The Markimage Interview: using a pop-up store to take the first steps into B2C.
To celebrate its 20th anniversary, Markimage decided to open a pop-up store with Nestore.
A Parisian agency specialising in events, interior decoration and art direction, Markimage has spent two decades working exclusively with professional clients. But for this milestone, Pauline, the agency's project director, felt it was time to step outside her comfort zone. One question kept coming up: what if they went straight to the people?
A few days on rue des Martyrs, an orange capsule in the heart of Paris, and a first B2C venture with Nestore. Pauline tells us how it went.
Markimage: 20 years of professional expertise
Yasmeen from Nestore: Hi Pauline, can you tell us about yourself and Markimage?
Pauline from Markimage: I'm Pauline, and I've been part of the Markimage team for a while now. Markimage has its roots in professional photography, we've been in the industry for 20 years, which feels like a real landmark. To celebrate, we wanted to do something a little different. Something that pushed us out of our comfort zone. So we asked ourselves: why not open a pop-up store and actually go out and meet people?
The thinking behind it was simple, we wanted to bring our know-how to a wider audience. Up until now, we've always worked purely in B2B. But over the years, we've grown into a full-service agency with three core areas: events, interior decoration and set design, and art direction. Twenty years in, it felt like the right moment to try something new and test the waters with a retail experience.
A pop-up over a website : putting people first
Yasmeen from Nestore: Why did you go with a pop-up format to kick off this move into B2C?
Pauline from Markimage: A lot of people asked me the same thing — why not just launch an online shop? But honestly, I believe now more than ever that there's no substitute for real human connection.
With the pop-up, I'm out in the world. I'm talking to people, making new connections, getting a genuine sense of what they need and how they think. That kind of insight just doesn't happen behind a screen. Working with Nestore on this has allowed us to put people at the heart of the experience — and that, for me, is what it's all about.
Rue des Martyrs: a location chosen for its Parisian crowd
Yasmeen from Nestore: How did you land on rue des Martyrs?
Pauline from Markimage: It's one of those streets everyone in Paris knows — always busy, always buzzing. What's great about our spot specifically is that we're right on a corner, so you can see us from a long way off. But the main reason was the type of people who walk through here. I wasn't looking for a neighbourhood clientele as such — I was looking for Parisians, people who live and work in the city. That's who my business needs. Rue des Martyrs ticked every box.
An immersive orange capsule, somewhere between showroom and experience
Yasmeen from Nestore: How did you approach the in-store design and experience?
Pauline from Markimage: Orange is our colour — it's in our logo, it runs through everything we do — so we built an entire orange capsule around that identity, showcasing all of our expertise and the materials we work with. We set up a little photobooth activation, which has been a real hit. But more than anything, visitors can come in, touch things, feel the textures — almost like a showroom where ideas start to take shape. It's a space for conversation, for kicking off a project. We also made a point of inviting our existing clients to come and share the moment with us.
The real takeaway: waking up a dormant audience
Yasmeen from Nestore: Looking back, what do you take away from this pop-up experience?
Pauline from Markimage: More than anything, what strikes me is how effective the pop-up has been at re-engaging people who had gone quiet — former clients, prospects who'd fallen off the radar. It sparks something. It gets people back in touch. For me, that's the real value of doing this.
Conclusion
What Markimage is taking away from this isn't a sales figure or a footfall count — it's something harder to quantify and far more valuable: genuine understanding. Understanding who your customers are, what they're looking for, and how they respond to a product, a texture, an idea.
That's something no website, digital campaign or polished portfolio can give you. A pop-up puts you face to face with reality — and that's exactly where the best strategic decisions get made.
For any agency, studio, consultancy or B2B brand wondering what their next move looks like, the ephemeral retail format deserves a serious look — not as a sales channel, but as a test and learn tool. A few days is all it takes to test an offering, pressure-test a positioning, re-engage a dormant network, and walk away with insights no dashboard would ever have surfaced.
Markimage did it to mark their twentieth year. Maybe your next strategic move is waiting for you behind a shop window too.
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