When is a Store a Pop-Up?

When it comes to pop-ups, anything goes these days, it appears. Talk to a department store chain and they will inform you with a straight face that they have pop-ups in a number of their stores. What they really mean is that, where space permits, they’ve put in a temporary promotion, and it will be gone in a while (normally when the items being promoted are superseded by something else).

Now wander along the average high street (or main street, as you might prefer to refer to them in the U.S.), and the chances are probable that you will end up looking at a real pop-up – a store that is here today, tomorrow and perhaps the day after. Except that the perception may actually be misleading. In the case of Larsson & Jennings, the Swedish purveyor of upscale watches, its “Summer Store” on London’s Regent Street might lead you to think that what you are looking at is a pop-up store. All the signs are in place, from the shiny-but-distinctly minimalist mid-floor display equipment to a singular lack of graphics on the walls. Everything indicates a pop-up with the “Summer Store” banner in the window confirming your suspicions.

The only problem is that this is a store that has been here for some time: The “Summer Store” will be in place at least until October and will then be replaced by a refitted Larsson & Jennings store with a more permanent fit-out. A more accurate description of what you are looking at is a Larsson & Jennings pop-up shopfit, but a pop-up store this is not.

The term “pop-up” used to be such a straightforward descriptor, but these days, it is used by a multitude of organizations to mean a multiplicity of things. Pop-ups are a segment of retail design that continues to evolve and nothing is certain. The only thing can be said without fear of contradiction is that a temporary store is not the fixed thing it once was … as it were. 

John Ryan is a journalist covering the retail sector, a role he has fulfilled for more than a decade. As well as being the European Editor of VMSD magazine, he writes for a broad range of publications in the U.K., the U.S. and Germany with a focus on in-store marketing, display and layout, as well as the business of store architecture and design. In a previous life, he was a buyer for C&A, based in London and then Düsseldorf, Germany. He lives and works in London.