{"id":2922,"date":"2013-04-04T10:12:52","date_gmt":"2013-04-04T15:12:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/ottawainsight\/?p=2922"},"modified":"2017-11-19T20:10:18","modified_gmt":"2017-11-20T01:10:18","slug":"ottawa-artist-takes-pop-up-shop-on-the-road","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/ottawainsight\/?p=2922","title":{"rendered":"Ottawa artist takes pop-up shop on the road"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Stirling Prentice built a bike trailer to turn his T-shirt business into a mobile pop-up shop. <\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

An Ottawa artist and screen printer is taking one of the hottest retail trends on the road with his new mobile pop-up shop.<\/p>\n

Businesses around Canada and across the globe have been using pop-up shops to hawk their wares and attract attention for years. With a traditional pop-up shop, a retailer moves into a vacant space for a short period of time and shoppers come a-calling when they hear buzz about the temporary venture. Pop-up shops can be a way to draw attention to a new product, while they can give start-ups a place to test the waters for their wares.<\/p>\n

But Stirling Prentice, the creative mind behind Winged Beast Outfitters, is putting a spin on that idea, taking his T-shirts and art to the street.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to build something that was custom made to do what I do,\u201d Prentice says.<\/p>\n

POP-UP PRESENCE<\/strong><\/p>\n

Last fall he started work on a pop-up kiosk, building a large wooden storage box onto a bike chassis. Once the snow melts, he\u2019ll load his racks and product into the creation, and peddle to art and craft shows around town. When he arrives, the trailer folds out into a four-foot by two-foot display table.<\/p>\n

The kiosk will simplify Prentice\u2019s business and reduce his environmental impact, but it also gave him the opportunity to work in a new medium.<\/p>\n

\u201cGenerally I\u2019m working with two-dimensional things in an environment where there\u2019s take-backs and erasers and undo,\u201d Prentice explains. \u201cBut building a thing like the trailer is kind of exciting. You just kind of have to roll with it and see what happens.\u201d<\/p>\n

This summer, Winged Beast Outfitters will be rolling to outdoor shows around Ottawa. Prentice is also reaching out to local businesses, hoping to strike arrangements where he can set up his kiosk in front of their stores.<\/p>\n

BY-LAW BOTHERS<\/strong><\/p>\n

But bylaws are an issue Prentice has to navigate that traditional pop-up stores rarely worry about.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe law is vague,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s very clear if you\u2019re a food vendor. It\u2019s not so clear if you\u2019re an artist.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last fall, the City of Ottawa approved a new street food vending program after criticism over a lack of food trucks in the region. Now 18 new mobile food vendors have been approved to hit the city streets in May.<\/p>\n

The city also requires \u201citinerant sellers\u201d to have a business license, though it\u2019s unclear whether pop-up shops fall into that category.<\/p>\n

There is a similarity, however, between Prentice\u2019s project and stationary pop-up shops: shoppers remember retailers who try something unique.<\/p>\n

Michael Macintyre, director of online marketing for Indochino, says pop-up shops have given the online custom suit shop a great way to market itself.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe pop-up shops give us a showroom platform to invite and engage with journalists and influencers,\u201d Macintyre explains. \u201cPreviously being a pure play online company, it was difficult to have journalists interact the brand.\u201d<\/p>\n

ATTRACTING NEW CUSTOMERS<\/strong><\/p>\n

A physical shopping place also allows people to see and touch their suits, as locals did when Indochino brought their pop-up shop to Slater Street in April.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the goals of the Traveling Tailor events is to get customers who might not be initially comfortable buying online comfortable with the brand and the products, with the goal to get them to repeat purchases online,\u201d Macintyre explains.<\/p>\n

Indochino has also taken the Traveling Tailor pop-up shops to Vancouver, Calgary, Chicago, San Francisco and New York. The visits have been so successful that plans are currently underway to pop-up in several locations along the east coast of the United States.<\/p>\n

Prentice isn\u2019t planning on taking his bike kiosk that far, but he is thinking about events in Toronto and Hamilton.<\/p>\n

\u201cIronically I\u2019ll have to load it into a trailer to take it down there and set it up,\u201d he notes.<\/p>\n

And everywhere he goes, people will see \u201cWinged Beast Outfitters\u201d painted on the trailer\u2019s side.<\/p>\n

Prentice says he thinks the mobile pop-up shop will give his quirky, whimsical T-shirts (including a dinosaur riding a whale) an interesting hook in a market full of clothes splashed with Chuck Norris slogans.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to have a way to sort of express my creative vision in a way that wasn\u2019t just: Table. Rack. Sell,\u201d he says. \u201cI really wanted to rethink that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Stirling Prentice built a bike trailer to turn his T-shirt business into a mobile pop-up shop. An Ottawa artist and<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[68,69,70,71],"class_list":["post-2922","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal-finanice-2013","tag-gemma-karstens-smith","tag-pop-up-artists","tag-stirling-prentice","tag-winged-beast-outfitters"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/ottawainsight\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2922","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/ottawainsight\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/ottawainsight\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/ottawainsight\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/65"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/ottawainsight\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2922"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"http:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/ottawainsight\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2922\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4501,"href":"http:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/ottawainsight\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2922\/revisions\/4501"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/ottawainsight\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/ottawainsight\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/ottawainsight\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}