Less mob, more design niche: Citymob re-launches as ‘Superbalist’

Citymob recently re-launched or, in company words, underwent a “natural evolution with a bit of revolution” and now goes by the name Superbalist. The site went live 4 November with a cleaner feel (hence the logo) and a greater focus on its permanent offerings as well as international brand distribution.

“We’ve cleaned things up. Decluttered, upgraded to a more sophisticated look and made it a little simpler. We’ve changed our whole set-up to tailor it more to the individual with an easy-to-navigate layout,” the site reads. Furthermore, the company scaled-up from a .co.za to a .com domain and is now including a lot more international brands as before into its “design-oriented mix”.

Based in Cape Town, Citymob has launched in 2010 with the idea of offering group-buying deals. Since then its market became more and more design-oriented. Hosting an estimated 650 000 registered users, it has also come to be known as a popular destination for South Africans seeking art or products.

Earlier this year in April, Citymob partnered with ecommerce site Wantitall in order to improve its logistics, warehousing and systems as well as giving it access to more potential customers.

So why re-launch? Superbalist focuses on what it does best — the company has decided to concentrate more on its dedicated niche audience — a massive subculture of design fans. “They made us into who we are and showed us what they wanted. And the more the relationship grew, the more we realised that it’s not a mob we curate for,” the company says.

As reported by Bizcommunity, Superbalist marketing director Luke Jedeikin says that the company’s focus on its existing fan base is far more important than trying to cater for everyone:

“We realised we’d been talking to a ‘mob’ when we needed to be talking to an individual. We also wanted to become a destination where our customers know that they can always get certain products from us but with Citymob, we could not do this. Nothing was permanent. All products lived in time-limited, 10 day sale and we quickly began to realise we needed to be more to our customers.

“We believe South Africans are starved of access to great product,” the company further states. Currently having four shop categories on the site namely women, men, geekery and art with more to follow soon, Superbalist plans to curate the world’s finest art and design products as it’s expected to grow its group of devotees to over 1-million in the next 3 months.

In celebration of this evolution, Superbalist is giving away a hamper worth R15 000 to those spreading the word. Give Superbalist a shout-out on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.