changed. The emphasis now is to create memorable, loyalty-building experiences that challenge customer perceptions of what retail can be. Retail is becoming about joy again – and pop-ups are paving the way.
Want to incorporate pop-up stores into your omnichannel experience? Reach out to our team to learn how our mobile POS, supercharged with Tap to Pay on iPhone, can help.
