Reasons to love festive pop-ups

Nothing lends a sense of occasion like something that sprouts overnight and will soon vanish.

That is probably why the year-end holiday season is such a fertile time for festive pop-up stores offering anything from gifts to baked goods and everything in between.

These temporary guerilla stores may seem faddish, but really, they can be traced back to the seasonal Christmas markets that originated in Germany and Austria in the late Middle Ages.

And in Singapore, even while new ones continue to make their debut, pop-ups have been flourishing for longer than you might think.

POP-UPS ARE TOPS

Metro’s Christmas Magic Trim Shoppe, for instance, is a yearly pop-up store that has been held for more than 35 years. For many, it has always been the reliable one-stop place for Christmas ornaments, toys and gifts. And its activities, including the Wishing Tree, Letter to Santa and the Dress Your Bear contest, are also popular staples of the season.

“Shopper response has been positive, and we have been seeing an average uplift of 10 per cent year on year,” said Erwin Oei, head, Business Analytics, Marketing, CRM & Merchandising Controller, Metro. “Christmas is traditionally the peak period for sales as shoppers still value the experience of browsing through department stores for gifts and being able to handpick presents from a wide selection.”

Adding to tradition, this year’s Trim Shoppe (at Metro Paragon until Dec 31, Metro Centrepoint until Dec 24 and Metro Woodlands until Dec 18) has new features such as an interactive mobile toy catalogue, a S$25 mystery toy bag promotion and five themed Christmas trees standing at over two metres tall.

Often, pop-ups can grow into something bigger, as in the case of Naiise, which started out as an online retailer. “We credit our first few pop-up stores as being instrumental in building the brand and helping us to expand rapidly, both online and offline, in the last three years,” said founder Dennis Tay. That’s one of the reasons “we hold a Christmas pop-up every year, to bring focus back to our pop-up store roots”.

This year, Naiise is holding its third Christmas pop-up until Dec 24 (Fridays to Sundays) at 66 Kampong Bugis’ converted warehouse space, with a camping theme. Apart from shopping for themed gifts and food, you also get to earn badges for specific tasks completed in the store. The campfire vibe is designed to bring people together, Tay shared. “By having a pop-up in a destination that offers a memorable, melting-pot experience of food and communal activities, we hope to convince people that retail can be more experiential rather than purely transactional.”

In this sense, pop-ups achieve what regular stores can’t. “A well-executed pop-up store with a strong theme should be seen as a unique experience, and can offer a sense of novelty for consumers, providing something to look forward to. This temporary nature captures attention, and keeps consumers interested in our next move,” Tay said. “Pop-up stores are also potential creative opportunities to create unique experiences that go beyond pure retail, as well as explore collaborations with like-minded companies to provide more offerings and attractions. For Naiise, our Christmas pop-up stores allow us to celebrate our ties with the community, and create a line-up of activities that showcases the best of our local creative scene.”

This year’s pop-up also has a lot to do with the chilly retail climate, Tay added. “We realised that several news articles about the retail landscape and general public sentiment were negative, and that inspired us to try to put a positive spin on the situation and take this as an opportunity to find ways to become more creative, to discover new ways to engage our customers,” he said. “Naiise Camp Christmas is also our way of thanking the community and giving back to our customers who have supported us in a challenging retail year, and we will be extending a sure-win lucky dip to every customer, as well as complimentary Christmas gift wrapping that has been specially designed for the pop-up store.”

KEEP THE POP HITS COMING

Each year, there are more fleeting shindigs that pop up. Another festive event is a new initiative started by the resident store owners at Tan Boon Liat (TBL) building, a hub for home furnishings. For the first time, 20 showrooms are collectively throwing a #TBLblockparty over this weekend (Nov 26 and 27, 10am to 7pm), with shopping promotions, complimentary food and wine tastings, styling and craft workshops, design talks, and silent auctions.

Jenny Lewis, founder and owner of participating showroom Bode, said that the idea was inspired by the Paris Deco Off, a fabric-focused showcase where visitors rove from shop to shop to discover different brands.

“TBL is perfect for the homeowner who’s looking for something different, and in that vein, we wanted to promote our showrooms in a fun, offbeat way. By banding together, we create more reasons for visitors to come out and explore the TBL building,” she said. “What we’re also hoping for is to connect with visitors — unlike large malls and larger stores, a lot of our showrooms are owner-operated, and visitors can get the chance to discover the stories behind the products and brands, as well as pick up tips from all of us in the industry.”

The year-end holiday season is ideal for such an event, she said, because “it’s a celebratory time for most people, so people are in a party mood.” If the turnout is good, she said, it may become an annual tradition. And in future, “we may also do other themed events — for instance, for Mother’s Day or National Day.”

Sentosa Cove is another organisation that has decided to hold its first festive pop-up shopping event this year: A Holiday Market, held in collaboration with event organiser Fleaware, the team behind the Makers’ Market at Capitol Piazza and the Fantastic Thai Market at Tanjong Pagar Railway Station.

“Over the years, Sentosa Cove Resort Management (SCRM) has organised several events open only to residents in conjunction with celebrations such as Christmas, National Day and even the Mooncake Festival,” said Catherine Chew, General Manager, Sentosa Cove Resort Management. “Encouraged by the success and popularity of past events, we decided to bring a Holiday Market to Sentosa Cove to showcase unique artisanal products, while engaging both residents and the public at large.” The market is open today and tomorrow (Nov 25 and 26) from 5pm to 10pm, with a festively lit Sentosa Cove Village, a five-metre-tall Christmas tree and the ONE°15 Christmas Boat Light Parade (Nov 26) as its backdrop.

If successful, a pop-up may have an interminable life span, as in the case of Boutiques, a twice-yearly affair involving local designers that has run for the past 15 years. The most recent, Boutiques: The Gifting Edition, held earlier this month, drew about 15,000 visitors. Founder Charlotte Cain is hoping its success will continue. “Boutiques is passionate about supporting independent designers and we’ve really seen an uptick in Singapore’s design scene as well as the number of small, creative brands here, so we hope to continue championing them for as long as we can,” she said.