How Cindy Owada builds WTF Market
The business of pop-up market - Part 1 of 2
When Cindy Owada launched WTF (We The Future) Market in October 2014, people immediately assumed the pop-up market is part of Ismaya Group as the group organised a music festival under the same initials, WTF (We The Fest), that year. The coincidence increased traffic to the pop-up market. “Many of Ismaya’s crowds thought that We The Future was part of We The Fest so they visited our event,” said Cindy.
The idea behind WTF Market hatched when Cindy was in her last two semesters at university. It began when she had an awful experience taking part in a pop-up market as a tenant. “I used to have a shoe brand. The organiser of the pop-up market was bad. There was no one monitoring the event, no crowd, no marketing or whatsoever. As a college student, I thought I could do this.”
The first thing she did was surveying successful pop-up markets in the capital city. “If you want to be successful, learn from those who are already successful,” she proclaimed. “I approached the brands, introduced myself as an event organiser and took their business cards. That’s how I gain trust from the tenants. From there, one tenant would ask three or five of their friends to join.”
Next, she set up a meeting with the city’s busiest shopping mall, Grand Indonesia. In order to book the dates, she had to pay a deposit amounting to 10% of the total rent cost for the venue. What came after was a well-designed proposal to be sent out to brands she approached. The down payment from the tenants covered the remaining rental fee.
Design, according to Cindy, unconsciously attracts the tenants and crowds. As a newbie to the scene, WTF Market managed to book 120 tenants and raised profits 30 times the initial capital. The following year, WTF Market expanded to Medan, North Sumatra.
WTF Market at PIK Avenue Mall, North Jakarta
The success allows Cindy to build her team and develop plans for an entire year. “The dates have to be decided a year before. Each event takes around 3 months of preparation.”
In 2016, she registered an event organiser company, Dots and Line. This is to further strengthen WTF Market’s position as a proper event managed by a registered company. “Shopping malls prefer registered event organiser.”
Dots and Line ran its own operations and started signing clients in 2017. WTF Market was no longer its sole purpose. “We handled Zalora Trunkshow, Zalora Style Awards, Mizzo Cosmetics and Shipper.com anniversary.”
Diversification is necessary since the pop-up market business is facing a tough competition. “In 2014, there were not too many pop-up markets. Small brands need pop-up market to sell their products and meet consumers. It wasn’t as competitive as it is today,” she explained. “There’s a decline every year from 2014 to 2019.”
In the fashion and lifestyle segment, WTF Market is also directly competing with other successful pop-up markets like Brightspot and Market&Museum. The hype surrounding fashion and lifestyle pop-up markets usually lasts for two years. If the management team doesn’t personalise and innovate on event concept, the pop-up market will stop attracting big crowds after two years.
On top of that, there’s always pop-up market going on at shopping malls. Even office buildings have pop-up markets. Event organisers are starting to realise the potential income pop-up markets can bring in.
How does WTF Market maintain hype and engineer its concept? Stay tuned for part 2.