Throughout this summer and into the autumn, the Danbury Fair Mall will partner with All Things and More Pop-Up Boutiques to host a series of pop-up events featuring local small businesses.
The first event was held on July 1 and featured vendors from across Fairfield County and surrounding areas who sold goods ranging from jewelry to fresh popcorn and handmade soaps on the first floor of the mall.
“Danbury Fair has historically been a site where we try to do events and activities in the mall to activate local operators,” said Maura Ruby, the general manager of the mall. “This pop-up concept is something that we really focus on to elevate brands that are really local or home-grown businesses, giving them an opportunity to get visibility in a premier regional town center. It also provides us with an opportunity to entertain our customers with different and creative uses.”
According to Ruby, the pop-ups are a powerful tool for providing new experiences to visitors while also enabling the mall to highlight its worth to potential new tenants. It also presented an opportunity for cross promotion, with the mall showcasing small businesses offering unique products while those businesses were able to draw their dedicated base to the mall.
“Everything is so easy,” said Sueli Modes of Pure by Sue as customers perused her hand-made soaps. “I was here last year, and it was a great experience for me. I’m surrounded by great people here.”
Also appreciative of the exposure was Rose Correa, founder of the cosmetics vendor Amazonian SkinFood.
“I know there is a huge Brazilian community in this area, and I’m more on the coast so I thought it was really great to get my message to more Brazilians because they know these ingredients, and this is also the community that we help with the profits from our products,” said Correa.
Building community is also a primary focus of All Things and More, the chief organizers of the pop-up series. Kristine Rodriguez, a co-owner at All Things and More Pop-Up, said that a key part of building up for the events is using their own social media to promote the events involved businesses while encouraging organic cross promotion.
“We create a group chat with all the vendors that are participating,” Rodriguez said. “Our goal is creating a community with small businesses, allowing them to expose their brands and feel comfortable to come up and ask questions like ‘how do I register my business?’ We want to create a community of different small businesses so that they can network with each other and learn from each other.”
Rodriguez and her co-founder Natalia Santana both have businesses of their own, but they launched All Things and More after organizing a handful of pop-up events and realizing that they were both increasingly popular with the public and in demand among the many people launching businesses in recent years.
Vendor participation in the Danbury Mall events only requires a $125 fee, and the vendors who are accepted receive a day in a prime location with logistical support, along with flyers and a social media blitz. Their products then appear alongside a curated group of vendors, selected by Santana and Rodriguez to avoid overlapping offerings.
Rodriguez said that they have grander ambitions for future events as well.
“The biggest event we’ve had was close to 30, and that’s our goal for the mall,” she stated. “We want to basically take over the lower level all the way across, we want to have enough vendors where we can reach the other side of the mall.”
