The new innovative retail concept has debuted in the Swedish city of Gothenburg earlier this year. FÖMO, short for “fear of missing out”, a new shopping experience inMölndal Galleria, is as a physical lifestyle magazine, which provides a platform for brands to use it as a gateway into Sweden.
Similar to a micro-department store, it features anything and everything from clothing, accessories, footwear, jewellery, home decor, art and handcrafted goods. The difference, however, is that it’s not a typical store, it is anything but. It is an event focused destination for brand activation and for entrepreneurs to use the space to create a different type of experience. Its main focus is the ever-changing offer, with brands having a limited time to showcase their products or service, meaning that every time customers visit the store they will see, smell or taste something new.
‘The FÖMO concept can be considered the WeWork of retail. It offers convenience and a wow factor by providing limited editions and space as a service,” says Ilona Taillade, CEO of BrandSpots, and founder of the FÖMO concept.
So what does it mean for retailers? FÖMO is breaking down the barriers for international brands to enter a new market and provides Retail As A Service (RAAS). It is practically risk-free for the retailer and provides the environment to test and launch new products or services. It is a place where retailers can engage with the customer to showcase and showroom their products. Brands are able to book space in the store through the We Are Pop Up online platform.
“There are many international brands that want to enter the Swedish market, but don’t want to make a half a million investment without testing the waters. With FÖMO it’s a flagship pop-up store where brands get the chance to test the market without the risks,” says Ilona Taillade, founder of FÖMO.
‘FOMO want to enrich the shopping experience in a way that feels exciting and innovative. Its urban location in Gothenburg and modern design makes Mölndal Galleria a suitable setting for brands to maximise brand awareness and activation,” says Magnus Bergman, Property Development Director at Citycon Mölndal Galleria.
The We Are Pop Up team were delighted to win the award for Best Business 2016 at the Mayor of Hackney’s Business Awards last night.
The winner of each award category was selected by a panel of leading business figures, headed up by the Mayor of Hackney himself, Jules Pipe. Rather fittingly, the Awards bash took place at the Borough’s own versatile pop up space and long-standing We Are Pop Up customer, BL-NK.
“The awards help to showcase the extraordinary work of the local business community, rewarding those who contribute most to the life and prosperity of the borough’s economy.”
Jules Pipe, Mayor of Hackney
The award recognised We Are Pop Up’s outstanding contribution to the Borough, but we couldn’t have done it without the innovation and creativity of local Hackney businesses. Our very first customers were based in Hackney and since then, we’ve all been growing together, to pioneer the future of creative retail.
“This award means a lot to us. We Are Pop Up started with a few brands and shops in Hackney in 2014. Hackney is one of London creative and entrepreneurial epicentres, and our early – and current – customers reflect that spirit and drive. Today, we have offices in London and New York, and we’ve moved customers between 22 countries around the world. Hackney remains one of our most sought-after destinations, and we’re proud to be a Hackney business through and through.”
Nicholas Russell, Founder and CEO of We Are Pop Up
Since we first launched the world’s first fully automated real estate transaction, customers from 22 countries have used the service to book over 42 years of pop up space. In Hackney Borough alone we’re trusted by over 250 retail and hospitality spaces, and we’re only just getting started.
The pop up events and retail experiences that brands and spaces create using the We Are Pop Up platform are helping Hackney’s retail and service economy, and keeping it firmly on the map as a destination. Brands that We Are Pop Up has matched with retail spaces across Hackney include Secret Cinema, Edwin Jeans, Playn Eyewear, MOO.com and Blend & Press amongst others.
Emma Wood, Founder of Blend & Press
And boutique owners from Stoke Newington to Shoreditch have embraced ShopShare, using the We Are Pop Up platform to book brands into their spaces and collaborate with each other.
We Are Pop Up’s ShopShare is helping to shore up the high street by supporting independent retailers to make money from their retail space. Our mission is to help independent retail thrive by thinking differently about the possibilities of space. In talking to our users we realised that we could do more to help smaller brands that wanted to test concepts in the market without committing to rent an entire shop.
That’s why we launched ShopShare in the first place. It’s an opportunity for shops to rent out part of their floorspace, from a rail, a table, a shelf or a concession, or even the whole shop.
