The pop-up store - a temporary location of a retail outlet that is highly focused around a brand name, a theme or a specific line of products - has become a legitimate form of retail currency in recent years.

“Part fashion, part art, part store,” is how artist/designer Greg Lauren (Ralph’s nephew - yes, that Ralph) described his week-long pop-up installation “Barracks” in Manhattan’s Lower East Side in November.

The trend has been most apparent in large metropolitan areas like New York City, where any retail proposition has to jostle for attention with mega-wattage permanent-shop designs, and where rising rents have made the guerrilla-store approach cost-effective. Users have been brands with highly seasonal needs, such as the 30 Holiday Express locations that Toys “R” Us launched during the 2009 Christmas season, or Wired magazine, which has done a high-tech pop-up shop in New York for the past seven years.

Pop-ups have been popular tactics for introducing new brands to an area, such as the 53-foot tractor-trailer that Target set up shop in four years ago in Manhattan, selling $75 air conditioners (including one to this writer). And pop-ups also increasingly appear in existing retail spaces as big-box and other retailers seek to make better use of their current venues.

Pop-ups are even mushrooming in the owners’ larger stores, as a way to add a sense of immediacy to limited-time product offerings, such as EM & Co’s L.A. Designer Pop-up, housed in a portion of the boutique’s store. The trend is also beginning to cross-pollinate with other event and media propositions; H&M launched its Dragon Tattoo Collection - fashion designed by the costume designer for the film The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo - with a pop-up shop in Manhattan’s Meatpacking District in December.

CBS News business correspondent Anthony Mason reports on the emergence of ‘pop-up’ stores.

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