Store will carry 50 of its most popular holiday products
By Ylan Q. Mui
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, December 11, 2009;
A27
Retailers have long touted limited-time offers to motivate shoppers to pull out their wallets. But at the new Target in Georgetown, scheduled to open Friday, the store itself won't last long.
The temporary shop on the corner of Wisconsin Avenue and M Street NW will be open only through Sunday, one of three so-called "pop-up stores" in the country carrying 50 of the most popular holiday products. Target spokesman Joshua Thomas said that previous pop-up stores -- including a boat-turned-store docked in New York -- have drawn long lines and that some merchandise has sold out within a day. But the stores are designed mainly to build buzz rather than pad the bottom line.
"The idea is to generate excitement about our brand," Thomas said.
The store is dubbed Target To-Go, and the facade resembles a ski chalet. All items for sale have been numbered and listed on a clipboard menu. There's no pawing the merchandise or hunting for a size: Products are displayed in windows, and shoppers mark their selections on the clipboard menu before bringing the order to a register to check out -- much like at a cafeteria. All stock is pre-wrapped and picked up next to the registers.
The merchandise includes a Keurig mini coffee brewer for $89.99, a Liv Girls doll for $19.99 and a Sigg water bottle for $21.99. The shop will also sell three dresses from its much-anticipated collaboration with designer Rodarte, which does not arrive in traditional stores until next week. You'll have to guess if they fit, but the merchandise can be returned at any permanent store.
The pop-up shop will be open from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. through Sunday, and about 30 Target employees from across the region are staffing it. It's the first time Target has built such a store in the Washington area. The other pop-up locations are in New York and San Francisco.
Target spokeswoman Lena Michaud said Georgetown was chosen because residents do not have easy access to a store and the neighborhood fits the company's core demographic: professional moms in their late 30s to early 40s. The retailer began experimenting with pop-up stores in 2002 in New York as a way to expose its brand to urban markets, which are crucial to the chain's future growth.
"We've been able to adapt a lot of our store formats to go into urban locations," Michaud said.
After years of dominating the suburbs, many big-box chains have begun looking at cities as untapped markets. Though rents can be higher and space tighter, retailers are drawn by the dense populations and lack of national competition.
That is particularly true in the District, which has about 8.5 square feet of retail per capita, according to a recent report from consulting firm Delta Associates. The regional average is 25 square feet per capita, while the national average is 23.4. In addition, the Washington area's economy has held up better than that of other metropolitan areas because of the federal government's presence.
"The District is under-stored," said Gregory Leisch, chief executive of Delta Associates. "Retailers like the consistency of our marketplace, so they're attracted here in good times and bad."
This week, warehouse club Costco finalized plans to build its first store in the District in the Fort Lincoln development, according to city councilman Kwame R. Brown (D-At Large), who heads the economic development committee. Brown said Target may also settle on plans by the end of the week to build a store in the 375,000-square-foot center. The city approved a $10 million loan for the so-called Washington Gateway center in 2005. The project is just inside the District line, bound by New York, South Dakota and Eastern avenues.
Costco said it does not comment on planned stores. A Target spokesman said it was too early to confirm any plans for a store there. But Steve Moore, head of the D.C. Economic Partnership, said he heard encouraging words from retailers during a real estate convention in New York last weekend.
"We are at the top of the list for national and regional retailers when their expansion plans sort of unfold," he said. "And that looks like that will be sooner than any of us thought."
Staff writer Tim Craig contributed to this report.
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