Hi there!
First off, it’s great to have you here. It really is.
So, you want to know a little more about us, do you? I guess the best place to start is right at the very beginning.
The story begins quite a few years ago when Laurence (more commonly known around here as Laurie because she’s gotten over explaining to people why she’s not a dude. Although to let you in on a little secret, no one actually calls her Laurie in real life) met Gabriella (pronounced Guh-bree-ella). Just FYI, you wouldn’t be the first to get the ‘uh’ part wrong. She’s basically a professional jewellery-wearer, and after first meeting her, you’ll swear you’d been friends for eight years.
Laurence had just arrived fresh from Pittsburgh with a thick accent and a plan to be in Cape Town for a few short months — she was on the run. Just days into her stay, she met Gabriella, a varsity student who spent her life avoiding lectures and seemed to be on the run too (she had a habit of finding herself in the Cape’s water). She was a bit rudderless … rather nice but rudderless for sure. We will talk more about that a little later.
Fast forward a few years and the American had fallen in love with the mountain, and Cape Town had become home. She found herself hitched to the most wonderful man and creating a life in a house with lots of glass doors, velvet-covered couches, and a garden full of indigenious plants and tall trees. You see, that’s what she does wherever she is — she creates, she can’t help it. It comes so naturally to her, she hardly knows how talented she is … but give her an empty space, a blank canvas, a pen (it doesn’t matter what it is), she will know what to do with it. Elsie Wolfe said, “I am going to make everything around me beautiful – that will be my life.” And that’s what Laurence does … but without even trying.
What happened to the somewhat rudderless Gabriella you may ask? It took a few years, a couple of turbulent (albeit awfully fun) early 20s, but she found her rudder and her course was set. It turns out she just needed a little bit of passion, a lot of purpose, and some solid growing up. She still escapes into the water and is happiest attached to a kite, but it’s different now. She surfs because she loves it, not just because she needs it. She’s learnt how wonderful it is to be gentle in this life, to relish the small joys, and that you must find the courage to fight for the important things.
They got comfortable including each other in most of their lives and so years later, when Laurence dreamed up Shopfox, it only felt natural for Gabriella to join her. They knew it would make sense, Laurence would make it beautiful, she would build and create and design and Gabriella would plan, and make friends with epic brands, and handle the numbers (she likes those).
They knew they’d find a team of people like them — photographers, stylists, developers, creatives … people who would join to build something great and brands that shared their vision.
So they went out and formed their team of people who ‘get it’.
That’s who we are at Shopfox – people who ‘get it’. We get how hard it is as the little guy, how much effort it takes to build a brand. We get how damn hard you have worked, and we want to be part of sharing that with the world. We’re here to back the little guys (we’re so passionate about the little guys) and we believe they have something wildly great to offer.
Wue get that online shopping can so often be frustrating and that it feels like there’s so much choice but also very little.
We get that great quality and online shopping aren’t always synonymous.
We’ve been there … on the endeavour to shop small while hitting the hurdle of sites that are half-full of junk … until searching for the perfect gift feels like a hassle and a half.
We get that finding locally made products can be tough and that it’s easier to default to big and impersonal stores that don’t need our support. We get it. Online shopping just isn’t anywhere near the experience it can be.
We set about designing a platform that really works because, well … we get it.
Well there’s our intro. Invite us to coffee and we’ll tell you the rest.
xx
