Pop-Up Stores: All the Rage

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"A Clear Message"

Japanese retailer Uniqlo took the pop-up store concept on the road—literally—for two months in the runup to its Nov. 2 Soho store opening. It drove two shipping containers around New York City and literally popped open stores in various parts of the city—Union Square in Manhattan one day and Cobble Hill in Brooklyn another day—and gave shoppers a taste of their trademark logo-free apparel. "The shipping containers gave New Yorkers a clear message—that we're coming literally from Tokyo to New York," says Shin Shuda, chief marketing officer of Uniqlo USA.

Pop-up stores have worked especially well, though, for brands that don't have a retail outlet store. Currently, the carmaker Lexus (TM) is wrapping up its multicity pop-up art gallery tour in Chicago. There, it has rented retail space to showcase three avant-garde artists—a photographer, a video movie maker, and a wood carver—whom the company feels reflect the innovation and design elements of its latest self-parking car.

For much of last year, Ford (F) opened kiosks in several malls around the country to show off its midsize Fusion. The kiosks, labeled Fusion Studio D, were targeted at women, and offered makeovers, fitness training, and health information. The kiosks would pop up in malls in cities around the country, just days before the local Susan G. Komen Foundation's Race for the Cure, and signed up people who wanted to run to cure breast cancer.

Looking for Kicks

Of course, it's not easy to set up a pop-up store. Unoccupied stores in hot retail locations aren't easy to come by. Moreover, they can backfire, if a retailer doesn't staff the store with some of the best customer service personnel, who know enough about the brand. "We had to make sure there were people who live and breathe Florida to explain what they were missing," says Nicki Grossman, chief executive of the Greater Fort Lauderdale Convention & Visitors Bureau, which set up a pop-up store—complete with sandy beaches, a golf putting hole, lifeguards, and beach beauties—in January in New York.

No wonder companies feel the pressure not only to be cool, but to offer visitors an additional kick. For instance, when electronics company JVC opened its pop-up store, it offered karaoke and let people film themselves using its newly launched video camera and make their own DVDs, which folks could then carry home as gifts. And sneaker maker Fila let people draw their own designs on a computer, which they printed on a T-shirt that shoppers could take home with them for free. "You had the sense that you are creating artwork and you are really engaging the consumer, which is the most important part," says Gumbel of Think PR.

Retailers have clearly discovered that pop-up stores bring brands to life and let people sample products in a great format, without much cost. "Try getting that from a 30-second ad," says Claudia Strauss, president of Lime PR, in New York.

Click here for a slide show about the making of a pop-up store.

Gogoi is a contributing writer for BusinessWeek.com.