Foreign Retailers

One option for companies to market products abroad has been to create "pop-up shops" that allow them to sell their products in areas of heavy foot traffic, such as in busy streets or outside popular venues. Read this chapter to see how this setup can work from a financial standpoint.

Pop-up shops may require funding support depending on the location, duration and scale of the operation. In his book, Pop-up Republic, Baras provides an example of the expense report for a 30-day pop-up shop in New York City, the most expensive commercial leasing location in the US.

  • Rent: $10,000 (a 2,500-square-foot space in Manhattan – or approximately 232 square-metres)
  • Insurance: $500
  • Permits/Licenses: $250
  • Staffing: $7,200.00 (for 8 hours x 10 dollars/day x 30 days x 3 employees)
  • Furniture/Fixtures: $2,500 (includes basic POS system, shelving, desks and other operating expenses)
  • Promotion: $3,000 (includes grand opening expenses)
  • Signs: $500
  • Advertising: $500

The expenses may be covered by the marketing budget of a big corporation, but small business entrepreneurs may have to turn to different sources for financing. Regardless of the financing models, the first step of planning a pop-up shop is to develop a simplified version of a business plan that can be presented to the key stakeholders of funding sources, such as the director of marketing, family and friends or small business loan officers at local banks.

Although approaches to financial and business planning may be different for pop-up shops, the core elements of a business plan remain the same. The Business Model Canvas proposed by Osterwalder and Pigneur (2010) provides a useful strategic template for building business plans. It enables both new startups and leading global businesses to integrate strategic, operational and marketing aspects into the plan for a profitable company.

There are nine building blocks in the Business Plan Canvas:

  1. Key  Partners
  2. Key Activities
  3. Key Resources
  4. Value Propositions
  5. Customer Relationships
  6. Distribution Channels
  7. Customer Segments
  8. Cost Structure
  9. Revenue Stream

The Business Plan Canvas helps entrepreneurs to build and grow a business idea into a clear plan, while large corporations can use it as a roadmap to examine their business vision and areas of operations and then further articulate or adjust their strategies. Pop-up retail operators can use the Business Plan Canvas as a framework to formulate their proposal to pitch for financing internally and/or externally.

Example