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Johannesburg - A subsidiary of French telecoms company Orange has pushed back a deadline for the opening of its first brick and mortar store in South Africa.
Orange Horizons currently has an online retail store in South Africa where it sells the likes of mobile phones.
Late last year the company announced plans to extend its online retail presence in SA by opening a store in Cape Town. The store is planned to be opened in Claremont and replaces an old Nashua Mobile shop. Nashua Mobile shut down its SA operations last year.
At first, Orange Horizons said the store would open in January 2015, but that deadline has been pushed back.
"It was initially scheduled for launch at the beginning of Q1,” Blake Levitan, country manager, Orange Horizons South Africa, told Fin24.
"At the moment, without divulging too much, it will be open before the end of this quarter and we should issue some communication in the press before the end of April as to a confirmed date together with some media invites,” Levitan added.
Levitan told Fin24 that one reason for the delay is that Orange was not “happy with the customer journey and the experience we wanted to deliver in store”.
Orange is seeking to replicate its global store experience locally.
Fin24, though, understands that the delay could have also been attributed to a dispute over the store in Cape Town.
However, the CEO of Orange Horizons Sebastien Crozier told Fin24 in an emailed statement that "the reason for pushing the date back was purely to allow for additional enhancements to be made to deliver the best possible customer experience".
"One such enhancement has been the inclusion of a multi-channel retail offering for customers who may prefer different methods of purchasing," Crozier told Fin24.
"Customers will be able to browse and purchase products through the online store and have the choice to either have the products delivered to them, or for the customer to collect the product themselves at the store. Alternatively, the customer may browse and test the products in store, and complete the purchase and delivery online," Crozier said.
Johannesburg store plans
Despite experiencing delays in its Cape Town store launch, Orange is setting its sights on also having a store presence in Johannesburg.
Currently, Orange only has a warehouse facility in Johannesburg.
"And next up on our list will be Johannesburg, but it might be a slightly lighter model depending on what we see from the Cape Town store,” Levitan told Fin24.
"The target is that we would have a Johannesburg store open this year still.
"Naturally with that said you would expect that it's open in time for the Christmas rush. So, we've been a bit late with Cape Town, but that being said because we've spent more time on it, it's allowed us to save time on when we're ready to flip the switch on Joburg,” Levitan added.
Orange Horizons launched in South Africa in 2013. The company does not have a mobile network licence in South Africa but it has outlined plans to possibly enter the internet service provider space and even the mobile virtual network operator space in the country.
