Page 29 - Cross-Border Magazine Nr.3

~ Vinicio ~

inicio was originally a traditional Italian retailer they prefer to have a parcel delivered. The people working on
with physical stores… the e-commerce project need to realise that the online shop is
V“I founded Vinicio 34 years ago, in 1983. Six or seven an indispensable communication tool. It is like a mirror of the
years ago, we decided to venture into e-commerce. There was a company. However, you have to figure out the strengths and
certain distrust in e-commerce within the company, but when characteristics of each sales channel you are using.”
we saw the results, we asked ourselves why we did not start
earlier. We also saw what we were up against: big powerful What are the particular challenges in the sector of Ital-
companies like eBay, that started many years ago, with substan- ian luxury fashion?
tial financial backup. “First of all, I would clearly say that e-commerce is beneficial for
One way or another, right now we are investing our entire our sector, however, there are some complications. There is, for
energy in increasing the relatively small revenue we generate. We instance, a law that allows us to sell via the website. On the other
take things step by step and gradually improve our performance. hand, there are certain brands that prohibit us to sell online. That
We have opened a dedicated warehouse and we have invested is not a very positive thing, but there are very few of them. Most
heavily in logistics. We also ship from 4 of our multi-brand brands understand that they need to venture into online selling,
stores to support our e- because there is a global
commerce business.” demand that they cannot
“WE MUST OPEN UP AND meet if they limit them-
Tell us a little bit selves purely to offline
about Vinicio’s e- selling. We want to be the
DARE TO TAKE ON GREAT
commerce adventure window to the world in
so far… order to offer their com-
“It really was an odys- panies a broader market.
PROJECTS TO REALLY ACHIEVE
sey. In Italy, there is no In addition, online sales
advanced e-commerce are growing stronger and
culture and there is also stronger, whereas physical
WHAT WE WANT TO”
a technical barrier. After retail is increasingly strug-
just 6 years, we are already gling. Another challenge
launching our fourth e- is that in Italy, our brand
commerce site. We meant is strong and well known,
to rely on specialists, but we were disappointed, we made mis- but abroad, we have not yet invested in building brand awareness.
takes and had to improvise too much. Unfortunately, there is no With the new platform, we hope to achieve this easier.”
such a thing as an ‘e-commerce university’ where we can go and
hire the people who can solve our problems easily. So, you must What is your strategic plan for internationalisation?
search the right experts, but there are so many people who just “In Italy, we are growing by 60-70%, so I trust in future we can
want to make money and don’t have any e-commerce knowl- sustainably continue our growth internationally. 2017 will be a
edge. At first, we were using a platform that did not meet our test-year in order to truly understand what we can achieve in
demands, but we have now changed the platform provider and in the next few years. We will first focus on the development of our
a couple of months, we will switch to the new solution, hoping e-commerce platform, and translate it into German, English and
that this will provide us with the tools we need. What we need is maybe one Asian language too. We will begin by focusing on
flexibility, a platform that enables us to do business in a natural developing specific features, and then we can gradually develop
way and react smoothly to the dynamics in the market, that lets more features and launch more localised languages. With our
us make changes quickly. We have redesigned everything, from international website and our strategic partner in internationali-
the entire business technology to accounting, which was a very sation eShopWorld, we can receive orders from Russia and many
big project. We are now collaborating with eShopworld as a other parts of the world. Integrating their solution will help us
strategic partner to expand our international check-out, and help launch into new markets with a localised shopping experience
us offer a localised experience for international shoppers. I really for each market. There is a lot of work for us to do.”
hope that in a few months from now, we can finally turn the
page and become a ‘company 4.0’.” How do you support your e-commerce business opera-
tionally?
How much of your turnover is generated by e-commerce “We have about 6-7 dedicated people who create the content,
today? including our magazine and product descriptions. I would love
“I think in 2017, we will reach 20% of our turnover online. to expand this team to 30 or 40 people. We do everything in-
Our physical stores are still very important. However, the house, from photos to content to international marketing. When
retail market is moving and we see there is a lot going on in e- we grow, the workload will increase and sales will increase too.
commerce. People are adapting their behaviour, some of them I want to reach the point that our physical store and our online
prefer to buy online even if they live 500 meters from a store: shop are equal in terms of strength and image. In 2017, we

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