Pop-up stores -- the practice of keeping your store fresh for your customers

A recent article in the New York Times spoke about Pop-ups, the phenomenon that retailers and clothing designers are employing to create boutiques that can be opened anywhere -- a street corner, an abandoned building, a loft space, etc. They're bare-bones, no frills concepts -- but they do have one thing -- great merchandise.  The pop-ups usually feature one designer and his or her entire collection and then, like magic, 4-6 weeks later, an entirely new designer with an entirely new collection is gracing the store faster than you can say abracadabra.

Another concept that just opened features an entire store of products from one country.  The store will then change countries every 4-6 weeks.  Talk about built in public relations, not to mention a reason to return again and again.

THE REAL WORLD RETAILING TAKEAWAY
It's about keeping the merchandise fresh.  And now sharp retailers are taking it to a whole new level.  They are literally making over their entire store every 4-6 weeks. As small business operators, that's something that's just not possible.  But here's something that is.

Awhile back I wrote about keeping it fresh and talked about FEATURE AREAS.  For the uninitiated, a feature area is a key area in the store that you want customers to focus on.

In many stores, it's the first table you literally bump into as you walk into the store.  It's the table or fixture that causes you to veer right or veer left around it.  Short of knocking you over the head with it, you can't miss it.  And that's exactly what retailers want -- something out of the norm for you, the money-spending consumer to spend even more money on (because you still have to buy what you originally came in for, right?).

So, what's on your feature table?  This is an area you should change every 4-6 weeks.  It should feature the latest product line you've brought in, or tie to a specific time frame or season, or it can be a feature area that focuses on a specific type of product.  You can't use that magic I mentioned earlier and hocus pocus, you have a feature area.  There has to be some context and relevancy to the customer. 

If you're striving for ideas, just use your personal life experiences to create a feature area.  For instance, it's summer now…think of all the things you do in the summer…group them together and that's a feature area.  Think spring, winter and fall and you've just covered 24 weeks by having a seasonally focused feature table for each of the four seasons.

So, don't stress making over your entire store, just choose a feature area or areas that you're going to make over to keep your customer engaged.  Your customers will notice, and you'll be better off financially -- after all eye appeal, is buy appeal.