By Ellen Wilkowe
You've every intention of hitting up that Nordstrom sale at the mall but are sidetracked by cute yoga pants and a little black slip dress that both shapes and contours. But the clothes aren't in a store — they're hanging on a cart outside the stores.
Welcome to Maidenform's Shaper Shop kiosk, just one of the many mini-stores dotting the mall's interior. And the expanding kiosk market now includes everything from shapewear to $20 sheets, sunglasses to language-learning software and Crocs to socks.
Born in Boston's Faneuil Hall Marketplace in 1976, the kiosk concept has grown into a $12 billion specialty retail industry, said Poornima Apte, editor in chief of Specialty Retail Report. And IBISWorld research indicates that sales from kiosks increased from $975.9 million in 2006 to an estimated $2.07 billion in 2011, according to analyst Janet Shim.
Apte said the kiosks can provide an entrepreneur a way to test new retail concepts. "It can be temporary, doesn't require too much capital investment, and merchandise can be rotated quickly and effectively."
Which is why you can thread your brows, upgrade your cellphone accessories and snag a radio-controlled helicopter for your nephew without even entering a store.
This so-called consumer counter culture introduces a wide variety of products to the marketplace, and also allows merchants to test drive their businesses under a short-term lease, said Chris Dudley, marketing manager at Willowbrook Mall in Wayne.
An art and a science, the placement of a kiosk is a delicate balance of maximizing a vendor's visibility and minimizing disruption to store-based retailers.
At Westfield Garden State Plaza in Paramus, Maidenform and its line of "stylish, sexy shapewear" attempts to speak to the average woman en route to Nordstrom and J.C. Penney.
Several kiosks down, a competing shapewear company aims to do the same.
(And no, you can't try the clothes on.)
Far from department store entrances, the Helizone and its radio-controlled toy helicopter demonstrations usually raise as many brows as the centrally perched Threading Stations — one between Lord and Taylor and Nordstrom, the other outside of Johnny Rockets.
Kiosk culture targets the impulse buyer, or at least serves as a reminder of needs and wants.
"Because mall kiosks are merchandised beautifully, they attract consumers to come check them out," Apte said. Demonstration concepts like toy helicopters also cater to customers' attention spans. "Many of the products sold through this market have a price point that makes them especially attractive as impulse buys."
This was evidenced by the number of mostly male passersby who were lured to the Helizone, or men and women alike found hovering over cellphone accessory carts.
"What's fascinating is that it only takes a couple of seconds to get people to say 'I always wanted to learn a language,' " said Duane Sider, director of learning for Rosetta Stone, a language learning specialty with a kiosk presence in Garden State Plaza, Willowbrook Mall and an "experience" store at The Mall at Short Hills.
In 2010, kiosks accounted for just under 20 percent of sales for Rosetta Stone.
The company debuted its first kiosk at Dulles International Airport in 2000. "It was enough of a success that we branched out to other airports and malls," said Sider. "Airport travelers are a good demographic," as well as malls in higher-educated, affluent areas.
Depending on the season, the Garden State Plaza has anywhere from 55 to 64 carts. Willowbrook, home to 44 cart vendors and 24 kiosks, offers potential vendors the option to rent a cart from six to nine months or a kiosk, which comes with a longer lease of up to a year.
Carts are provided by the mall; their larger counterparts are designed by the vendor and the mall.
Willowbrook's newest tenant? "A vendor who custom-designs puppets," said Dudley.
