Roughly 18.3 million students will enroll in U.S. postsecondary institutions this fall, up 26% from 14.5 million a decade ago. The discretionary spending of these 18- to 30-year-old students is estimated to reach $53 billion this year, a fact which is leading several aggressive retailers to establish pop-up retail locations on college campuses.
According to The Wall Street Journal, flip-flop maker Havaianas, a brand owned by Sao Paulo Alpargatas SA, plans to set up a temporary “pop-up” store on five campuses in the U.S.
Victoria’s Secret’s Pink, a young women’s clothing brand of Limited Brands Inc., this fall is opening its own pop-up store at about 12 schools, up from 10 last spring.
Sustainable-clothing brand RVL7 is installing a bamboo-clad temporary ministore at six to eight campuses this fall, including the University of Colorado at Boulder and Arizona State University.
These stores are brand builders, but they also move merchandise. Kiehl’s Since 1851, a skin and hair-care company owned by L’Oréal SA, says its college pop-up stores perform “on par with what our normal store would do” in daily sales per square foot.
