New service line · Parque Arauco · 2024–2025
Short-term shops inside malls, so small brands can try the real thing.
- Role
- Head of Customer Experience, Centre of Excellence, at one of Latin America's largest mall operators. Chile, Peru and Colombia. Built the team from scratch, up to 8 people, at executive level.
- Users
- Small brands moving from online to a physical shop, and the malls that host them.
- Scope
- Field research, co-creation, new business design, service design, UX/UI.
- Status
- Launched as a new business unit, Arauco PopUp.
Arauco PopUp in the mall, in 20 seconds
The PopUp sign, a module waiting for its next brand ("This module could be yours"), and brands selling from their modules.
How can we innovate within mall spaces to foster entrepreneurship?
The problem
Entrepreneurs were thriving, but they saw malls as expensive and complex.
Chilean retail had a hard 2019 with widespread protests, and in 2020 the pandemic brought nationwide lockdowns and closed the malls for a time. To adapt, Parque Arauco set out to attract a new segment: entrepreneurs. They had done well during the pandemic and preferred simple processes and free B2B tools. A mall space, with months between deciding and opening, was the opposite.
Time to open a shop
4.5 mo→2.5 wk
Opening a PopUp store went from four and a half months to two and a half weeks. About 87% faster.
The service.
After field research and many co-creation workshops with entrepreneurs, we launched Arauco PopUp: a new business unit with turnkey, customisable spaces that small businesses can lease for a short time, and digital tools to help them succeed inside the mall.
A space that keeps turning over.
Each brand comes in fast and leaves fast. The next one moves in, so the space is never empty for long.
What a small brand sees.
Renting a space works like shopping online, from the phone.
Brands in their PopUp modules. Each module comes with its own lighting and display cases.
The ideas it was built on.
Each one came out of the field research and the workshops with entrepreneurs.
01
Ready on day one.
Spaces come turnkey and can be made their own. No fit-out project before the first sale.
02
Trying a shop shouldn't risk the business.
Short terms and lower entry costs, so a brand can test a physical shop without putting its finances at risk.
03
As simple as the tools they already use.
Look for a space from the phone, like in any online shop. Digital tools help them sell once they're in.
04
A space shouldn't sit idle between brands.
Fast in and fast out keeps spaces full. Closing and turning over a space went from three months to 13 days.
Good for the brands, good for the mall.
Measured on PopUp stores against stores outside the programme, in comparable mall locations.
Sales, PopUp stores vs comparable stores
Average sales of brands in Arauco PopUp, compared with stores not using the model in comparable mall locations. Comparable stores = 100.
Occupancy
+76% average sales. Occupancy went to full capacity.
Time to close a space
3 mo→13 d
Rotation used to leave spaces idle. Opening got about 87% faster and closing about 85% faster.
Opening
Closing
The Centre of Excellence.
Customer experience for Chile, Peru and Colombia, as a function that sat with the executive team. I built it from scratch.
Up to 8
people, from zero.
A customer experience team across three countries, embedded at executive level.
90%
CSAT on the customer web app.
−25%
hours spent on analysis.
An AI-driven insights model replaced manual analysis of customer experience data.