As any discerning culture vulture knows, pop ups are synonymous with culture, entrepreneurship and the arts. The We Are Pop Up site is the destination for creative retail which encompasses everything from fashion and accessories to pop up cinema, food, art and design. The brands using our site to book spaces are keeping Hackney’s cultural diary very busy with their events and pop up launches. From Secret Cinema to a ‘pop up coin op’ gaming studio in Clapton, to a Porridge Café in Hoxton, there’s always something new being added to the Borough’s cultural diary.
Right now, pop ups in the Borough include:
Facebar London at Butchers Hair Salon – a professional makeup bar in a creative hair salon on Hackney Road offering the services of experienced fashion industry makeup artists at much more accessible prices.
Nicola Fiveash, Founder of Facebar London
The Joinery at Showroom Shoreditch – an organic and ethically mindful fashion brand based in Cape Town, South Africa collaborating with a concept store and designer showroom to bring products direct from townships in Africa to the hands of Hackney fashionistas.
“Our garments and leather accessories are produced by hand out of local townships in Cape Town by local women’s sewing co-operatives. We started The Joinery to provide an alternative to the way apparel and accessories are produced. We absolutely love We are Pop up! It has been super beneficial for us.”
Natalie and Kim, Founders of The Joinery.
Sisters Natalie and Kim, Founders of The Joinery
We were very pleased to hear that the Best Hackney Business Award also recognises the company’s environmental work in the Borough. We Are Pop Up’s Founding CEO, Nicholas Russell, is from a sustainability background and the business today remains true to his original vision to ‘recycle’ property, sourcing latent supply of space and making it available to book easily online. For example, we heard from Rio Cinema that the venue had a disused basement. Using We Are Pop Up, they were able to connect directly with Monograph London, a sushi supperclub brand which has now used the space for a full series of events. An under-utilised public space. A brand thirsty for a unique venue. We Are Pop Up helps creative retailers to make unexpected connections like this daily – there are no barriers and few boundaries.
To all our early-adopters, supporters and pop up entrepreneurs across the borough of Hackney and beyond – this award is all of ours. To you, we raise a glass and toast to pioneering the future of creative retail.
At We Are Pop Up, we believe in freedom of expression through retail.
Until now, entrepreneurs have not been able to rent sections of retail spaces, even though that’s often all they need. In a recent post, we talked in more detail about this philosophy and how sharing is completely reshaping retail. WAPU was founded on a belief that the only way for the full spectrum of entrepreneurs to access retail is to democratise the process, create transparent pricing and direct communication between spaceowners and brands.
We’re pushing the forefront of a retail revolution that will see shared space become the dominant form of retail.
But retail space was just the beginning, and property transactions are one small piece of the creative retail journey. By connecting retail brands, We Are Pop Up creates a conversation ecosystem around real estate. Real estate is no longer just property; it’s a campfire around which entrepreneurs are redefining their neighborhoods. Today’s brands don’t just want square feet. They want the tools to build social capital, grow networks and create new business partnerships.
That’s why we’ve just announced a new feature – direct messaging between brands. With this move, We Are Pop Up becomes the world’s first social network for retailers. Leading the movement toward creative retail, brands and space owners can now meet not only to do property deals, but also to collaborate, share resources, and develop new ideas and consumer offers.
First we connected tenants and landlords, now we connect brands with spaces, other brands, and service providers and other supplies.
With each new feature, we make the world of retail property more open to innovation and opportunity. We started with the world’s first online retail agreement. Then we added ShopShare to enable brands and spaces to collaborate in any retail shop – vacant or not.
Brand profiles on We Are Pop Up
In 2014, ShopShare captured the imagination of retailers in 20 countries – from London to NYC and beyond. Brands started connecting with brands, and so in 2015, we launched brand pages, which gives every retail brand a beautiful billboard showcasing their products and social network reach.
And now, with brand to brand communication, we break down another barrier and enable true collaboration between brands.
Brand to brand messaging means brands can discover and connect. They can pool budgets to book larger spaces, grow their networks, and ultimately do more business. Thousands of small brands have used We Are Pop Up to create new retail businesses, and now this enables them to collaborate and take those new retail brands to the next level.
