Maui Partners with ‘Pop-Up Makeke’ Program

Courtesy photo.

The County of Maui’s Office of Economic Development is partnering with the Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement and the City and County of Honolulu to support “Pop-Up Makeke,” an initiative to create a centralized online marketplace for customers to have easy access to local products.

Four TV shows will be filmed on Maui in October and December featuring Maui County products. The program will be televised Sunday nights on KHNL and KGMB, and re-broadcast Wednesday nights on KFVE.

“In response to COVID-19, we are looking for ways to support local businesses, and this online venture provides a way for vendors to get their products to customers safely and conveniently,” said Mayor Victorino. “This will help many Native Hawaiian-owned businesses that have been dependent on community events, such as craft fairs and farmers’ markets, to interact with customers and sell their products.”

With Pop-Up Makeke, qualified vendors send their product inventory to CNHA, which markets and sells the products online at popupmakeke.com. After receiving orders, CNHA packages them and ships them to customers. There’s no cost to participate in Pop-Up Makeke.

Vendors apply online. After qualifying, they receive information about how to upload their product information to the Pop-Up Makeke website. Product inventory is processed from a shipping center in Kapolei. The Pop-Up Makeke team markets and preps products for sale online and shows products on a weekly TV show televised on KHNL and Facebook Live.

Customer orders are shipped out via US Postal Service Priority Mail within one to three days at no cost to the vendor.

Pop-Up Makeke was established in April 2020. Its products were on televised broadcasts for eight weeks during which more than 11,000 items were sold from over 100 vendors. The program grossed nearly $325,000 in sales.