By Harsh Kumar

Inside the Ted Rogers School of Management (TRSM), Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) students are getting a taste of entrepreneurship through a new Pop-Up Shop initiative that lets them test their brand and directly engage with customers

Launched this fall by TMU’s School of Retail Management, the Pop-Up Shop offers students a week-long opportunity to operate a retail storefront on the eighth floor of  TRSM,  sell their products and test new business ideas. 

The Pop-Up Shop will be running the entire school year. It will close after the last week of classes in April and reopen next fall.

Each week, a new vendor takes over the space, ranging from TMU students or student groups, TRSM alumni or industry and community partners of the School of Retail Management. 

Donna Smith, director of Retail Management and one of the minds behind the project said the idea was sparked during the pandemic when many small businesses struggled to stay afloat. It was also a time when pop-ups were getting increasingly popular. 

“Pop-up shops are really temporary shops for entrepreneurs who can’t afford permanent locations,” Smith said. 

Jennifer Newman, manager of the Pop-Up Shop and co-creator of the project, said the goal was to create a space that connects students’ classroom learning with hands-on entrepreneurial experience. 

“Reinvesting in the new Pop-Up Shop was to allow for a space that both students, alumni, faculty and the Toronto community can leverage to build that relationship between entrepreneurship and the study that we are in,” said Newman. 

When creating the Pop-Up Shop, Smith talked about the importance of having a diverse and inclusive space, noting that several indigenous entrepreneurs are already scheduled to take part. 

Unlike other pop-ups in Toronto, the TRSM Pop-Up Shop doesn’t charge vendors a fee, which Smith said helps to lower the barrier of entry for student entrepreneurs.

“We don’t charge for the use of the Pop-Up Shop and we get a lot of thank you notes for that,” Smith said. 

Rather than a simple booth setup,  the vendors are getting a fully functioning retail space. 

“Although it is not an enclosed shop with a door,” she said. “We’re giving you a physical space that feels like a real shop.” 

Newman added that vendors also benefit from professional support and visibility across campus to help with promotion.

“Marketing is one of the biggest assets, obviously, we have access to all the screens on campus, the wayfinders that have the events on them,” she said. 

Among the first vendors to take part was Cynthia Yuan, a recent creative industries graduate and founder of Illuscyn, an art and lifestyle brand she started during the pandemic. Yuan said returning to the campus as a business owner felt meaningful after years of study in the same building.  

“It meant a lot to have such a big space at the school that I attended,” she said. “It’s kind of like a full circle moment.”

Yuan said the experience was positive and helped her better understand her audience. She noted many students appreciated her fair price and she gained insight that she plans to carry into the future. 

“It just taught me [to] keep things affordable for students,” Yuan said. “It just shows me what’s popular these days, and what I should continue to sell.”

While her pop-up collided with the midterm week and saw slower traffic, Yuan said it reaffirmed her goal of one day opening a storefront in Toronto. “I can look back and this would be one of those experiences that gave me [the feeling of] having a store for a week,” she said. 

Now in its fifth week, Newman said the Pop-Up Shop is continuously evolving based on vendor and student feedback.

“We connect with each vendor after the fact on a satisfaction survey just to understand if there’s something else that we could be supporting you with,” Newman said. 

Both Smith and Newman hope that the Pop-Up Shop will grow into a permanent project and inspire the next generation of entrepreneurs. 

“We want to inspire students to become the next successful business…and if we can inspire people to start new businesses, then we’ve done our job well.”