No Longer A One-Off: How Pop-Ups Became Part Of Retailers’ Core Strategy

Online retailer The Flex Company, which makes a disc-shaped tampon alternative, is opening its first pop-up store on Thursday on Wooster Street in New York City’s SoHo neighborhood. There, visitors can purchase Flex products and learn more about the history of menstrual products. Lauren Schulte, the company’s co-founder and CEO, hopes the pop-up store can help propound the notion that menstruation is a normal part of a woman’s life, and feminine care products can be sold outside the back aisles of a drugstore. Like Flex, more and more retailers — big and small — are seeking a brick-and-mortar presence in the form of a pop-up store, and the focus of these temporary shops is shifting from sales to brand experience. For instance, Arianna Huffington’s initiative Thrive Global partnered with agency The Lionesque Group to run a pop-up store in SoHo for six weeks during the last holiday season, where Thrive Global showcased some of its products like non-pharmacological sleep aids and high-end sleepwear. Aside from startups, technology conglomerates like Google and Samsung have also set up pop-up stores in SoHo to let visitors play with their gadgets. Even media companies like Bleacher Report have dabbled in pop-ups. Read more at Digiday.