Horsham District Council

The high street has undergone a huge change since Charley Crocker started her first pop-up shop in 2014. Starting out with live window displays, a luxury Booktique and a Pop-Up Indie Bookshop, before moving on to Pop Up Horsham and larger retail units in Surrey and Sussex.

Charley is an Amazon best-selling author of crime thrillers and psychological thrillers as Daisy White/D.E. White. When she’s not busy creating the next bestseller, Charley can be found scoping out retail units and getting stuck in behind-the-scenes and front-of-house in a wide number of pop-up shop schemes.

Founding the pop-up shop business in 2014, Charley has delivered a number of pop-up shops across Surrey and Sussex. Working with local councils and landlords to develop empty retail units or potential retail areas by creating a pop-up shop which enables small businesses and start-ups the opportunity to sell their products on the high street.

The first pop-up shop was in Horsham’s Swan Walk and consisted initially of booking in featured authors to support Charley’s vision which included book signings and launches. The store quickly became fully booked with Featured Authors, and stocking works by over sixty authors and publishers. This quickly expanded to include other items to go with purchasing your new book including chocolates, cushions, a gallery full of local artists and photographers, free editing advice, and mini-makeovers, and an opportunity to quiz authors and artists.

Several other pop up stores and a pop-up village ensued over the years in Haywards Heath, Guildford, and Gatwick Airport, before returning to the Horsham high street in November 2021 with the biggest pop-up shop challenge to date which included refurbishing two floors of retail space in an empty shop unit within two weeks.

The challenge as usual was to develop and transform an empty retail unit. Add commercial value and turn it into a vibrant retail asset within the community, and at the same time, support and nurture local entrepreneurs by providing the platform to grow their businesses without a huge financial cost.

The scale of the Horsham Pop Up shop project and the huge change to the high street following the coronavirus pandemic meant this latest pop-up shop needed a larger team and its offering needed to be bigger than ever before.

The need for physical stores has been called into question by the pandemic, but with so many new entrepreneurs using the time to start new business ventures and with shopping habits changing, and customers becoming more demanding, the pop-up shop culture has well and truly earned its position on the high street next to the larger retailers.

Before planning the Pop Up Horsham shop, Charley collaborated with Matt and Laura Bennett, who independently own their own design and marketing businesses. Starting out by scoping the opportunity and the huge retail space in West Street, the team set about recruiting entrepreneurs/sellers to fill the store and developing a brand.

Working from the ground up, the team created a bespoke shopping experience with retail space downstairs and a large events area upstairs as well as three social media walls and full branding throughout to establish the store’s identity, as well as creating licensing agreements, information packs, store guidance, a website, social media profiles, liaising with the landlords, Horsham District Council and promoting to the media.

The team understood just how important it was that online shopping has boomed since the start of the pandemic, with internet sales jumping from under 20% to more than 32% in just three months at the start of the first Covid-induced lockdown, and experts expecting the trend to continue after the pandemic, they developed a hybrid retail concept which enabled both selling online and in-store.

Keeping to the roots of early pop-up shop successes the Pop Up Horsham project also enabled small businesses and start-ups to book a small space or hire a window area for one day, with of course the live window displays creating every changing opportunity for customers.

As the launch day loomed quickly within days of gaining access to the shop, and with a huge amount of logistical challenges which comes with taking over a largely empty, retail space, the team worked flat out with suppliers, the landlords/project owners, and the new entrepreneurs/sellers to ensure the shop was fully fitted and ready for its opening on 2nd November.

Following a highly successful media and social media launch campaign, media interest was gained from local and national media with the BBC’s The One Show visiting to film the day before the launch which meant there was a tight deadline to deliver.

Pop Up Horsham opened its doors to customers on November 2, 2021, to great acclaim to the team who soon realised that they had formed not only a great partnership but a brilliant business collaboration and The Pop Up Shop Agents was born.

View the original Pop Up Horsham Press Release

Understanding the future of the pop-up shop collaboration and working on the success of Pop Up Horsham, The Pop Up Shop Agents is now a full-service creative agency.

Providing unique, engaging, physical pop up shopping experiences for retailers and customers alike. Offering bespoke packages from conception and beyond, recruiting sellers, store managers, managing finances and legislation through to marketing, branding, social media, and PR. With a simple mission: to support small businesses, entrepreneurs, and start-ups, giving them the opportunity to dip their toe into high street retailing by proving affordable pop-up spaces. As each of us is independent small business owners ourselves, we understand the importance of working and supporting our local community by offering 121 business mentoring, workshops, and clear advice on access to business grants/funding.

And looking towards the future…… Pop-up shops provide the opportunity for small businesses to sell their products on the high street, test products, and develop their offering. To customers, it creates the feeling of having an exclusive product that might only, ordinarily be available online, but also an exclusive experience. The very nature of a pop-up shop is that it is only available for a limited period of time, the retailers in-store are changing so there is always something new, which adds to the excitement which rivals long-standing retail chains.

Contact us to find out more about The Pop Up Shop Agents and talk to us about developing your empty retail space.

At Pop Up Horsham we designed and created some social media walls with the talented in-store sellers/entrepreneurs, Hugo & green, Lorna Beard Studios, and Suz Handmade Creations.

It was great to work with such a creative group of people!

We envisaged these from when the shop was empty and we love how they provide such great focal points instore as well as enabling organic social media sharing. 

The in-store backdrops not only provided backdrops for organic social media sharing but also supported sales to the sellers by providing large-scale examples of their work.

Contact us to find out more about The Pop Up Shop Agents and talk to us about developing your empty retail space.

So, November 2, 2021, wasn’t just a big day for our Pop Up Shop Agents team with the launch of Pop Up Horsham, but it signalled the deadline day for delivery of the project which culminated in being filmed for three days by BBC’s The One Show.

Pop Up Horsham, which is funded, backed, and run by Horsham District Council offers small businesses in and around the district the opportunity to dip their toes into the world of High Street retailing. The Pop Up Creative Management Team who delivered the store are independent Consultants Charley Crocker, Laura Bennett, and Matt Bennett

The Pop Up Shop Agents Founder & Principal Agent, Charley Crocker says: ‘Businesses and lives have changed dramatically in the past year, which has altered the way we shop. To reflect this Pop Up Shops are a great way to breathe new life into the high street and provide small and start-up businesses the opportunity to come forward to showcase their products to provide an opportunity to experience hybrid retail – online and on the high street.’

The Pop Up Shop Creative Strategy Agent, Laura Bennett, adds: ‘Pop Up Shops provide a great platform for those who have been made redundant and started a new business, as well as working with more established independents and small businesses offering them the chance to experience high street retailing.

For retail landlords, it can also add new life to an empty shop unit with tenants for a period of time as well as making the premises attractive to potential future long-term tenants.’

The Pop Up Shop Agents are a team of experienced, creative pop-up shop agents. We create unique, engaging, physical pop up shopping experiences for retailers and customers alike.

If you need help coming up with your next pop up shop idea or simply want us to take over the management and operations, our pop up shop agents are ready to help.

Contact us to find out more about The Pop Up Shop Agents and talk to us about developing your empty retail space.