Dive Brief:

• Nordstrom is partnering with Gwyneth Paltrow’s goop lifestyle brand to bring wellness products to the retailer's Pop-in@Nordstrom pop-up shops. The partnership is goop’s first major partnership with a retailer and the first time it has had a retail presence in multiple markets at once, according to a goop press release.
• The products in the pop-ups will change weekly over a period of six weeks and run the gamut of apparel, accessories, beauty and home. They will include curated products as well as goop's own lines of luxury skincare, apparel, wellness and fragrance products. This will be the first time Pop-in@Nordstrom has featured a wellness-focused concept. 
• The goop pop-ups, which will appear in eight stores as well as online, are part of a larger expansion of Nordstrom’s store-within-a-store concept led by Olivia Kim, the retailer's vice president of creative projects.

Dive Insight:

For Nordstrom, the pop-ups are a way to beat back the doldrums that department stores find themselves in these days.

The partnership with Paltrow’s goop is part of Nordstrom’s broader strategy of trying to reinvigorate the department store experience through creative, temporary and one-of-a-kind pop-up concepts. Under Olivia Kim, Nordstrom began expanding its pop-up boutiques in select stores last fall with a focus on trendsetters in fashion, beauty and other categories.

In January, Nordstrom announced it would introduce “natural beauty outposts” at 46 locations as well as a pop-up concept focused on Korean fashion and beauty brands. Other Nordstrom pop-ups have featured the skateboarding brand Vans, Topshop, BaubleBar and a shoe line from actress Sarah Jessica Parker, among others.

"We want to make a statement with our stores in these markets and identify them as destinations for fashion, style, art and culture,” Kim said last year in a press release announcing the expansion. “Our customers are really curious and educated about fashion, and part of our goal … is to create a platform to introduce our customers to this side of designer fashion — this place where the directional collections or up-and-comers have a place to live and grow.”

The pop-up concept is not new to retail nor is it exclusive to brick-and-mortar stores. Jet and New York concept store Story recently teamed up for a “magazine-like,” curated grocery concept. Target and Home Depot have also partnered with Story. 

For Nordstrom, bringing goop and other brands through pop-ups can help drive traffic to the retailer's flagship stores, which have been facing sales declines from weakened spending and online competition, along with other department stores.