An appetite for communication that is open and instant powers the creative retail economy. With this launch, we invite brands and retailers to collaborate in ways not previously possible.
Nicholas Russell, CEO of We Are Pop Up
Creative retailers are collaborative by nature. In daily conversations with our customers, they told us they wanted to connect with other brands to create and remix concepts. We Are Pop Up’s mission has always been bringing down the barriers by stripping out middlemen and connecting people with people. This is the next step on that mission.
The possibilities for brand-to-brand messaging are endless, ultimately our goal is to put tools in the hands of space owners and retailers that make doing business frictionless.
Possible uses for brand messaging include:
Collaborate
Curate
Get inspiration
Share Resources
Chat
Pop up together
Ask Advice
Ultimately, it’s your tool for your business. We can’t wait to see what you will create now. Why not head over to We Are Pop Up and connect with brands today.
Wednesday, We Are Pop Up joins Barclays, Hive, DriveNow and Funding Circle as nominees for Market Gravity’s Corporate Entrepreneur Awards. We don’t spend much time thinking about awards, but being recognised for best new product and service gives us a reason for pause. We’ll be joining more than 400 of Europe’s most creative, disruptive and entrepreneurial business leaders at this year’s Market Gravity Corporate Entrepreneur Awards – the biggest yet – to enjoy a night celebrating innovation in business.
The innovation for which We Are Pop Up has been recognised? Fully automated real-estate transactions. This sophisticated engine sits on the back-end of the wearepopup.com website and powers every single booking between a space and brand. For the first time, brands and spaces can not only discover each other and connect directly, they can also pay and have legal protection as-standard, all included seamlessly in the process. Instead of 10-year leases, we’ve enabled 10-day leases. Or, ten-hour leases. Or a ten hour lease shared with ten brands.
“The acceleration of technology and digitisation has enabled a step change in a company’s ability to deliver innovations at a faster pace than ever before.” Market Gravity.
Funding Circle is a peer-to-peer lending service which allows savers to lend money directly to small and medium sized businesses.
Renting a retail space could take weeks to transact and from the outside, retail property deals looked like a complex web of relationships built on exclusivity clauses and long-term contracts. Working collaboratively with leading real estate legal practice Hogan Lovells LLP, we standardised and digitised the property contract and created the world’s first fully automated commercial property transactions.
DriveNow is a joint venture between BMW and Sixt that provides carsharing services in several cities in Europe and North America.
Our innovation connects brands directly with spaces, cutting out the middleman and all of the paperwork. Spaces set their own prices and terms. They rent for a day or a year. They can rent a full building, or just a shelf within their shop (an increasingly popular option under We Are Pop Up’s ShopShare) They review, accept, and decline brand requests on mobile phones.
Our rental agreement protects our customers’ bookings. It works by taking the information they provide us and auto-populating the agreement. Both the space or brand’s listing and any direct messages between them form an annex to the rental agreement.
The Hive Active Heating Thermostat and App let you control your heating and hot water from your smartphone, tablet or laptop.
People are literally building businesses on top of the We Are Pop Up platform. As a result, we have over 21,500 brands registered with We Are Pop Up, booking short term retail space for anything from a day to 6 months or more.
We’ve brought down the time it takes to book a retail space too – the record so far has been a 7 minute deal: A brand contacted one of London’s most popular fashion boutiques at 9:55AM and at 10:02AM had booked to pop up.
The Barclays Accelerator powered by Techstars is a three month intensive FinTech startup programme.
Brands and spaces can book 24/7 at times that suit them. 32% of brands and spaces book outside of office hours. Removing the contract negotiation totally changed the nature of landlord / tenant interactions – so much so that we changed our vocabulary from “tenants” and “landlords” to “brands” and “space owners” to reflect the people using our platform.
It turns out, by removing agents, lawyers, and contracts, not only did we remove delays and costs associated, we also changed the inherent nature of the interaction from adversarial to collaborative. And we’re only just getting started.
