After years of trying to relet vacant space at malls including Cavendish Square, The Zone @Rosebank and Gateway Theatre of Shopping, Old Mutual Property is turning to two entrepreneurs to fill its holes.
November will see the launch of EGG, a 50-50 joint venture between Old Mutual Property and Paul Simon, founder of Young Designers Emporium and Arie Fabian, founder of Fabiani.
The first EGG store will be a 3,800m² shop, located in space vacated by national retailer Edgars, in Cavendish Square, Cape Town.
The store will sell products and services of brands that have largely not had access to malls. EGG will also provide them with an online platform and other support effectively creating a retail incubator.
“Vendors will receive business support with all live sales and stock tracking, merchandise management for storage, replenishment, visual merchandising, supported on the EGG vendor platform, enabling small, medium and micro enterprises to manage their stores remotely,” said Simon.
In this sense EGG is an omnichannel retail platform.
“We have been studying the best practice trends worldwide for retail and have come up with what we believe is an innovative way of using space at our malls. We want to get South Africans to return to the shops as we exit the hard lockdown,” Sakina Nosarka, head of retail at Old Mutual Property said.
Simon said he and Fabian had curated more than 240 brands that would use EGG as a platform to grow their businesses.
“Uniting omnichannel in a multidimensional shopping-as-experience format that combines retail, e-commerce and an interactive consumer app, EGG is appealing to a new generation of consumer that is seeking an all-inclusive entertainment, locally sourced, learning and lifestyle fulfilment experience from a trip to the mall,” said Simon.
He said EGG had also developed a mobile application which customers could use to buy goods and to find out information about retailers.
“We are excited about the technology we are using with EGG. This store is the most technologically advanced store in the country. I think we are the first to use beacon technology in SA. Consumers can shop using their device as they walk through the store and then come and get their stock from a collection point, or they can shop from home beforehand,” he said.
The first EGG store will be at Cavendish Square but the joint venture wants to roll out the concept at other malls across SA.
Within three years, there will be three more EGG stores in the Zone @ Rosebank and Bedford Centre in Johannesburg, and Gateway in Durban.
The Cavendish EGG store will have a central showcase space which retail members can use for no charge. This allows brands to have events within the store.
“Through co-creation and collaboration, we are co-evolving a new growth and sustainable opportunity through the curation of unique local partnerships with universal appeal,” Simon said.
Correction: October 12 2020
A previous version of this article stated that Simon said he and Fabian had curated more than 2,400 brands that would use EGG as a platform to grow their businesses.
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