Storefront VS ForwardMsg

Storefront's answer

Storefront is built for retail specifically, not for events in general. The inventory is high-street shops, galleries, showrooms, and studios, listed with the detail a retailer actually decides on: dimensions, frontage, footfall context, and available dates. It also works in both directions in one place. Brands search and book short-term, from a day up to three months and up, while owners, landlords, and agents list vacant space and manage incoming requests through a subscription. No broker sits in the middle and no multi-year lease is required on either side. And it is international rather than single-market, with live markets across North America, Europe, and Asia, so a brand running a multi-city rollout books every leg on the same platform.

Storefront's answer

If you are a brand, because the inventory is retail-first. General event marketplaces will show you a loft or a photo studio when what you need is a shop with street frontage and a till point. Storefront indexes space the way retailers choose it, and short-term terms mean you can test a location before committing to a lease. If you own or manage space, because a subscription puts your vacancy in front of brands already searching your city, and you keep control of who books it and on what terms, so space earns between long leases instead of sitting empty. For either side, the international footprint is the practical difference: expanding beyond one country does not mean starting again on a new platform.

Storefront's answer

Storefront began with a simple observation: retail space was only ever sold in years, while the brands that wanted it increasingly needed days, weeks, or months. Pop-up retail was growing fast and there was no straightforward way to rent for it. The company's roots are in Paris, where co-founders Mohamed Haouache and Adrien Kerbrat built PopUp Immo to make short-term retail space bookable online. In 2016 it merged with the US company Storefront, which had been building the same idea in New York and San Francisco, and the combined business kept the Storefront name. That merger is why Storefront is international by default rather than by expansion, and the platform has grown since into a marketplace covering major retail markets across three continents.

Storefront's answer

Two audiences, served on one platform. On the demand side, brands and retailers taking space short-term: direct-to-consumer and e-commerce brands opening physical retail for the first time, established retailers testing a new city or neighborhood, and marketing teams running product launches, showrooms, sample sales, brand activations, and corporate events. On the supply side, the people who control the space: landlords, property owners, retail and commercial agents, and operators with vacant or between-lease inventory they want to monetize. Geographically, the audience sits in the major retail cities of North America, Europe, and Asia.

Storefront's answer

Storefront has powered spaces for global brands across retail, beauty, fashion, food, and technology. Recent and notable examples include Puma, which opened a Fashion Week showroom in Paris with Rihanna; Kodak, with an experiential pop-up in London's Soho; Cadbury, with an edible flower pop-up on Soho Square; Mars, with a candy-themed pop-up salon in Times Square; and Pandora, which hosted a press day on Rue Saint-Honoré in Paris.

In beauty, customers include L'Oréal Paris, Clarins, and Huda Beauty. In fashion and sportswear, Under Armour, Diesel, FILA, SHEIN, 7 For All Mankind, TOMS, and Moose Knuckles. In technology and media, Spotify, Facebook, Venmo, Sony, and ELLE. In food and grocery, Lidl, Danone, HEMA, and Hong Kong's Kowloon Dairy. Storefront has also hosted album and tour pop-ups for Ed Sheeran and Kendrick Lamar, and campaign spaces for Amnesty International.

Alongside those names, a large share of bookings come from independent and emerging brands taking their first physical space, which is a core part of what the platform is for. On the supply side, customers range from individual property owners to retail landlords and commercial agents in every market we operate in.