We set up temporary stores for sole traders to sell their wares – it can help fix Britain’s broken high streets, says Pop-Up Club founder

Tillie Peel, founder of Pop-Up Club, is on a mission to revolutionise high street retail

‘We’re trying to make the best out of a broken system,’ says Tillie Peel, founder of the The Pop-Up Club, a business on a bold mission to save and revolutionise the high street.

‘The costs that are involved in having a retail space are insanely high.’

The Pop-Up Club was founded in 2017 to provide new retail businesses, typically sole traders, with a physical space to sell their wares.

It helps cut out much of the prohibitive costs associated with the sector, while working with landlords to fill ’empty, dilapidated, or difficult spaces’, and bringing life back to high streets.

But The Pop-Up Club came into its own in the wake of the pandemic when one-in-seven shops and one-in-five shopping centre units were rendered empty, reflecting the colossal damage lockdowns had caused to the retail sector and the UK high street.

Many will remember friends’ and family members’ short-lived passions for the likes of artisan baking, knitting and pottery during the pandemic, but for some Britons this developed into a fully-fledged business venture – providing a target market for a fledgling Pop-Up Club.

‘We had like a massive intake in-between the lockdowns,’ says Peel.

‘We grew about 200 per cent in like six months – it was crazy.

‘We had a long-term shop in Chelmsford, which is a big community town, and no one was commuting because it was a time when everyone was working form home.

‘Locals wanted to support small businesses and buy more consciously, rather than going to a high street brand that they can find anywhere.’

The Pop-Up Club Victoria: Peel’s business finds empty retail spaces to use as marketplaces for sole traders

Two years later and The Pop-Up Club has now set up nearly 30 physical marketplaces – these sites last anything from six weeks to a year each, and hosting a variety of different sellers.

It claims to have made £1.3million for its traders and brought new life to the areas it has operated in.

‘It’s started out as me pretending to someone’s PA,’ laughs Peel, now 30, recalling how she convinced then-sceptical landlords and local authorities to back her fledgling concept.

‘I was just trying to get in the room, banging down the door, to get anyone to listen to me back then.

‘Now eight years I feel very grateful to be in a position where we have [landlords] that contact us.

‘We’ve just opened in Hammersmith – in the shopping centre opposite Ikea – and also have one opening in Waterloo.’

From hobby to high street retailing 

Some of the post-Covid boom has fizzled, with Britons’ lockdown-engorged savings eroded by inflationary pressure, workers back to their regular commutes and many first-time traders returning to full-time work.

But The Pop-Up Club is still thriving and has some success stories to boat.

‘We’re really still in the incubator stage as a business,’ says Peel.

‘But we’re seeing brands that we work with open up their own spaces – a brand called Isle of Avalon that have a long-term lease in our old pop-up and they were one of the first brands that we’ve worked with in the first pop up in Brighton.

‘It’s great to see the impact of our support, the knowledge and experience we provided, and for them go on and grow and scale their business.’

Locals in areas where The Pop-Up Shop has operated have been keen to back local small businesses 

Peel hopes to expand The Pop-Up Shop across the UK and sees demand from consumers for the market-style shopping experience, similar to those seen in many cities across the continent.

And it appears major UK retail players are catching on, she says, noting the success Marks & Spencer has had in the rollout of its store design shake-up and Food Hall offering.

‘I’d like to see a Pop-Up Club in every high street,’ she says.

But the barriers to that dream are similar to the ones driving traders to The Pop-Up Club in the first place.

‘Our model doesn’t work with all landlords, locations or local authorities because of just how much how much units cost,’ Peel says, despite Pop-Up Club’s record of successfully negotiating cheaper rates with some property owners.

‘And then you have business rates on top of that, which is an entirely broken system that has never been rethought in the modern day compared to 20-30-40 years ago.

‘What we’re trying to do is make the best of like that broken system and give people an opportunity in a dire situation.’

Peel is not the first business owner to decry Britain’s business rates systems, which has only recently come under fire from hospitality industry grandees and the titans of retail.

The Conservative Party has pledged to review the business rates system in three manifestos since 2015.

But hospitality industry chiefs want Labour and the Tories to make manifesto pledges to overhaul the business rates they pay on commercial property such as shops and bars.

The Government says it has extended relief that means around 230,000 retail, hospitality and leisure properties will receive 75 per cent off bills for this year, but firms say this just kicks the can down the line until a cliff edge in April 2025.

Business rates went up by 6.7 per cent on 1 April – costing firms in England an extra £1.7billion alone. 

‘An overhaul of business rates would play a role in supporting independent businesses and keep them alive,’ says Peel. ‘And not only keep them surviving, but thriving as well.

‘It’s a hard landscape to be in. And a lot of much bigger companies are only just about surviving too – That’s why we’re seeing some of these big retail shops close or go into administration.’

This post first appeared on Dailymail.co.uk