NEW YORK — Target, Sears and J.C. Penney have all opened pop-up stores, those temporary retail outposts designed to generate buzz as well as sales. Now it’s Wal-Mart’s turn.
For its first foray into guerilla marketing, Wal-Mart will open a freestanding fashion cabana for Metro 7, its successful women’s brand, in the South Beach area of Miami Beach on April 26. The 6,600-square-foot tent will feature the entire Metro 7 collection, including apparel, accessories and shoes, merchandised in a boutique-like setting.
Wal-Mart is developing exclusive items for the cabana, including Metro 7 beachwear; beach toys such as beach balls and frisbees, and beach umbrellas.
The event, which will kick off with a VIP party, promises glamour and a certain hip quotient not generally associated with the Bentonville, Ark.-based retailer.
South Beach is one of the trendier fashion-driven locales in the country.
With Metro 7, Wal-Mart set out to capture a customer that was shopping in the store, but not purchasing apparel. The brand, which offers trendier, body-conscious styles in premium materials such as silk, might generate as much as $200 million in sales in limited distribution in its first year, vendor sources said.
The beneficiary of the shopping promotion will be the Buoniconti Fund to Cure Paralysis, a charity that attracts some of the area’s most sought-after society figures. Wal-Mart said it will donate sales from the event to the charity.
The retailer is going to great lengths to make the cabana inviting with glass walls, a landscaped front porch and fitting rooms. A Bubble Lounge sponsored by Woolite will have seating areas open to the public. Several thousand people are expected to pass through the cabana during the four-day event.
Metro 7 apparel will be merchandised on T-stands and mannequins. There will be fashion presentations with live models and informal modeling with models striking poses on cubes throughout the day. A DJ will program the music in the tent, and former Miss Universe Dayanara Torres, the spokesmodel for Metro 7, will make daily appearances.
“When we launched Metro 7 in October we did an event in New York and held a small dinner in Los Angeles with Dayanara, a Metro 7 spokeswoman said. “We always planned on doing something in Miami.”
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Wal-Mart’s closest store to South Beach is six miles away. The firm operates a half-dozen stores within a 15-mile radius.
“This is a guerilla marketing tactic meant to drive further awareness of the brand in a fun way that’s very appropriate to South Beach,” the spokeswoman said, adding, “We might do this in other cities.”