Within the frame of Book City Milano, held in Milan on November 16th-20th, the diffused kermesse dedicated to the book publishing industry, Emanuele Sacerdote, entrepreneur, writer, teacher and long time insider of the fashion industry, has presented his newest book “Retailoring. Strategies and perspectives for NeoRetail”, published by Franco Angeli.
“The present historic moment is relevant for the retail sector. Each player has to start enacting a strategic plan for the future as we are now facing a fourth industrial revolution that has been imposed by three main factors: the pandemic, digitalization and sustainability,” said Sacerdote.
The author explained how luxury companies, especially the Italian ones, but generally the whole luxury and fashion markets, should start focusing on three key aspects: governance, acceleration and investments.
The book launch hosted, in addition to Sacerdote, insiders who have also contributed by writing own essays related to theme of retail innovation and customer relationship.
Yamamay's Cimmino described some of the most inspiring and future-thinking retail examples seen worldwide, and her vision of how retail should evolve in the future. “Among the most interesting retail experiences there are, for instance, Amazon Go, based upon the concept of ‘Just walk out shopping’ without stopping at the cash desk, but paying autonomously, and Amazon Style, the first physical store devised by Amazon. Also, interesting is shopping at Decathlon, where shop assistants work like influencers, are highly trained and specialized and can carefully describe each product. Other similar cool examples include Reformation in the UK and Allbirds in The US,” she said, underlining how important it is to invest in training and motivating shop personnel.
She also explained about Yamamay's recently opened store in Siena, the brand's first sustainable store decored with recycled materials and hosting special air purifying systems, while offering greater customer experience, thanks, for instance, to changing rooms hosting magic mirrors and better support from personnel. “After we opened it, we noticed that customers enjoy spending more time in store. We also registered an increase of our average ticket to €78 and in some cases to €110, against the average €52 of our classic shops,” she added.
Davide Castelvero, retail marketing and CRM expert for luxury brands, who worked, among others, for Zegna, Bottega Veneta, Valentino and Marni, underlined how the pandemic has taught to establish and grow a different kind of relationship with the final consumer.
“During covid time, when stores were closed, some of the most forward-thinking shop personnel kept a constant relationship with their customers in order to hear from them and help them keep in mind they could come back once the obliged closure of stores would have finished,” he said.
“Despite we expect that by 2025 e-shopping will count for 20% of companies' sales, the double of the present average quota, or even reach 30%, we expect that physical shopping will continue to play a key role that could be about 70%. I think that aspects of in-store selling like, for instance, the selling ceremony cannot be neglected. Morever, the use of RFID technology can help speed up and better service when acting with clients physically entering the store,” continued Castelvero.
“Similarly, the ability to establish a relationship with the customer will have to be increasingly taken care of. It will be indispensable to keep a database that is 97% accurate, in order to manage one’s activities in-store and via digital as much effective as possible. Despite this, we all have to bring a more human approach into acting digitally as the human aspect is as important when acting with 70% visiting your store as well as with the 30% ones operating from remote,” added Castelvero who also underlined how if in the past a company's strategic plans were based upon five years planning, at present they operate analysing a basis of three, that is also becoming even more fluid and rolling, stressing how fast and picky companies have become.
Another key factor that emerges from the book is the importance of ESG compliance as banks will not grant financial support enterprises if they will not be able to respond about their commitment in terms of environmental, social and corporate commitment. "If you are not acting sustainably you will die," Sacerdote underlined.
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