Experiential retail China: Why food pop-ups draw crowds

Yeyeland (矿野野), a new store on Shanghai’s South Wulumuqi Road, has caught the eye of Chinese social media users by selling mineral-shaped desserts alongside the real specimens. A group of young mineral collectors opened the 240-square-meter store in June. Its main business is a dessert bar, but it also sells geological specimens and crystal-inspired products, and plans to stage seasonal exhibitions. Among the products is a soap modeled on fluorite, with beads set inside. “Once you finish the soap, you’ll get the beads that are drilled already, and if you collect a few more you would be able to make a bracelet yourself,” Yeyeland co-founder Eloise Li (Tianyi Li) said. Beyond the cakes and merchandise, Yeyeland is the latest Chinese retailer to sell an experience first and products second. Gentle Monster and Dior are among the brands that have borrowed from art installations and food in China this year to bring shoppers through the door. Shanghai design firm Studio 4/301 designed the store around a floor-to-ceiling installation that resembles an exposed rock formation, set with real mineral specimens supplied by Yeyeland. According to the studio’s project description, the layout borrows from a geological dig: a retail area near the entrance gives way to a dessert area beneath a suspended canopy, modeled on a field research tent. Richard Lau, a co-founder of Studio 4/301, told Jing Daily that most of Yeyeland’s customers are aged 18 to 25. “People visiting coffee shops are no longer just there for a good cup of coffee,” Lau said. “The uniquely immersive experience is a big appeal for customers.” Retail sales of consumer goods in Shanghai fell 1.1% year-on-year to 1.22 trillion RMB ($181.1 billion) in the first nine months of 2026, according to the Shanghai Municipal Bureau of Statistics. In the same period of 2025, they grew 4.3%. Mall vacancy is rising, too. CBRE put the city’s retail vacancy rate at 9.9% in the third quarter, up from 9.2% in the second. Three new malls added 170,000 square meters, while net absorption came to 61,000 square meters. Trendy fashion and toys and gifts stores led leasing, with new-style tea and Asian food and beverage brands also active. Viral desserts For Yeyeland’s founders, the desserts are the hook and the minerals are the motivation. From the start, the aim was to bring the “relatively niche culture” of mineral collecting to a wider audience, Li told Jing Daily. “We felt desserts would be a fun and approachable way to get people interested,” she said. Exhibitions will change with the seasons, each focused on a different mineral or concept. “We want people to not only appreciate the beauty of minerals, but also learn about them and maybe even start their own collections,” Li said. What pleases her most, she added, is seeing visitors “who had never really been exposed to mineral collecting before becoming curious about it.” That approach has caught on with Xiaohongshu (also known as RedNote) users. The Yeyeland hashtag had 392,000 views on the platform, about four months after the store opened. Posts on the platform show visitors in Marie Antoinette-style outfits posing inside a giant dessert cup at the store, beside a huge cake slice and an equally large crème brûlée. Even the edible cakes are designed for the camera. Some are topped with what the store calls “healing gems.” Others include a rose-pink cake shaped like a bedroom with a bathtub full of crystals, and a 12-inch custom cake modeled on rhodochrosite, a pink mineral. The store also made a Halloween special. Li said Shanghai was the obvious place to start. “[The city] has such a vibrant consumer culture, a great fashion and design scene, and people here are always open to trying something new.” Giant food in Chinese retail Food is the theme of several high-profile retail spaces in China this year. Dior opened a dessert-themed pop-up at Deji Plaza in Nanjing in late April for its Fall 2026 collection. The structure is shaped like three oversized cake slices, topped with oversized strawberries and cherries, according to Dior’s description of the space. Inside, the collection sat beside handmade glass and ceramic cakes until the pop-up closed June 30. Forever 21 followed with a three-day pop-up at Gate M West Bund Dream Center in Shanghai from May 29, part of a collaboration marking the centenary of Marilyn Monroe’s birth. For her June 1 birthday, the brand built a giant cake installation where visitors could pose for photos beside her image. South Korean eyewear brand Gentle Monster launched its 2026 Veggie collection on June 5 with pop-up installations in six cities: Shanghai, Beijing, Seoul, Tokyo, Bangkok and Los Angeles. Each was built around a giant tomato sculpture, surrounded by vegetable-inspired characters called Veggiemon. Visitors could step into a photo booth that turned them into Veggiemon avatars. In Beijing, Chinese jewelry brand Hefang (何方珠宝) ran the Inspiration Patisserie, a pop-up built around a giant cream cake, at S10 Plaza in Taikoo Li Sanlitun South from September 30 to October 7. Based on the brand’s Tea Time tableware collection, the space set jewelry beside sculptural forks, tableware and pastries, as if laid out on a dining table. Hefang first ran the concept at Shenzhen’s MixC World in April, according to the brand. Studio 4/301 has taken a similar approach outside Shanghai, drawing on art instead of food. In Hangzhou, it designed the first flagship for Chio’2ND (南风), an online bag brand. The store draws on “Early Spring,” the 11th-century landscape painting by the Song dynasty artist Guo Xi. Two mountain-like display structures of local stone and wood sit at its center and break up the usual retail route, so shoppers wander instead of following a set path, according to the studio. The open question is whether photos turn into sales. A widely viewed hashtag can fill a store on a weekend, but it does not guarantee buyers. Many of the posts do show visitors eating the cakes, which suggests at least some are spending. Yeyeland is counting on its seasonal exhibitions to build loyalty by giving visitors a reason to come back. “Our hope is to make mineral collecting feel more accessible, fun and approachable for everyone,” Li said.

Yeyeland and the art-food retail moment

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Yeyeland and the art-food retail moment

TUMI’s new growth playbook: From travel expertise to lifestyle performance