Steven Tranquilli: Precious Tools For Jewelry Retail
How to re-launch the sales point through digital, which paths to take, the difficulties and opportunities for the jewelry retailer. Steven Tranquilli, Manager of Federpreziosi, explains
Sales point digitalization. What tools does the retailer need to deal with it without too many risks?
Digital business is no di erent to o -line business. Constructing a digital out- let means investing in a project with a long-term and gradual approach. Our challenge, that of a category Federation that groups together the vast majority of Italian retailers, is to ‘do more with less’. Helping companies compete, even with contained resources, encourages seeking out those values in the entrepreneurs’ experiences that, while still generating di erent growth perspectives, can also lead to innovation and opportunities for its community. The objective: to be the driving force towards inclusive and sustainable development for our tra- ders through what is de ned as human ‘proximity’.
What is the retailer’s approach?
Fear, apprehension or openness? Change and innovation are connected to survival and company development, which Federpreziosi represents through the Confcommercio Imprese for Italy system. There needs to be a balance between organizational culture and technology. In taking an innovative direction and adhering to digital models, small and medium retailers are limited by a lack of internal skills: if 6 out of 10 retailers are on the web, only 15% has an e-commerce (earnings that range from 1 to 5%, rising by 10%). Top retailers have a further two types of criticality: the absense of an innovation strategy regarding the consumer and the competition, and 75% have said that they are working on a digital transformation strategy. The retail jewelry sector uses digital channels to support the before- and after-sales phases and to enable the sale itself. From a numerical viewpoint, our studies show that 66% of retailers are active on the web with their own websites. In general, retai- ler sentiment urges their clientele towards greater involvement by giving value to the shopping experience, while 36% would like their physical and on-line stores to be more integrated.
Retail 4.0 and digital signage. How can this form of communication be applied to jewelry?
Every sector has its own characteristics and consequently, the ways of dialoguing with the clientele are di erent. Digital signage, although late, is now also being developed in Italy and, with due reaction times, there will also be room for innovative means to communicate and transmit the in nite and multiple peculiarities of jewelry in the store: dynamic information about the product, on the techniques used to make it and also on the price. Transition towards a type of retail based on new paradigms, with integrated commercial formulas and new connection environments, is therefore inevitable and will be based on experience economy, in other words, that condition in which consumer loyalty shifts from a behavioral dimension (one of convenience) to a cognitive dimension (one of experience). I am convinced that jewelry retail must be able to skillfully combine the physical and virtual worlds, making them available indiscriminately according to the needs of its objectives of reference and o ering the customers the best possible experience, seeing the physical store purely as an extension of the supply chain in an ‘omni-channel retail’ perspective.
Digital business is no di erent to o -line business. Constructing a digital out- let means investing in a project with a long-term and gradual approach. Our challenge, that of a category Federation that groups together the vast majority of Italian retailers, is to ‘do more with less’. Helping companies compete, even with contained resources, encourages seeking out those values in the entrepreneurs’ experiences that, while still generating di erent growth perspectives, can also lead to innovation and opportunities for its community. The objective: to be the driving force towards inclusive and sustainable development for our tra- ders through what is de ned as human ‘proximity’.
What is the retailer’s approach?
Fear, apprehension or openness? Change and innovation are connected to survival and company development, which Federpreziosi represents through the Confcommercio Imprese for Italy system. There needs to be a balance between organizational culture and technology. In taking an innovative direction and adhering to digital models, small and medium retailers are limited by a lack of internal skills: if 6 out of 10 retailers are on the web, only 15% has an e-commerce (earnings that range from 1 to 5%, rising by 10%). Top retailers have a further two types of criticality: the absense of an innovation strategy regarding the consumer and the competition, and 75% have said that they are working on a digital transformation strategy. The retail jewelry sector uses digital channels to support the before- and after-sales phases and to enable the sale itself. From a numerical viewpoint, our studies show that 66% of retailers are active on the web with their own websites. In general, retai- ler sentiment urges their clientele towards greater involvement by giving value to the shopping experience, while 36% would like their physical and on-line stores to be more integrated.
Retail 4.0 and digital signage. How can this form of communication be applied to jewelry?
Every sector has its own characteristics and consequently, the ways of dialoguing with the clientele are di erent. Digital signage, although late, is now also being developed in Italy and, with due reaction times, there will also be room for innovative means to communicate and transmit the in nite and multiple peculiarities of jewelry in the store: dynamic information about the product, on the techniques used to make it and also on the price. Transition towards a type of retail based on new paradigms, with integrated commercial formulas and new connection environments, is therefore inevitable and will be based on experience economy, in other words, that condition in which consumer loyalty shifts from a behavioral dimension (one of convenience) to a cognitive dimension (one of experience). I am convinced that jewelry retail must be able to skillfully combine the physical and virtual worlds, making them available indiscriminately according to the needs of its objectives of reference and o ering the customers the best possible experience, seeing the physical store purely as an extension of the supply chain in an ‘omni-channel retail’ perspective.
