Pop-up shops are a powerful way to build buzz and awareness of your brand, generate immediate sales and drum up new customers. If you’ve been considering launching a brick-and-mortar location for your business or you’re testing the waters with a new idea, a pop-up shop is a highly relevant and affordable first step to experiment seeing what customers love and engage with. Here is one brand’s journey from pop-up to multi-sites. S Connect can help your business thrive.
When La Moda Boutique, one of the Sunshine Coast’s fastest-growing women’s fashion brands, ‘popped up’ in Stockland in 2021 the brand quickly grew a loyal following of shoppers. Today, La Moda Boutique has three pop-ups in the region and continue to work closely with Stockland to grow their local market and increase brand awareness.
Owner/operator of La Moda Boutique, Mark Barlow, said he didn’t hesitate to open a pop-up space in a Stockland centre.
“It was really important that we created a consistent experience for all our customers and that we continue to create a community around our brand in-store and online. For us, leveraging the power of a Stockland retail town centre with its engaged shoppers in our regional trade area was an easy decision,” Barlow said.
Barlow believes Stockland retail town centres bring vast numbers of shoppers and brands together because Stockland understands its customers and their behaviours in centre and that translates to shoppers spending money.
“Popping up in more than one Stockland centre gets us noticed by shoppers and allows us to explore new markets and grow brand loyalty. We have done both small pop-ups and longer-term spaces. We like the variety and options available so we can do what suits us at the time. Stockland has made the process easy so the set-up of our store is quicker and more affordable for us as a business model.”
S Connect has the power to connect brands both big and small with an engaged and loyal shopper community. And its biggest point-of-difference is that it curates bespoke pop-up partnerships that truly bring a brand to life.
S Connect works with emerging start-ups and established brands bringing their online business into a physical retail space for the first time to tailor casual leasing partnerships – a short-term pop up in one centre to test the market or longer term arrangements that support a business’s growth trajectory across multiple centres in a region.
With a diversity of retail centres throughout Australian communities, S Connect’s unique proposition is its ability to customise spaces to suit a brand’s needs and ignite shopper attention.
For La Moda Boutique, that was finding dynamic and thriving Stockland centres that are welcoming and accessible – places that connect people and are regional destinations for the Sunshine Coast.
Barlow said Stockland is a great fit for La Moda Boutique.
“We love the community feel in Stockland centres and how everyone is approachable, warm and friendly helping to bring their business to new heights. Customers feel a sense of belonging here too, which translates to more regular visitation. From coffee and cake with friends to their children playing on the play space its more than just a shopping trip to their customers it’s a social outing.”
With S Connect specialists in every centre, having face-to-face conversations with businesses to learn more about their products, customers and shopping habits helps Stockland to tailor the right package for each unique business.
Barlow’s advice to anyone thinking about opening a pop-up in a Stockland centre is to “go for it, Stockland is very supportive and there’s always lots of foot traffic”.
“We found S Connect and Centre Management staff easy to work with and very supportive of our business. We have built such personal relationships with the Stockland team. They are easy to access whenever we have a question and have helped support us through the whole process.”
Make your pop-up work. Explore S Connect to see how we can help create a pop-up space that’s right for your brand and business.
