It’s Wednesday evening, the opening of Pop Shop Trunk-Show. In the upstairs attic of clothing and accessories store Knit Wit, located near 17th and Chestnut streets, the small crowd is buzzing with excitement. Customers move from one table to the next, drinking champagne, shopping for a variety of products — from women’s work clothes to jewelry to beauty products — and chatting with the business owners.
Wharton MBA students Allison Berliner and Shannon Pierce stand in the corner of the room, managing and observing the launch event for Pop Shop, a company that helps set up temporary showrooms for online retailers.
On Wednesday and Thursday, Pop Shop is showcasing products from four different e-commerce brands, including Asian beauty brand “Peach and Lily,” women’s wardrobe brand “M.M. LAFLEUR,” fine jewelry brand “Adornia” and fusion fashion brand “kyu mélange.” Three out of four of these brands are run by Wharton MBA students.
Customers who are interested in the products can buy them at the two-day event or can go online and purchase them. After the trunk show, the products will be available to view at Knit and Wit for a couple of weeks.
Berliner and Pierce came to Wharton interested in the intersection of entrepreneurship and technology. They met during a semester in Wharton San Francisco, where the idea of Pop Shop was born.
Pop Shop came from the idea that “yes, online shopping is the way of the future, but it’s not the only way,” Berliner said. “The concept of pop shops has had a lot of traction. People are really excited about getting access to a lot of these things that are cool and new but hard to find.”
Coming back from San Francisco, the two second-year MBA students worked with several advisers to put together their ideas. They entered and took first prize in the Wharton Entrepreneurship Club and PennApp’s Startup Un-Conference Pitch Competition and have since been working with retailers, online brands and investors leading up to Pop Shop’s first trunk show.
Wharton MBA Kesi Gibson is one of the co-founders of kyu mélange, whose handmade bags and accessories are featured in the trunk show. Gibson greeted customers with a smile and told them about her product, which fuses Jamaican and Turkish styles to create handmade bags and accessories. Kyu mélange has just had their soft launch at the Wharton Charity Fashion Show earlier in the month. They don’t even have a website running yet, but Gibson said she’s excited to work with Pop Shop.
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“A lot of startups are moving to e-commerce because you can’t afford to be brick and mortar,” Gibson said. “You know when you’re selling quality for quality prices, a big thing is to have the opportunity to feel and touch and see what your stuff is all about. To have Pop Shop provide us the opportunity to do that, well, that’s great.”
Fellow Wharton MBA Moran Amir, co-founder of Adornia Fine Jewelry, showed her pieces to customers, including fox turquoise jewelry made by Native Americans in Nevada. Amir has had some experience with trunk shows in the past but only ones her company has put together on its own.
“It feels good. It’s nice to have more brands, obviously drives traffic,” Amir said. “We’re sharing the customer base that we bring to the store, so it’s nice to have a collaborative effort.”
Although it’s early in the stages for Pop Shop, Berliner and Pierce have high hopes. They plan to expand to five cities by the end of the year.
“But we’ll see where our brand takes us for the next couple of months,” Berliner added.