We built We Are Pop Up to customise the retail ecosystem for the 21st century. With bookings from over a thousand entrepreneurs in 14 countries, we’ve grown to be the biggest shared retail marketplace in the world. From Glassworks in Shoreditch to Seaport Studios in downtown New York, we’re inspired every day by the entrepreneurs who are building more creative cities. Shared retail spaces are becoming neighbourhood anchors and producing stronger local culture. Over the past three years, creative retailers used We Are Pop Up to lease 32 years of shops. Which means that each calendar year, brands are thinking through and iterating on a decade’s worth of ideas. To you, Madame and Sir, we raise a glass.
All the iterations result in rapid retail evolution that’s reshaping our city. The high street is no longer just about buying and selling. Entrepreneurs are using spaces to build social capital, grow networks and discover lifelong partnerships. More than 40% of creative retail projects – from pop ups to pop ins, retail residencies to cross-category collaborations – are initiated by landlords. Something that was previously impossible to do without an open and transparent marketplace where both brands and spaces can contact each other. Retailers expand to second spaces to fulfil the demand from brands without spaces of their own. Bankers organise citywide contests to spark more meaningful careers. Visionaries tap tech leaders and non-profit think tanks to help strategise the store of the future.
We’re finding that the creative retail economy is powered by two main drivers. One is communication that’s faster, more streamlined, more comprehensive and more direct. Two is transparent information on pricing and expectations. Brands can quickly differentiate between an opportunity that’s £9 a day vs one that’s £100. Retailers can immediately understand and recruit brands via their online profiles and the rich information presented in them. Then track results and gauge interest via our comprehensive dashboard. Coalition-minded entrepreneurs can connect directly through our brand to brand messaging. And they’re connecting and collaborating faster and more frequently than we ever expected. Since the launch of brand profiles in August, new brand listings were up 86% last month alone, with a 500% growth in shared retail this past year.
114 Church Street, Brighton
We hear regularly from spaces being harassed by agents with exclusivity clauses. Contracts that return value only to the agents, not to the customers they serve or the creativity of the city. Rather than navigate adversarial exclusivity contracts and intimidate each other with those agreements, or chase down agents, our community takes business into their own hands. It takes just minutes to complete a booking on We Are Pop Up, meaning more time for the creative retail projects that are becoming the lifeblood of our city.
We believe in freedom of expression through retail. We believe there’s a massive shared retail revolution happening. We believe it because we see it every day.
Take James Woodward’s No Walls Gallery for instance. Earlier this month, he listed his space and within 24 hours closed a £1500 partnership with vintage label House of Bricks. Within one week, London entrepreneurs sent him another 182 qualified leads and he’s now fully booked through to next year. We approach retail like Woodward approaches his space: no walls, no agents, just democratic creative retail. And to that, we raise our glass. Raise one with us. And join over 21,500 people who are building stronger, more creative cities on We Are Pop Up.
Last week we celebrated New York Fashion Week with our friends at NOLCHA Shows, Open Source Fashion, Citi, InList, A Small World and Imagination in Space. We took over Paramount Hotel’s Queen of the Night, toasted to independent fashion designers and a new season of New York City styles. Check out pictures below and stay with us for more news from New York City later this month.
Here at We Are Pop Up we are passionate about helping independent brands onto the high street, then once they are there, helping them succeed.
That’s why for the entire month of July, we’re delighted to support Independent Retailer Month – an annual campaign to highlight the crucial role that smaller, local, independent retailers have within the communities they serve, the local economy they contribute to and the retail sector as a whole.
Throughout July we will be profiling our favourite indie retailers every single day, from the best brands popping up to the super spaces on the high street we love.
And that’s not all – for every independent retailer signing up with We Are Pop Up for the month of July, we’ll give £25 off your first booking, whether you’re a retailer on the high street looking to rent out a part of your shop with our ShopShare scheme, or you’re a brand looking to pop up.
Follow us on Twitter and Facebook for top stories, interviews, insights and new spaces daily, and why not join the conversation with @wearepopup and #IndieRetail.
You too can find the perfect independent retailer for your pop-up here.
We Are Pop Up is the world’s largest destination for short term retail. We connect brands and spaces directly, with no agents in the middle, and no paperwork. The only peer-to-peer marketplace of retail space, our fast, flexible and open platform helps you find and book your perfect space in minutes, rather than weeks.
