Edgartown’s Winter Street was divided into two sides Friday morning.
On one side, a long line of mostly visitors awaited their chance to peek inside the pop-up store of the Amazon-affiliated business Shopbop. Right across the road, a group of local business owners and eager activists stood holding signs in protest against the event.
The peaceful rally was triggered after the Edgartown Select Board approved a three-day license on July 9 for the online retailer’s pop-up shop. Information about the weekend event was released to the wider public four days later on Shopbop’s Instagram, which has about 1.3 million followers. Shopbop is an international online fashion retailer that offers a wide range of contemporary and designer brands. It has been owned by Amazon since 2006.
Annette Luna, the rally organizer and owner of two Edgartown clothing stores, Dune and Boneyard, said the event raised an existential question: “Where does that leave our local business?”
“What makes it more dangerous is they’re here for three days, but the effects will be long-lasting,” Luna said. “We won’t notice it overnight, but slowly and surely, they will keep messaging and targeting these people who showed up to this event today to convert them to shop online.”
Many other local business owners shared concerns about mainland brands coming to the Island. Lucy Dahl is the owner of Untamable Galley on Winter Street, and said local businesses have experienced the pressure of larger brands when another pop-up was previously approved.
“It’s when one comes, and then there will be more. For example, a year or two ago, there was a J.Crew pop-up, and during that time, our business suffered,” Dahl said. She added that some of the effects were significantly reduced revenue: “Nobody would really buy. We sold about 50 percent [of usual sales].”
Dahl said when customers stand in line and spend a lot of money at pop-ups of corporate brands rather than going to independent shops, “it affects us hugely.”
Other concerns raised included a lack of support to the community by the large businesses behind these pop-up events, compared with local shops that give to Island programs from their own profits.
Luna was an active part of the negotiation that took place during the select board meeting where the pop-up was licensed. Part of the license approval to allow Shopbop’s operation in Edgartown was rooted in the retailer finding overlaps in products with local businesses, which never took place prior to the event, according to Luna. “Shopbop […] carries a lot of the same brands that our boutiques in town carry. At the town meeting, Amazon promised not to have any crossover product. They have done no outreach to any of our local businesses to confirm that there is no crossover,” she said.
On the left side of the street, where the pop-up was hosted at the Sydney Hotel, there was a line of eager shoppers and online influencers. Eva Andrews visits the Island regularly in the summer, was familiar with the brand, and decided to attend the pop-up event. “I mean, I completely support them in the message. My family always makes a point to shop local. The way I rationalize it is that I’m not buying anything here that I could purchase at a local Vineyard business,” she said.
The Shopbop pop-up did collaborate with some local businesses, such as Back Door Donuts and Black Joy Kitchen, while Pilates and yoga studio Yoga on the Vine participated by offering activities during the event. “We’re very excited. We have Back Door Donuts there this weekend … They’re doing a couple of activities for this particular event,” Andrew Olivera, who is part of the marketing operation of Edgartown Collection, which includes the Sydney Hotel, said in an interview with The Times.
Olivera said that while the event may raise concerns, it also carries benefits: “We understand their perspective. We respect their view, but our perspective really is that this is sort of an opportunity, like a rising tide lifts all boats. We see this as a bigger investment in the town.”
He added that the pop-up has a voucher system to promote shopping locally. “We’re honoring a shop-local voucher where if you bring a receipt for $25 or more from a local business around the Island, [Shopbop] gives a complimentary tote bag to anybody who pops in. So what we’re trying to do as much as we can [is] to encourage that sort of sharing of wealth,” Olivera said.
Shopbop has also donated to some local charities, such as the Martha’s Vineyard branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the Vineyard Preservation Trust, according to Olivera.
Despite some of these benefits, local business owners remain wary of the impacts of these types of events. “Amazon is using a disguise of ‘We’re supporting the local community. We hire local artists. We bring local vendors,’” Luna said. “You do that for three days, and what you’ve done, though, is to the detriment of small retail clothing stores. But what are the long-term effects of that?”
Dahl said she and other local shop owners are determined to continue raising awareness against events such as these, and want to take the issue to the Edgartown Town Hall again: “If this continues to be allowed, we’re going to bring it to a town hall meeting in the spring to ban it, or we will be put out of business.”
