Pop-up retail offers a way for firms to both test the market and continue to trade through uncertain times.
Two young Irish companies – Movement and Popertee – have joined forces to offer pop-up retail spaces across the UK and Ireland.
Pop-Up retail is a way to allow businesses to continue looking at opportunities to trade through these uncertain times and in the midst of the retail apocalypse brought about by the pandemic.
“While online commerce continues to grow in popularity, shopping remains an emotional experience”
Popertee specialises in matching brands with vacant spaces for short-term retail and experiential campaigns across Ireland and the UK.
Movement is an Irish production and events company specialising in pop-up and commercial builds for brands.
The two companies have joined forces to offer brands and retailers a full-service solution to manage direct to consumer retail and experiential pop-ups and brand activations from concept to execution.
“The Covid-19 crisis has been exceptional in its scale and duration,” said Popertee CEO Lucinda Kelly. “This crisis has accelerated the already changing retail landscape and forced the redesign of the customer journey and development of new retail business models. The significant growth in both traditional brands and new retailers adopting pop-up shops and retail experiences is part of the new retail paradigm.
“While online commerce continues to grow in popularity, shopping remains an emotional experience and so the importance of a physical touchpoint which allow brands to engage directly with the consumer and create a meaningful retail experience has never been more important.”
Full service pop-ups
Gym + Coffee Kildare Village (opened in July)
Against this backdrop Popertee and Movement are now combining to offer a unique and full service offering to brands from ideation, through site selection, build out and management. In addition, Popertee can a comprehensive customer profiling and demographic analysis tool which provides deep customer insights to measure the effectiveness and reach of the pop-up or brand activation.
Over the past five years Popertee and Movement have been involved in more than 300 pop-ups and brand experiences across Ireland and UK for brands including such as Volvo, Jameson, Peroni, Dyson, Ikea, Facebook, Tesco and Diageo.
Van Moof pop-up bicycle shop in Dublin.
Some recent success stories include the award-winning Dutch electric bike company, Van Moof who Popertee and Movement are currently working closely with in two high profile Dublin city centre pop-up campaigns which have been very successful and created significant demand for Van Moof in the Irish market for the first time.
“High rents, long and onerous leases and low retail vacancy rates have traditionally been a barrier to development of the pop-up and experiential retail market,” Kelly explained.
“However, this has now changed and Popertee has seen a significant increase in availability of retail spaces for short-term letting including those on the busiest and most in demand retail streets as well as a reduction in landlord rental expectations.
“This creates a significant opportunity for brands to now engage directly with the consumer, to test new concepts and markets and build stronger brand awareness and customer relationships,” Kelly added.
Main image: Gym + Coffee in Blanchardstown which opened recently
Written by John Kennedy (john.kennedy3@boi.com)
Published: 4 September, 2020
