A weekend pop-up and a Monday of apologies
You took a rail of the new collection to a weekend pop-up in a shared retail space. Friday afternoon, someone pulled what looked right off the warehouse shelves and packed it into boxes. Sales over the weekend went through a card reader. Nobody told the website. By Saturday, the online store had sold three coats that were actually hanging at the pop-up, and on Monday there were three customers who needed an apology and a refund.
When the boxes came back, nobody counted them properly. Two weeks later, the stock numbers still do not match the shelf, and nobody can say whether the difference is a sale, a gift or a jumper left behind.
Why pop-ups upset your stock
- Stock leaves the warehouse without being moved in the system.
- Sales are taken on a card reader or app not linked to your store.
- The online store keeps selling units that are physically elsewhere.
- Gifts, swaps and damaged items at the event are not recorded.
- Returned stock is put back on shelves without a count.
Each event is small, but if you do a market once a month and a pop-up every season, the errors add up and your online availability drifts from reality.
What goes wrong
| Moment | Problem |
|---|---|
| Packing | Items taken without a record |
| Selling | Online oversells stock at the event |
| Event | Gifts and damage not logged |
| Return | Leftovers shelved uncounted |
| After | Stock figures wrong for weeks |
How we set up pop-ups properly
- The pop-up is created as its own location in Shopify, or whatever system you use, so stock there is counted separately from the warehouse.
- Packing is done by scanning each item into a transfer to the pop-up location. The online store stops selling those units immediately.
- Sales at the event go through Shopify POS or a card reader linked to the same system, so every sale reduces the pop-up's stock.
- A quick form on the phone handles gifts, samples given away and damaged items, each with a reason, so nothing disappears unexplained.
- At close, leftover stock is scanned back into a return transfer. Any difference between what went out, what sold and what came back appears in a short report.
- If you want, the website can show 'Available at our pop-up this weekend' for those items, or keep them hidden online until they return.
Running an event afterwards
On Friday, the packer scans forty items into the pop-up transfer. The website now shows the right online stock. Over the weekend, the team sells through the POS on a phone or tablet. On Sunday evening, the leftovers are scanned back. On Monday morning, there is a one-page report: what sold, what was given away, what came back and one missing item to look for. The online store never sold something it did not have.
Markets, shared spaces and wholesale events
Some pop-ups are in shared spaces where the host takes the payment. In that case, the host's sales report is imported and matched to your transfer instead of POS sales. Trade shows where you take wholesale orders but do not sell stock work differently again, and we keep them separate so they do not touch retail stock. Your accountant decides how event sales are recorded in the books; the sales data arrives in whatever form they need.
Signs your pop-ups upset your stock
- Stock goes to events without being moved in the system.
- You have oversold online items that were at a pop-up.
- Event sales are taken on a separate card reader.
- Leftover stock is shelved without a count.
- Stock figures are out for weeks after an event.