Our fast, flexible and open system is not only better for brands, spaces, and consumers but is also helping to maintain sustainable independent shops: Retailers can transform their shop and make big returns from small spaces with our ShopShare offer. We enable brands, spaces and customers to collaborate, pool resources and co-create the high street of the future.
Since 2013, customers have launched over 1,000 pop-up shops across London, the UK and Europe. The spaces on We Are Pop Up range in price from £2 a day for a shared shop, to £150 a day for a full shop, to over £1,000 a day for large unique venues.
Our mission is to help independent retail thrive by thinking differently about the possibilities of space.
How we compare:
We Are Pop Up
Online Competitors
Traditional Agent
TOTAL FEES
10%
15%-20%
12-20%
UPFRONT COSTS
Free to list
Free to list
Fixed agency fees whether successful or not
PRICING
Itemised and fully transparent
Hidden inclusive fee
Hidden costs
SERVICE
An open marketplace where landlords and tenants connect directly
Agents acting as middlemen
Agents acting as middlemen
LEGALS
Fully automated licence that executes in minutes
Digital Lease that executes in 2 weeks
Manual lease that can take weeks or months to execute
OPENING HOURS
24 hours a day, 7 days a week
Regular office open hours
Regular office open hours
WHEN CAN I BOOK?
Whenever you’re ready. Bookings even completed on Christmas Day and New Years Eve!
Regular office open hours
Regular office open hours
LANDLORD EXCLUSIVITY CLAUSES
We do not enforce exclusivity clauses. We want to make the city more open.
Landlord exclusivity clauses as standard
Landlord exclusivity clauses as standard
PROTECTION
Escrow account holds your money safely until you have the keys to your pop up
We Are Pop Up’s Referrals connect brands, spaces, and customers. Customers get £25 for every new shop they help create.
This is an online referral programme that pays a £25 commission. It also turns every person in the world into a property agent and allows you to have a hand in shaping communities and cities.
When you share, two things happen: you create new opportunities, and you get paid.
Why Share?:
ShopShare helps independent retail thrive by thinking differently about shops. ShopShare makes it easy for new brands to get into retail. It also keeps today’s High Street shops healthy.
Good for Brands: Great ideas launch daily on the High Street. What was previously difficult and expensive is now affordable and easy.
Good for shops: Real estate is expensive. Rent, business rates, utilities, etc can quickly add up. ShopShare gives local shops new income and helps them compete with big chains and franchises.
It’s good for the rest of us because it’s good, old-fashioned fun. High Streets going back to market town heritages. Coffee bars in a hair salon. A gelato stand in a florist. A porridge bar in an art gallery. Art in a shoe shop.
And if that doesn’t do it for you, perhaps this will – We Are Pop Up is the only property marketplace that directly connects brands and spaces. We put control of shops and the High Street back into the hands of people like you. What High Street do you want to see?
If you care about your town, your city, and know there’s a better way than streets that all look the same – share your code.
How It Works:
You’re signed up and have a unique referral code to share. Track your shares on your dashboard at wearepopup.com.
From your dashboard you can tweet, post to facebook, Google Plus and LinkedIn. You can email your code to your entire address book. You can cut and paste your code and share it in any way you wish – so do it!
When a new space signs up and books a brand, you get paid £25.
When a new brand signs up and books a space, you get paid £25.
You don’t have to be a space or a brand to share. Just keep sharing your unique code across all your networks. When someone signs up using your code – we will email you and it will appear on your dashboard.
You told us how important it is to hear about new spaces as soon as they list so we’ve built Space Alerts. It’s simple – you set up an alert and tell us what type of spaces you are looking for. Then the moment any new space lists which matches your criteria, you’ll receive an email allowing you to view it online and get in touch with the landlord direct to start discussing a booking.
It’s easy to set up. Just search for space as normal and click ‘create space alert’ on our search results.
Give your alert a name, adjust search criteria if you need to, then hit ‘create alert. Whether you’re looking for a Shop Share in Shoreditch or a Boutique in Birmingham, you can save one or several different searches.
Then it’s just a matter of time until those spaces list – we have new spaces signing up with us every single day. Then you can go about planning your pop up, safe in the knowledge we’ll tell you about suitable spaces the minute they become available. You can edit or delete your alerts at any time in the ‘My Alerts’ menu in the top right of every page.
