Industry Pop-up retail Type of business Private | Website Official website | |
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Area served London, Paris, New York, Amsterdam, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Hong Kong Services Short-term and pop-up retail rentals Founded 2012, San Francisco, California, United States Headquarters San Francisco, California, United States Founders Tristan Pollock, Erik Eliason Areas served Amsterdam, San Francisco, Los Angeles | ||
Storefront is a sharing-economy company that provides short-term retail spaces for rent to companies through an online platform, used specifically as pop-up retail locations.
Contents
History
Storefront is an online marketplace for pop-up retail space, based out of San Francisco. The company was founded in the fall of 2012 by CEO Erik Eliason and COO Tristan Pollock, through the AngelPad start-up accelerator. The two founders had previously opened other companies, including the social media site SocialEarth, founded in 2009. Storefront opened its first pop-up retail space in December 2012. Over its first six months Storefront helped to open one hundred pop-ups, and included around three million square feet of retail space by June 2013. Storefront received $1.6 million in funding in 2013 and included spaces in both San Francisco and New York City, with initial New York listings in Queens, Manhattan, and Brooklyn. These listings included spaces in Grand Central Station and the Soho neighborhood.
Business overview
Storefront's listings largely represent short-term rentals in temporary vacancies within shopping complexes and other commercial establishments. Rentals often average from three to four weeks, providing a temporary brick and mortar space to companies. The site allows anybody to sign-up and purchase a short-term rentals, in the San Francisco/Oakland, or New York City area. Rentals can also be shorter than a week: in December 2013 Kanye West opened a tour merchandise pop-up for only four days over his tour dates in New York City.
Professor David Bell of the Wharton School of Business stated of Storefront that, "It’s like Airbnb, eBay and Uber rolled into one ... Storefront matches excess capacity with the demand for capacity in an efficient and scalable way." The locations also include spaces in the New York City subway system. These spaces are offered through a partnership between the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority and Storefront. The director of leasing and operations for the authority stated that, "Our partnership with Storefront reflects the MTA's commitment to pushing the bounds of vibrancy in the subway."
Storefront's client base includes both ecommerce companies looking for temporary physical sales locations as well as offline firms like National Geographic, restaurants, and companies test-releasing future products. In April 2014 Storefront exceeded the one thousand openings mark, facilitating $30 million in sales.
Storefront platform
Storefront is an online marketplace that helps brands, designers and artists find and rent temporary retail spaces. Insurance, support and promotion is provided for both parties. The spaces are listed with additional information, including photographs of the space, the demographics of those who frequent or live in the area, space design specifications, a list of nearby retailers, and foot traffic statistics determined by a proprietary methodology. Once a user has decided on a specific property and the rental has been approved by the space owner, the user is able to book it directly through Storefront without dealing with the real estate broker or landlord, by signing the site's standard contract and liability insurance policy. The database of properties comes from Storefront's network of commercial real estate brokers, and available spaces generally numbers in the thousands. Storefront also provides options for signage, staffing, and fixtures for pop-up retail locations.