'Pop-up' stores
Oct 30 2009
Retail Wrap >>

For most retail stores, staying in business for only a few days would be considered a major flop. But a growing number of merchants are opening shops and abruptly shutting them down soon after - on purpose. These quickie retail operations - known as pop-ups - are showing up throughout Southern California and around the US, filling in the gaps at recession-battered shopping centers for a fraction of the regular rents.

Once limited to seasonal shops and dusty liquidation centers, pop-up stores are now being opened by some of the nation's biggest retailers.

It's a trend that could reshape the nation's retail landscape if it continues, diminishing the power of commercial landlords and making it easier for merchants to test new locations and products with little commitment. Designed to generate buzz and lure shoppers with a get-in-while-you-can appeal, pop-ups allow merchants to move quickly, opening up shops to test a new product or market, and closing them without much fuss.

Pop-ups' move to the mainstream was born out of the recession: Desperate landlords are able to fill vacancies in their shopping centers, and nervous retailers can get space for a few weeks or months without signing a long-term lease. Landlords were once able to demand leases of 10 to 20 years, he said. Now retailers are able to get spaces for 10 to 20 days.

"We were able to get into some of the finest malls in the country and into some of the spaces that we really wanted to get into that we would not have been able to in the past," Toys R Us Chief Executive Jerry Storch said. "Once we learn more about where these work and how these work, we'll be able to maintain a pop-up strategy in good times and bad."

Adapted from Source: www.latimes.com, 17 October 2009