Putiandi pop-up shop receives €11.6 mn in financing

The Chinese enterprise has co-raised 60 mn yuan (€7.7 mn) from Eastern Bell Venture Capital, PGA Fund and GoHigh Fund, and the remaining 30 mn yuan (€3.9 mn) from Meridian Capital.

In July 2016, the firm also received 20 mn yuan (€2.6 mn) in pre-A funding, led by GoHigh Fund.

Commercial plans​

These recently-raised funds will be used to “optimise the overall experience when navigating Putiandi's platform for short-term commercial rentals, and further leverage the huge databases that store the information on the availability of commercial space”.​

In turn, this is set to help businesses in the process of “socialising their brands by carrying out innovative pop-up marketing campaigns in the new era of retail”​, unveiled Yi Zongyuan, co-founder of Putiandi.

Shanghai-based Putiandi was created in September 2015 and has branches in Beijing, Shenzhen, Guangzhou and Suzhou. The company works with businesses in over 40 cities throughout China and has also inked strategic partnerships with nearly 3,000 shopping malls.

Pop up site rental platform​

Putiandi's core focus is its pop-up site rental platform. This branch of this business enables the company to access the short-term availability of commercial space that is available in shopping centres and retail space operators.

The enterprise helps brand marketers launch pop-up events — a popular marketing strategy in the cosmetics and personal care arena — to enable them to sell their products, build customer leads, promote their brand or conduct market research.

Putiandi's acts as a “one-stop service encompassing site rental, data for site selection, data on pop-up activities and pop-up marketing software-as-a-service (Saas) tools”.​

With the transformation of the retailing model, brands are now seeking to fulfil their emotional expectations and increase sales through word-of-mouth communication.

Brand marketing strategies​

Putiandi provides brand marketers with “more than just a brick-and-mortar venue through the rental mechanism, but also data on the level of traffic passing through the selected venue, the persona of shoppers that make up that traffic, and a profile of that persona's shopping and other offline activities”​, the company revealed in a recent press release.

Marketers can also access a Saas marketing system featuring offline interaction with followers, recruitment of followers, customer relations management (CRM) and management of WeChat-based shops to enable the brand to build its online-to-offline strategies and move it into “the new retail area”.​

Putiandi works with strategic brand partners and internet heavyweights, including Siemens, Nestle, Baidu Map, Baozun.com, Dianping.com, JD.com, Lily&Beauty and Xiaom. It aims to help realise scenario-based marketing campaigns.

In presenting this new retail format, the pop-up shop concept builds widespread appeal and offers a limited-time marketing approach.