New online designer store coming soon

Andrew Playford, who spent over 10 years in the e-commerce sector in New York, founded it with Belinda Mallitte, co-owner of the Cape Town based architecture and design firm, Salt and Pepper.

"Historically it takes a long time for a local, talented designer to rise above the crowd in a competitive and noisy market," said Playford. "There are only so many design oriented boutiques, and the big retailers demand a scale that is out of reach for most independent designers."

The site will give local designers a platform to profile their collections directly to South Africa's online public, estimated to be around 5 million and growing fast.

"I'm really excited about showcasing my collection on the site," says Lani Edwards of Cape Town based Squaremoon Bags, and recent winner of the Startup Category Award at the MiPel bag show in Milan, Italy. "Even though we have our own website we'd rather be designing beautiful products than worrying about online marketing and distribution."

The site will start by being tightly curated by in-house design staff, according to Playford, "but ultimately we plan to let our users be the curators as they Tweet, Like or Pin their favourite products."

The site plans to launch in about 30 days and is currently offering free shopping credits to users who sign up early, with additional bonuses for those who want to invite their friends.

For more information, go to www.mazzoe.com.