Dive Brief:
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Children’s apparel brand Limited Too is launching a mobile commerce back-to-school pop-up shop that will travel around New York August 6-10, reports Women’s Wear Daily.
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All of the products sold at the pop-up shop will retail for under $100 and the list includes everything from back-to-school staples like notebooks and backpacks to the more tangentially-related apparel, accessories and cell phone cases,according to the report.
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The truck will be open from noon to 7 p.m. all five days and will stop at Third Avenue on August 6, Herald Square on August 7 and 8, Union Square on August 9 and the Flatiron District on August 10. If the pop-up event is successful it could be expanded to key other markets, Bluestar Alliance Marketing Director Mo Hedaya told WWD. Bluestar owns the brand and its trademarks.
Dive Insight:
As the pop-up bandwagon grows ever longer — from Jet’s partnership with Story to Nordstrom’s in-store Goop pop-up’s to Amazon’s popular ‘Treasure Trucks’ — Limited Too has followed suit with a back-to-school pop-up of their own.
The children’s apparel and accessories retailer, which broke from parent brand The Limited in 1999 and whose trademarks are now owned by Bluestar Alliance, is looking for a fresh way into the competitive market of children’s apparel. After all of the physical stores shuttered in 2008, the tween brand has been online-only and the back-to-school pop-up presents some obvious advantages.
The pop-up trucks will give Limited Too customers a rare chance to touch, see and feel the products before making purchase decisions, which in itself is the reason that 62% of consumers choose to shop at brick-and-mortar stores.
While parent brand The Limited filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in January — which resulted in a $26.8 million buyout of its intellectual property by private equity firm Sycamore Partners — Limited Too has been operating separately, and somewhat successfully on its own. But the tween (and teen) category is struggling and Limited Too's position could be further pressured as the Ascena Retail Group, which owns Ann Taylor, Maurices, Dress Barn and Lane Bryant, reduces its store count by 25% and tries to capitalize on the strength of the Justice brand — a tween retailer that used to carry Limited Too items before the brand moved online.
How much room there is for Limited Too to make a comeback in that space is unclear, although the decision to test out pop-up stores could reinvigorate interest in the brand.
