Yuppiechef is opening its first brick and mortar store next month

Online kitchen & homeware store Yuppiechef is opening its first brick and mortar store next month, in Cape Town.

“It has been 11 years since we shipped the first Yuppiechef order from my lounge. E-commerce enabled us to start a retail business with no stock, staff or expensive rentals. We have grown into a team of 85, with a warehouse and thousands of products, and have enjoyed being part of a pioneering industry in South Africa,” said Yuppiechef co-founder Andrew Smith.

He said that for a long time the company believed that e-commerce was the future of retail, and that eventually this channel would ‘win’ and the others would ‘die’. “We were wrong,” he said.

“We believe that the future of retail is ‘omni-channel’, which means a combination of physical stores and e-commerce.”

Smith said that for many South Africans shopping is one of our favourite pastimes — spending a Saturday at a mall, meeting friends and eating out. “Shops and malls are not going to disappear any time soon,” he said.

Yuppiechef is opening its first store on 1 October at Willowbridge Centre, in Cape Town’s Northern Suburbs.

“We hope that our first store is a big success and it is the start of more to come throughout South Africa. At this stage we don’t have firm plans for where or when future stores will open,” Smith said.

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