Why Does Uk High Streets Need To Revitalize?

A Pop-up store is “a temporary shop, stall or brand experience used to sell goods and services for a limited period of time.” (CEBR, 2014). It usually opens for a period of less than 4 weeks. Although there are some cases of Pop-up shops operating longer than that, but generally longer leases are not available. However, a Pop-up store may become permanent if the circumstances allow. Defined by Oxford Dictionary, high street is “the main street of a town, especially as the traditional site for most shops, banks, and other businesses.” In order to answer the title question, it is important to understand in the first place: why does UK high streets need to be revitalize? “The Saïd Business School predicted that 13 per cent of stores open today

A square foot of retail space on New Bond Street London would cost 814 dollars. (Levy/Weitz, 2012). The flexibility of the store means that it can be set up at key times, such as Christmas, when more tourists are likely to be present and Revenue/Cost ratio is maximized, then remove the pop-up store when it is no longer an efficient source of revenue in down seasons such as the beginning of the year and winter. Pop-up store is also great solution to revitalize disappearing small independent local shops on high street. This is because without the need to sign up for along-term rent and employment leases, it has a lower sunk cost. In light of current economic climate, while trusts and consumer confidence is low, banks are reluctant to give out loans and companies are reluctant to invest. Under this circumstances, large fashion retailers can afford to provide multi-sensual shopping experiences in flagship stores (Anderson et al., 2010; Moore and Doherty, 2007; Gilmore and Pine, 2002), while small independent retailers which have fewer resources available face difficulties to transform “recreational” visits to purchases. (Clarke, Perry & Densen, 2012)
Pop-up shops means that a business may be able to start facing the market at a good location without extra business support. Even if they still need loans from the bank, the sum of the loan would be sufficiently lower

In the time of highly developed Internet shopping, it might be impossible to compete with it the convenience and the width of information, but pop-up shops offers a unique short-term experience to the consumer. “In the cacophony of the High street, you need to set yourself apart to survive.” (Reddick,1997). The H&M Loves Music Pop Up Store in DreamVille 2013 is a great example of social shopping. In this shop, visitors can hand it their old garments and get a new, exclusive T-shirt in return, which can be customized with paint by themselves and worn immediately at the festival. By making shopping combined with other social activity, such as painting on T-shirts and dancing to the music with friends, this reflects perfectly how high street is now about ‘entertainment and experience’ (Gribben, 2014). Here, “the store setting and use of multimedia tools combined to build a dynamic space by enhancing the sensory dimension related to the brand and product culture.” (Spena, Carida, Colurcioand Melia, 2011) The store effectively promotes the brand identity of youth, fun, energy to the public. “Past circumstances which still exert strong effects in present images. There seem to be a very long lag of impressions behind store realities. “(McGoldrick, 2002)