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Shopping center industry and the financial health of retailers

Ever since the first merchants entered the market to sell their wares in a town square in Central Asia, the terminology describing short-term rental opportunities has developed. Millenia is gone, and the concept of farmers, entrepreneurs or retailers coming to the central market to sell their goods is as important today as it was then. This is what we call specialty leasing. Business development, short-term rentals, kiosks, vinyls advertising, pop-up shops, etc… All these describe the same concept. Temporarily open storefronts or spaces to sell your products or services to interested shoppers.

Since the pandemic set foot, the notion that retailers or business owners can open stores for a short period of time has been more strongly considered than ever. Not only did COVID-19 change the shopping habits of consumers, but also changed the shopping habits of retailers looking for commercial real estate. 

Retailers’ entire supply chain basically collapsed overnight. Nowadays, large international retailers are temporarily looking for locations just to improve traffic. Distance restrictions have caused retailers to rethink merchandising, in-store traffic and the overall shopping experience. In some cases, brands require retailers to purchase products under contract. Even though the store leasing contracts closed earlier this year, store sales have fallen. Strong omnichannel efforts are critical to the success of the retail industry in the 21st century, yet few retailers pursue it, let alone polish it. Due to the economic impact of the pandemic, the vacancy rate is rising, and owners are looking for ways to fill these vacancies quickly.

The concept of opening a temporary store was originally a way of making money for entrepreneurs. Now, data analysis, psychology, and marketing all play an important role in the success of pop-up stores. Fundamentally, opening a store in the short term should consider some critical aspects: control, independent and dependent variables, and constants.

Control

A truly successful pop-up store should be assessed and compared with other similar stores. Measuring sales is an easy indicator that can be monitored. Social media provides real-time documentation on the progress of the initiative. Although many people only focus on how many likes and vanity sighs their posts get on social media, instant feedback from actual shoppers is valuable. It is also important to understand which products are being successful and why. For example: Amazon’s Pop-Up 1.0 provided HQ with immediate feedback on Alexa and other hardware sales. Amazon is satisfying shoppers like never before. Amazon Pop-Up 2.0 brings a similar vision: the company is using these settings to monitor the performance of third-party brands. Version 2.0 was launched in 2019 with The Food Network.

Independent & Dependent Variables

In the case of temporary stores, the independent variables may be location, sales, weather, traffic, time, visibility, service, and many other aspects that could affect the overall performance of the store. 

When opening pop-up storage, the dependent variable is the performance fluctuation based on the changes of the independent variables. For instance, if your merchandise is clean and tidy, it is clearly displayed and all available products can be seen, the store performance should be better than when you spend 30 seconds organizing shelves and boxes in an educated, high-end shopping location. 

Constants

This will not change during the opening of the store. The constants can be the location, the product brought to the event, the date and time of the event. These are aspects that may affect the outcome of the incident. Constants are elements that do not change during the event. When you are experimenting with different retail options, monitoring constants is a good way to see how the results are affected by the environment created from the beginning. For example: The Halloween shopping season is widely accepted as the 8 weeks between September 1st and October 31st. This period will never change, and it is a constant to compare store performance during this period.

So, in the process of opening a pop-up store, there are many variables that could affect the success of the store. The analysis shouldn’t be limited to a few data points. Retail trials are vital to the development of the shopping center industry and the health of retailers that are newly opened every day.

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