The Permanent Pop-Up Surfaces in London

WE ARE ALL FAMILIAR with pop-ups. Visit New York City’s SoHo and there seems to be a new one for every day of the week.

Yet they are ephemeral things, and it’s reasonable to assume their existence is because a building or retail unit is between tenants. The moment a new permanent resident arrives, the pop-up will be no more.

Across the pond in London, however, things may not be quite like this if the arrival of Future Stores on Oxford Street is anything to go by. This is a retail space at the eastern end of the long thoroughfare (still Europe’s busiest shopping street), which contains around 4300 square feet of programmable LED panels covering the walls and ceiling.

A space can be rented for periods of 2-6 weeks, and the idea is that a brand or retailer can make it their own by programming the screens to provide static or moving content that will reflect what they are about and exert a siren call on passing shoppers.

As such, rather than any fly-by-night affair, it is a permanent pop-up space with the assumption shoppers will know it as a location where change is the key element. It is also large enough to ensure that it can contain more than one offer, meaning not just change but the potential for several new propositions at the same moment.

The question is: Will this work? Can it generate sufficient revenues from its temporary tenants to pay the rent and show some kind of profit?

Something of the kind, but with much smaller units spread across the U.K., ceased trading at the beginning of this year, even though it attracted a large amount of comment. Speculation, therefore, on whether its ultimate failure was due to size and the type of retailers and brands it attracted or something else is just that: Nobody really knows. The fact, however, that another outfit is prepared to give this kind of thing a go must surely mean that the future for Future Stores may be positive.