Flagship Yuppiechef store opens at V&A Waterfront
· 3 min read
One of South Africa’s home-grown entrepreneurial success stories will now grace the halls of one of Africa’s most visited tourist destinations. Premier kitchen and homeware retailer Yuppiechef opened the doors to its new 200 sqm V&A Waterfront store on Monday, 1 October, cementing its physical retail offering in a third Cape location.
“The potential in this environment is incredible, and we’re excited to offer V&A visitors a new retail experience,” says CEO and co-founder Andrew Smith. He lists this store as the third step in the brand’s omnichannel journey which has seen Yuppiechef expand its offering from a purely online experience to physical brick-and-mortar retail. “We are inviting our customers to engage with us on their terms – whether that’s in person or online.”
Yuppiechef opened stores in Tygervalley and Gardens over the past 12 months. “We put some non-negotiable principles in place, such as pricing and specials will always be the same online and in stores,” says Smith. “We have integrated online customer reviews into the price labels in the store, as well as QR codes that are easily scanned for access to additional product information. Any item, large or small, can be bought in store and delivered to a home, or conversely bought online and collected in the store.”
The new store is modelled on the industrial feel of the first two stores. Integral design features like high-quality wooden panelling and engineered quartz countertops make the space warm and welcoming whilst showing off the incredible range of products. The shop also boasts a “no queue” point-of-sale system which means that customers can pay for their basket of items at any position in the store, aided by a store assistant.
Yuppiechef is also pioneering the store design process. Not happy to design in 3D alone, Yuppiechef has transitioned into the world of VR (Virtual Reality) and has been able to digitally walk the aisles of the new space, long before the shop-fitters arrived to commence construction.
Paul Tyler from one of SA’s leading shopfitting companies, RMS Shopfitting, says that in his 25 years in the industry he’s not encountered this level of advanced technological design. “The Yuppiechef VR experience is completely life-like in the fact that you can stand in the store and look at detail that might be problematic in the real world. It allows you to solve issues that you wouldn’t necessarily be able to do off a drawing. The detail also includes smaller details like the individual lights, which can be adjusted according to requirements, all in virtual reality.”
The new store opened on 1 October 2018 at Shop 6195 on the Ground Floor at the V&A Waterfront. For more information visit www.yuppiechef.com/stores.htm
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