Fashion Magazine, the specialized trade magazine part of DFV Group, the parent company of The SPIN OFF, has recently organized its E-commerce Summit, for the first time as a physical event after the pandemic had burst out.
The event, moderated by Marc Sondermann, editor-in-chief and CEO, Fashion Magazine, recalled various insiders from the fashion and digital markets discussing how the pandemic has changed many companies’ strategies and how they reacted in order to face the last two years. As part of the summit, they spoke about topics including “Brand equity and segment leadership” and “Facilitators of
experience”.
Gianpaolo Pavan, head of digital and e-commerce, Borbonese:
“The pandemic has helped us, but it also increased competition. What helped us increase our success has been a complete restyling of our website hyped by more services including, for instance, infotainment. Today our product can be found everywhere, not only in our e-commerce, but also in big players’ platforms like, for instance, Zalando. If we consider similar process and marketing, big players are stronger. What is helping us to make a difference is being focused on making evolve our payment systems, offer effective deliveries and simplified processes - from purchase to delivery including click & collect. We bet on many services, including omnichannel.”
“This brand has been facing difficulties after its recent acquisition by a new majority owner We developed the idea of a new men’s kindness, different from what Will Smith recently did during the Oscar Award giving. We believe in the importance of a new gentleness as, literally, the word ‘gentleman’ says.”
“We are revising all our processes and our e-commerce systems and are also working on a project based upon sustainability. I am personally working at a new guide to be followed to treat fairly, and sustainably you purchase also after you have bought it and have to take care of it at home.”
“We think that formal apparel is starting again. Formal wear has been transforming and renewing itself and companies are transforming themselves, too, as we see that there is a rise in the request of jackets and coats. We, for instance, are pushing toward made-to-measure, even if it’s a hard-to-understand concept.”
“We started this company two years and a half ago, and we were born by offering the possibility to do deferred payments for e-commerce. No one knew about it in Italy, while in the US and Australia it was already popular. We started with five employees, and now we are 200. We at Scalapay wants to reach 25% of payments through us by 2025.”
“Our clients are both the TV program X-Factor and the Italian Fashion Chamber as we want to be partnners of both the young and the brands."
“Thanks to our method, a very young person can buy a Gucci piece that he could not afford to pay all at once. Our solution is made to help tomorrow’s clients buy luxury products and help to enlarge the customer basis of today.”
“We have been looking for most different solutions in order to make always more fluid and easy. In China, we organized a live selling via TikTok and sold for €450,000 in 20 minutes, burning out all the merchandise we had.”
“I heard many criticisms about the Metaverse Fashion Week. In order to experience that entirely, I bought a skin and bought a wallet of cryptocurrencies as I wanted to buy a Token myself. You also need a specific hardware and all the rest. Though, despite these difficulties and the fact that we won't have all the technology until 2029, what counts is the ability to establish a love relationship with the brand.”
“Pure players are very strong in this market, but also CRM is important as you have to establish a relationship with the client. If you compare keeping a client to adding a new one, that costs from five to 25 times more - and keeping one’s clients is indispensable.”
“It is no longer enough carrying out an order and closing a transaction. Now what counts is astonishing, creating empathy and enthusiasm. We have moved from the experience aspect to the front-end. It is also very important taking care off the post-purchasing phase and not just the experience, but also unboxing, customer experience and supporting the client that is at home anxiously waiting for his or her purchase to be delivered. That moment is important, and our task is to provide information on that product to increase the consumer’s attention, provide information, show photos and much more. It’s an added value.”
“It’s important to maintain the relationship with a client. If costs are growing, you have to optimize and keep a good relationship with the client you have acquired. You have to better his experience, have to encourage him to return and buy again. For instance, if he has chosen to pick the purchase in store, you can offer him a consultancy. For instance, you can explain more about that product or eventually change it in store info the size or or color are not ok when he collects the package. It also helps to save 15% of that order.”
“La Martina wanted to regain its brand awareness of some years ago. For this we operated a complete change of management, bringing on board only mangers with a ‘digital’ mind. We rethought entirely its wholesale, its direct retail stores, website, marketplaces and outlets - both digital and physical ones. We invented an evolved multichannel distribution and put as a common factor product everywhere, in order to give a service that is not B2C but B2B. If ac client doesn’t find a product in store, you can access all other stores and find it. Then the client can pay it directly at the cash register. This way the store doesn’t lose that purchase, nor the company. Similarly, this can happen for unsold products at the end of a season.”
“We created a ‘Digital Content Factory’ as working with the web you need content to put in the container. Before it was enough pouring marketing content, today you need to manage content as if you were a real factory. For this you need two kinds of content: you need output for the physical value chain, for instance, the product, and output for the digital value chain, that is all the available information and metadata.”
“Luxury and fashion clients are looking for an emotional connection, today. Despite Covid has changed much, and we have all become more digital, the physical contact remains very important, too. We offer solutions through which the consumer can experience a visual storytelling, a new way to communicate both the digital and the visual aspects, therefore they can provide an overall physical experience.”
“We are a leading platform in the beauty sector, not only for the traffic we generate but also for the way we engage our clients. As we operate in 19 countries, we have established a platform destination which gets in touch with a vast amount of data. Therefore, we operate both as a media and a tool that helps its clients grow their business. This double role made us evolve, and we created Douglas Live, a sort of live-streaming platform through which brands can create live-streaming events and where, at the same time, the client can make purchases in real time. Some of our clients use this platform significantly and can hold up to ten live-streaming a day, offering their users a sort of commodity within the experience they offer.”
“Since our foundation in 2006, empathy has been a pillar for us, toward our employees, clients and partners. We are a company that wants to be seen as a long- and medium-period partner. We like to think that the purchasing act can happen through mobile, wearable and all other devices that every generation can use and, through them, they can live most different forms of experience. Also in difficult geopolitical times as the present ones, our platform has found new solutions and can also be used for free of charge donations that can provide support to Ukraine.”
“Our clients demand effective communication from us, whether it's a product sheet or e-mail marketing. We need to excite and be consistent with the brand image through increasingly empathetic communication.”
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