I just hosted a soft opening at our union hall on Saturday, actually. A formal opening means everything is ready and you’re officially open for business. A soft open is usually unofficial, and stuff might not be completely ready. Our back room, for example, still needs carpeting, and there’s no sign over the door yet. A soft open is a sort of trial run which will tell you what still needs to be done which might not otherwise be obvious on the surface. Mistakes and rough edges are expected at a soft open.

They have opened the store and have trained the personnel, and they want to make sure everything is working and people know what they’re doing.

Once they’re happy that the internal processes are in place, they’ll do a “hard opening” with publicity and Grand Opening signs, and all of that.

Thanks guys, I had thought that it might be something along these lines, particularly with respect to the staff.

Our local Disney store did something recently, where certain people (invited) got to go to a “soft opening” and then about 3 days later or a week later, they had the “official grand opening” for the general public.

It’s an opening before the officially Grand Opening. As people said above it’s to practice and work out any kinks. Sometimes it’s only for people who are invited, or special guests; you see that a lot with restaurants. Guests should know things might not work perfectly. Expectations should be reasonable that there might be longer wait times or difficulties. The Grand Opening is more likely to have special events going on.

It’s interesting that a shop would advertise a soft opening. Usually that is done by invite only. It’s sort of like a dress rehearsal for a play. The purpose is to ensure that the employee training and the equipment is effective. It allows for a debrief on what worked and what didn’t in order to tweak before the official opening.

Maybe the shop had no idea who their targeted audience might be, thus advertised locally. This is common when there is no one designated to sales/marketing.

I hear soft opening a lot in the Midwest.

Word-of-mouth opening in preparation of the “Grand Opening”.

I like it, personally.

Sounds more professional than trial opening.