Final March, Emily Schildt opened Pop Up Grocer on a Bleecker Road nook within the West Village, promoting artfully packaged condiments, drinks and different merchandise made by small, rising manufacturers in a pay-to-play enterprise mannequin.

Prospects should buy artisanal sizzling sauces or zucchini chips from manufacturers like Peepal People and Van Van that pay a charge to be on the cabinets. Sometimes 150 to 200 manufacturers are on show at a time, and a few are changed on a quarterly foundation.

“If we had been to be solely reliant on product gross sales, we would wish to promote at a a lot greater quantity,” Ms. Schildt mentioned. “That’s simply an impossibility once you’re speaking a few retailer made up of utterly unfamiliar items.”

Rents for retail area in New York continued to rise final yr, in keeping with the actual property companies agency CBRE, making it tougher for unbiased companies to outlive. One 27-square-foot area within the West Village, an prosperous neighborhood in Manhattan, was just lately listed for $5,000 a month. However some formidable entrepreneurs are experimenting with enterprise fashions, like charging shelf charges or promoting wholesale to make ends meet.

“You both should get inventive, or it’s a must to get out of New York,” Ms. Schildt mentioned.

Retail is being reconfigured to handle the values of the brand new buyer, mentioned Thomaï Serdari, who teaches advertising and marketing at N.Y.U. Stern College of Enterprise. “Innovation is coming from those that, by necessity, have up to date their enterprise fashions,” she mentioned.

However unbiased retailers face challenges, together with excessive working prices and discovering a mannequin that works.

“Tech evolves, our cell phones evolve and brick-and-mortars evolve,” mentioned Ani Sanyal, who along with his brother, Ayan, based Kolkata Chai Co., which sells merchandise on-line in addition to at two retail areas in downtown Manhattan.

Their firm sells sizzling chai, Indian avenue meals like samosas, seasonal chai smooth serve, together with baggage of their chai blends and merchandise. Foot site visitors is regular at each areas, Ani Sanyal mentioned, however the firm’s e-commerce enterprise accounts for 75 to 80 % of its income.

Kolkata Chai Co. additionally sells wholesale chai focus to Equinox, Juice Press and Boba Guys. The corporate has collaborated with manufacturers like Transcendence Coffee, teamed up with celebrities like Hasan Minhaj, all of which had been posted on its social media feeds.

Utilizing an omnichannel method — e-commerce, wholesale and in retailer — the brothers suppose they’ll expose an enormous array of individuals to their chai and create lifelong prospects. “Since chai is a product that has been bastardized and sort of misrepresented on this nation for therefore lengthy, it was actually vital for us to have the ability to have the true expertise of our tradition,” Ani Sanyal mentioned.

Dolce Brooklyn sells gelato and ice cream from a storefront within the Brooklyn neighborhood Cobble Hill, however it’s the firm’s wholesale enterprise, promoting to high-end eating places, some with two Michelin stars, that makes a revenue. “That you must discover completely different income channels,” the corporate’s proprietor, Pierre Alexandre, mentioned.

Rachel Krupa’s omnichannel method for her firm, the Goods Mart, contains curating and distributing snacks at inns, espresso outlets and company pantries. At her minimalist store in SoHo, certainly one of three areas, she sells packaged snacks from 200 manufacturers, largely rising producers, like garlic chili crisps made by Mama Teav’s, an organization in Oakland, Calif.

The Items Mart was certainly one of Mama Teav’s first accounts when it began two years in the past, and right now Mama Teav’s merchandise are stocked in 420 shops throughout the US. “As a small maker, a brand new model, we’re not going to get into Complete Meals proper off the bat,” mentioned Christina Teav-Liu, a founding father of Mama Teav’s.

Ms. Krupa mentioned she wouldn’t have the ability to give publicity to manufacturers like Mama Teav’s if she had landlords who had been merely making an attempt to generate income. Her first landlord, Bret Trenkmann, noticed worth in her mission and gave her a good hire in SoHo, as did one other landlord, Tishman Speyer, on her second location at Rockefeller Middle.

Shoppers, particularly vacationers, need genuine experiences that they can’t get at residence, mentioned Ms. Krupa, who additionally runs a public relations agency, Krupa Consulting, that works with packaged meals and wellness manufacturers. “You’re not going say, ‘Oh, my gosh, I went ice skating at Rock Middle — and I ate at Chili’s,’” she mentioned.

Landlords play a significant position within the progress and survival of independently owned companies, mentioned Stacy Mitchell, a co-executive director of the Institute for Native Self-Reliance, a nonprofit advocate for unbiased companies. Nationwide chains may be a safer monetary selection in contrast with an unbiased entrepreneur, however leasing to them is shortsighted, Ms. Mitchell mentioned.

And giving small-business house owners a break could be good for landlords. “The standard of the companies on the avenue degree impacts the rents that they’re capable of get for the higher flooring, whether or not these are places of work or housing,” she mentioned.

The US is present process a cultural shift in retail shopping for, mentioned Syama Bunten, the founding father of Scaling Retail, a consultancy in San Francisco. The direct-to-consumer mannequin, pioneered by corporations like Greenback Shave Membership and Sew Repair, was an revolutionary method years in the past however now’s saturated.

The brand new part of procuring falls into two predominant classes: low-cost and straightforward on Amazon and with a sense of connection inside brick-and-mortars.

One other method for unbiased house owners to construct enterprise is thru connection and group, usually via in-store occasions, which creates vibrant avenue life, foot site visitors and a gathering of like-minded folks. A bus shelter advert may get a model visibility, Ms. Bunten mentioned, however creating occasions and areas for patrons creates a a lot stronger emotional connection.

“It might not be that one hundred pc of tourists flip into prospects,” she mentioned, “however you have got one hundred pc probability of your model having a way more lasting impact in somebody’s thoughts than a conventional promoting piece.”

Regardless of discovering ranges of success, some small retailers marvel whether it is definitely worth the effort. A lot of them have sunk their life financial savings into their companies and raised further funds via institutional and angel buyers, to not point out family and friends. They function sustainable enterprise fashions and publish always on social media. But the price of leasing and creating an area stays a barrier.

“One thing wants to vary,” mentioned Ms. Schildt of Pop Up Grocer, who spent 18 months looking for the suitable storefront.

If metropolis officers and landlords don’t understand there are prohibitive prices round hire for unbiased retailers, “town goes to lose its colour,” mentioned Ani Sanyal of Kolkata Chai Co. “It’s going to lose the issues that make folks wish to come to New York.”