Downtown Muskegon was slowly revitalizing, years after the failed Muskegon Mall was demolished. But a crucial commercial element was missing. We asked ourselves, what could we do before waiting for a developer to come in? The answer was pop-up shops, a dozen small buildings where budding retail entrepreneurs could establish temporary businesses that might grow into permanent locations downtown.
Photo: Nick Hagen. Western Market, as the project is known, is open from May to December. Meisch, who manages the property, said that 11 of the initial 12 retailers are returning this year and five more chalets have been built and rented. Pop-up shops are becoming increasingly popular, used as a marketing and sales strategy by entities ranging from giant retailers like Amazon and Target to start-ups.
A national survey in March by the National Retail Federation and research firm Forrester found that 24 percent of retailers have opened a pop-up. Rachel Lutz, who owns four brick-and-mortar retail stores in Detroit and is one of the most talked-about independent retailers in the city, got her start with a pop-up dress shop in Lutz started opening short-term pop-ups in the vacant space of brick-and-mortar retailers she knew in Detroit.
Lutz said starting as a pop-up was a low-risk way for her to find what kind of merchandise would sell, fine-tune price points and learn customer demographics. And you learn about your neighborhoods very intimately.
TechTown , a Detroit business incubator and accelerator, offers several assistance programs for pop-ups as well as space for new pop-ups. The package usually includes rent subsidies, a point-of-sale system, and design, marketing, financial and social media services. Of the 75 entrepreneurs who have graduated from the program, half have opened permanent stores or started pop-ups, according to Sarah Donnelly, director of retail services at TechTown. Face-to-face contact with customers in pop-ups also can lead to new opportunities for business owners, she said.
