It's that pop-up time of year again. Fall is here and so are the temporary Halloween stores. Others are already in place for Christmas.
"With the closing of Borders and other retailers, you've got higher quality retail space going empty, and [pop-up retailers] are going into higher rent or more upscale locations," Michael McCarthy, associate professor of marketing at Miami University's Farmer School of Business in Oxford, OH, told The Plain Dealer.
According to The Plain Dealer, Spirit Halloween is opening 970 pop-up locations this year, up from 850 in 2010.
Toys "R" Us, which went from 90 to 600 Express stores between 2009 and 2010, has indicated it may scale back some this year but has yet to release a number. A RetailWire poll in April found that 45 percent believed pop-locations would be "much more" or "somewhat more important" for toy sales this holiday season versus last. Eleven percent said pop-ups would be "somewhat less important."
Key to pop-up stores is location and experts say that the closing of a large number of stores, most notably Borders and Blockbuster, is providing retailers with prime space without getting drawn into expensive, long-term leases. The question is: how long will it last?
"Pop-up stores are opportunistic," Prof. McCarthy told The Plain Dealer. "When the economy turns around or stabilizes, I think you'll see them go away."