We Are EGG: Hatching a New Reality for Local Retail

“Retail has been in my blood for as long as I can remember,” pronounces Paul Simon, founder of We Are EGG, a fiery passion that spurred him to make his name with his original Young Designers Emporium (YDE) business at just 21.

This venture sees him continue his courtship with the world of South African clothing production and retail, and just as his vastly popular Über Flavour craft beverage brand was conceived as he waited to board a flight, Simon again took inspiration from real-world observations, this time pounding the pavements consulting for some of South Africa’s biggest shopping centre groups.

TREND SPOTTER

“Even pre-Covid people were approaching for ideas and insight,” he says of the demand for his and his business partner, Arie Fabian’s, expertise, “telling us that tenancies were drying up, while e-commerce continued to cannibalise the market and brick and mortar retail was dying.

“We did a deep-dive into retail in the South African context,” he elaborates of the ensuing project, “specifically the mall environment. We walked pretty much every mall in the country and found that, firstly, there are too many in South Africa.

“Now, I am an entrepreneur, not a magician, so there is not too much that I can do about that but what I felt was lacking from the mall environment was innovation and creativity, of which we have an abundance here in South Africa.

“Instead, on the whole, the shopping centres have chosen to approach the major listed companies each with an umbrella of brands under them, and just let to all of those stores. Naturally, all the malls therefore look exactly the same, with the same offering. There was no creativity or innovation at all,” he observes.

BROKEN BUSINESS MODEL

So broken did he feel this model to be, Simon left no ambiguity when it came to delivering his findings. “I walked into the first meeting afterwards and just had to say to a wide-eyed audience, ‘guys, your business model is broken. You’re blocking out innovators and creators, and basically all SMEs.’

“I posited myself as a fashion designer making t-shirts, and suddenly my product is the hottest thing in the country,” he tells us of the assembly. “I’m selling hundreds of thousands of units on Facebook and Instagram, at weekend markets and at pop-up stores, and I decide that I am now ready for the mainstream in an A-grade mall.

“I arrive to be handed a lease document I don’t understand, wherein lies the first problem. Any innovators, creators and SMEs who don’t just drop off at this stage find that the lease agreements are traditionally very onerous and one-sided.

“Covid means that you now need to sign a five to seven year lease, and lay down six months rental in advance. Landlords are demanding shop fits to the value of millions of Rands to their exact specifications.”

Therein lies the first main cause of these exciting talents being effectively blocked out of the system. “The second thing the data from my research showed was that rather than e-commerce cannibalising bricks and mortar, it simply needs to pivot and integrate better – the two actually work optimally together. There are numerous examples both domestically and internationally – even the forefathers of e-comm, Amazon, are now opening stores.” 

Customer journey and experiential retail have been two things that have never been far from the tips of retail tongues since 1995 and Simon’s own first retail store. “I challenged the landlords to walk around any mall and show me someone who is creating an experience for the customer,” he says of this sorely lacking element. “It is absolutely imperative and another thing that limits the ability of e-commerce to take over in the way that we so often hear.

“This is what I said is missing from the retail environment both locally and abroad.”

SOLUTION

His meticulous process unearthed an incredible wealth of information and insight, turning the retail space on its head for those assembled, but now they naturally wanted to know – did Simon have a solution? “Well, actually we did,” he confirms. “It was a little unfortunate, but one of our big department stores locally in Claremont, Cape Town was going into liquidation, and I suggested that we try something that has never been done before.”

This proposal was the genesis of We Are EGG. “We showed the landlord that partnering with us and owning 50% would give a better return than from letting to tens of little independents with fairly high failure rates. We set up a platform, not just for SMEs, but for established brands as well, in an entirely new business model.”

Reinventing this wheel entails We Are EGG supplying the full retail offering to a brand – shop fitting, staff, electricity, everything – all the brand needs to provide is the product, and gone are the days of long leases to rent the spaces. “I believe in a win-win,” Simon explains. “Our partners can give a month’s notice to cancel if it isn’t working for them, but vice-versa too, if the brand isn’t giving us the product that the consumer wants.”

Over the 3000m² of retail space We Are EGG proudly hosts a glorious array of from wellness, food, fashion, beauty and homeware from more than 250 partners, 82% of whom are currently local South African and SMEs. Not to omit, of course, the all-important experiential aspects like customisation bars where local South African artists create before consumers’ eyes.

A stunning centre court is proudly reserved purely for one-off creative endeavours. “This is something completely different, that I haven’t even seen in an overseas environment,” Simon says, “these are completely personalised and impossible to take part in shopping online from begin a screen.

“We are a true omni-channel retailer, offering our partners a space in both the digital and the brick and mortar space.”

It is perhaps premature to speak yet of a ‘post-Covid’ environment, but as we do emerge We Are EGG is allowing unprecedented exposure and opportunities to creators. “We’re giving a platform into a formalised, A-grade spot in one of the top shopping centres in the country, which they never could have accessed before” Simon proudly states.

“Everything comes from an egg, and we believe that we are re-hatching retail within the South African environment,” he concludes. “We believe that this business model, and the offering that we have created, makes Egg the retail of the future.”