Klarna’s Immersive pop-up store: A new way to shop?

The first thing that hit us when walking into Klarna’s immersive pop-up store in Covent Garden was the sheer amount of millennial pink that was injected into the space. By flooding the store with pink curtains, clothes, neon artwork and a conveyor belt of shoes, the ‘pay-later’ brand ensured that their target market would come running. The majority of brands that Klarna work with are aimed at 18-25 year-old women who shop online at the high-street market level – the style of the store and its features proved that Klarna knows their target market inside and out.

The goal of the pop-up store was to show retailers how building a positive ‘play-area’ for buyers can inject new life into brick-and-mortar outlets and ‘bring the digital shopping experience to life’. Klarna certainly did that. Visitors were able to browse through clothing collections belonging to brands that Klarna work with (such as ASOS, Public Desire and Ego), there being 21 brands featured at the pop-up in total. The majority of the companies at the event have a similar target market, meaning the customers visiting the store were able to shop all of their favourite brands at once.

Through the event, Klarna wanted to ‘create new opportunities for pure-play digital brands to get hands-on with customers and create even closer engagement’. Only hosting online brands meant that customers had even more reason to want to visit the store (as if the Instagrammable content wasn’t enough for the target market). Never before had they been able to try on a pair of Ego trainers without having to wait for them to be delivered first. If the shopper liked what they saw, they could scan QR codes that were positioned near each stand, enabling them to instantly shop the products. This was a useful way for customers to purchase a product if they wished to do so, but could leave them feeling let down – their customer journey is incomplete: they are leaving a brick-and-mortar store without a physical product.

Not only was the event held for brands to get ‘hands-on with customers’ but also for Klarna themselves to create a strong relationship with customers, both new and old. Being positioned in the centre of London ensured plenty of traffic from members of the public. Promoting the event on their various social media channels meant that current customers/followers were also made aware of the experience. Free manicures and talks from companies such as Stylist Magazine were also a part of the immersive event, drawing an even larger amount of guests in. By the final day of the event, Klarna had welcomed over 3000+ visitors (according to their Instagram page), exposing them to a physical slice of online brands.

Being a digitally forward company, you would assume that Klarna would have made data capture a priority. Learning more about the 3000+ customers that attended the event beyond their social media interaction could have been a real opportunity for Klarna to get closer to their audience. Once you know your audience you can offer them the kind of experience they really want. You can build brand awareness through one-to-one outreach and offer loyalty incentives that they genuinely care about. Fortunately, we know a way you can do all of this! Feel free to get in touch to find out.