Amazon recently announced that it will be teaming up with Calvin Klein on pop-up stores for the holidays. Amazon will be providing technology to customize the buyer experience, and Calvin Klein will be providing a product that cannot be purchased anywhere else.
The growth of pop-up shops has been on the rise over the past couple of years and experts predict that 2018 will see even more, even going so far as to call 2018 the “Year of the pop-up”.
What is a pop-up shop?
To boil down the definition of a “pop-up shop”, it is simply a physical store location with an expiration date. They are temporary residences in a high foot traffic location such as indoor or outdoor malls and busy streets. They may even be as simple as a kiosk or cart selling a product. A great example of this is a Halloween store that may open at the beginning of October and close a week into November.
Pop-up shops are becoming increasingly popular for both e-commerce businesses without a storefront, as well as brick and mortar business who are looking to create a buzz around a product or service. The temporary physical location helps to drive sales and grow brand or product awareness by disrupting the regular flow of buying and foot traffic around a specific location.
Why does retail need to pay attention to pop-ups?
There are many direct correlations between a pop-up shop and traditional brick and mortar retail locations. There is a lot to be learned about why pop-ups can be so successful. Setting the products and services aside, one can dive into the strategy behind a pop-up and you’ll quickly see it is about branding and an experience.
Many pop-ups focus on the launch of a new product or service, as previously discussed. Creating the hype and excitement around a brand is important. Consumers are looking for some new, or offered for a limited time. Being able to engage on more of an intimate level with a brand brings a new level of strength to the consumer/brand relationship.
2 things all retailers can learn from pop-ups.
1. Branding
Branding is extremely important in today’s marketplace. Customers, investors, and employees alike largely make decisions based on their experience and perception of a brand. This is obvious for customers, but where some retailers may lack direction is in their employer brand.
Pop-up shops are temporary stores, so require temporary workers. Granted, in many cases workers are ‘borrowed’ from existing brick and mortar locations, but in many instances, new employees are hired for the life of the pop-up. Attracting employees to a pop-up requires a strong employer brand. Imagine if you could apply this same lust for employment to your primary retail locations.
Retailers need to understand that their candidates are in fact customers. Jobs are shopped in a similar manner to how consumers decide on what product to choose. Emphasize the uniqueness of the role throughout your career sites, job board postings, applications, and right through to the questions used during the screening and interviewing process.
2. Recruitment and Staffing
If branding helps to bring candidates through your front door, then your staffing process is what needs to sell them on your business. Pop-up shops need to maximize every candidate interested in the position, so what’s the trick?
Process, process, process, and metrics.
Consistency in your recruitment process is the key to success. No matter how a candidate finds you, they must be evaluated quickly and in the same manner as the candidate before them. This will ensure that you are screening all candidates against the same set of standards and are consistently meeting your workforce quality goals.
When sales matter, your employees (and candidates) matter more!
Companies like Mindfield exist to improve the quality of your workforce. This not only applies to the candidates that you attract but also your Hiring Managers. We give time and money back to your store to help you focus on growing your business. Let Mindfield help build your employer brand and execute a recruitment process that is matched by some of Canada’s leading retailers. All while saving you recruitment dollars.
About Mindfield
Mindfield is a Recruitment Outsourcing solutions provider that partners with companies to create powerful hourly workforces. Our solutions combine a recruitment team, simple to use technology and a data-driven hiring strategy that promises to improve the quality of your hourly workforce. This approach focuses on tying business outcomes such as sales performance, tenure, and engagement to the selection, hiring and measurement of quality candidates.
