Although most businesses are embracing e-commerce, you can’t ignore the place of physical stores.
This reality is that most of the online purchases are driven by physical interaction with products. Yet, the retail industry has experienced notable changes over the past years that has resulted in the availability of pop up spaces.
The availability of these spaces has grown in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. Many businesses have opted to rely on ecommerce stores as a way of observing social distancing measures to stop the spread of the coronavirus. As a retail space owner, you may be at a loss how to get new tenants into the empty premises, especially at a time like this when it is not easy to find a tenant that is interested in a long-term lease.
Getting new tenants to set up permanent stores may be far fetched. But you can still monetise your empty rental space by redefining the space so that you revamp the traditional vacant spaces to become pop up spaces. You can adopt several strategies to get tenants to come again allowing you to make some cash again.
Here are some practical ways to monetise your empty retail spaces to avoid running into losses:
Rent out your space for pop ups
You don’t have to rely on long term tenants especially at a time when they are closing businesses. Instead, consider attracting tenants who are interested in short term rentals. Offer your available space as a pop up space. Pop up shops have gained massive popularity that they have moved from the original idea of selling seasonal products to become a major component of marketing strategy.
Today, more and more leading brands and other retailers are turning to pop up stores to reward loyal customers, launch new products or try a new product line. The flexibility of pop up spaces makes it easy and possible for different businesses to embrace the use of these spaces for one time exhibitions, training events, fundraisers, product launches and press briefings among other important business events.
Although short term in nature, pop ups are an excellent way of keeping your space occupied by retail tenants thus encouraging foot traffic. Since your premise may not be readily available as a pop up space, you may have to do some preparations to get is ready for short term leases. This means working on basics like Wi-Fi, restrooms and climate control. Most importantly, you’ll need to ensure the pop up space has a neutral appeal so that they accommodate the visual identity of the renter.
Open the space for private events
Pop up spaces are not the only way to monetise your empty retail space. the shift from holding events in conventional spaces provides a perfect opportunity to give up the retail space for event rentals. Renting your retail space for private events may translate to a steady income stream especially because there is a consistent demand for venues for both corporate and social events. You can move in to meet this demand by ensuring you invest time and resources to ensure there’s access to Wi-Fi, excellent lighting, great heating and air condition as well as functional restrooms.
Most importantly, keep in mind event venues are often seen as a blank canvas that allows the host to infuse their personality, theme or style to reflect what they want to achieve. As such, you will do well to give the walls a white coat of paint while at the same time keeping with natural décor. You could offer additional services like bar service or catering for which you can charge an extra fee.
Finally, think about the events that are best suited for the retail space while taking the zoning restrictions and business licensing into account.
Partition your empty retail space into smaller sections
Apart from creating room for private events, you can partition the space into smaller sections to increase the chances of attracting small businesses that don’t usually require a lot of space. In most cases, these will be businesses that are just starting hence all they can afford is smaller spaces. However, you should screen potential tenants just to be sure about their financial stability.
There’s so much you can do to turn around empty retail space so that you continue making money from it. Developing your existing retail space for alternative creative uses like pop up spaces helps to fill spaces that may have stayed empty for several months thus providing an opportunity to make money again.