FARO (South Africa): Own one end of the pipe
Asili AfricaPlay episode
Show notes
FARO is a Cape Town retailer that sells global brands' surplus and returned clothes at about sixty percent off, after cleaning and repairing them in its own warehouse. Its co-founder, William McCarren, had built Zumi in Nairobi, a platform that sat between suppliers and small shops; Zumi shut down in 2023. Three and a half months later, FARO started with a different answer: own the shop. Its first store opened in Mitchells Plain in November 2023. By September 2026 it ran about twenty stores with close to six hundred staff, half of them restoring clothes. Whether the model holds depends on an industry that keeps producing more than it can sell.
