I hate the word pop-up,” says 27-year-old Ross Bailey. Bailey is the founder of Appear Here, an online marketplace for short-term retail spaces, whose platform currently works with 200,000 brands and has launched more than 10,000 stores.
However they’re talked about, pop-ups have transformed the retail landscape. According to Britain’s Pop-Up Retail Economy 2017, a report published by EE and the Centre for Economics and Business Research, the UK’s pop-up industry is worth £2.3bn, and accounts for about 0.76 per cent of total retail turnover. Bailey says that 2018 marked the first year where more pop-ups than new stores opened. “No one talks about pop-up as a term any more. It’s a given, it’s expected. But what luxury brands are talking about when making these spaces is how they make someone feel. The idea of things that are here today and gone tomorrow, these have gained relevance in today’s society and creating a physical retail place where a real connection can take place is a proven model that works.”
Brands are now responding by creating pop-ups that are more creative — and more extreme — than ever before. Rapper Kanye West sold his capsule collection of own-brand Yeezy “Sunday Service” church merchandise (sweatshirts emblazoned with the words “Holy Spirit” for $225) at this year’s Coachella festival. In order to access his church merch you needed not only to be at Coachella, but also to hear the announcement that Kanye made on his microphone and be close enough to the tent space to shop. The goods reportedly sold out in minutes. Last month, Nike set up a stall in LA selling its newest trainers. To buy you had to be within a 100-metre radius and have downloaded a special app. And in January, US beauty group Milk Makeup, beloved by millennials and Gen Z, celebrated its highly anticipated entry into the UK market with a 48-hour pop-up in London’s Covent Garden selling its products before they went online. To gain access to the queue fans entered a competition, and the first 100 names received free goodie-bags.