From Raffaella Carrà, queen of variety for families, to Chiara Ferragni, the shopping influencer par excellence in the digital age. It can also be told like this the journey of Alessandro Giglio, born in 1965, a master's degree in Entertainment Sciences, as a producer of hundreds of hours of broadcasting of "prime time" TV shows, including "Carramba, what a surprise!" with the national blonde show girl, up to the collaboration with "The blonde Salad", the most famous Italian testimonial on the web, the most popular e-commerce icon "with which we intend to develop ambitious projects" confesses the Genoese entrepreneur who, having stopped playing the role of TV producer, he aims to become the "largest made in Italy distributor in the world", a goal within reach also thanks to the leadership in China where three thematic channels, with an audience of 150 million viewers, talk about fashion, tourism, food and all that is made in Italy on all the digital platforms of the Celestial Empire. “We have not sold them together with the other TV stations in the group – explains Giglio – because they are intimately linked to electronic commerce, today our only business”.
Yeah, in the last year Giglio sold the thematic TVs to the Spanish Vertice 360 (in which he has a stake) to focus on e-commerce related projects in which he has developed a know-how avant-garde, in some ways unique, thanks also to the skills acquired with the entry into the group of the subsidiary Terashop. “Today we are able to deal with everything related to electronic commerce - explains the president Alessandro Giglio - from web marketing to logistics, from customer care to payments. In addition, and we are the only ones in the world to do so, we carry out the activity of connecting products to the 200 most important market places in the world, the ones where people go to look for products, thanks to a very complex platform able to manage 200 different systems, 200 different logistics. For example - he continues - if we have a product in a brand boutique in Montenapoleone, we are able to display it in the windows of virtual department stores, i.e. the best international market places: from Yoox to Zalando in Europe, Macys or Bloomingdale in America, not to mention Russia, the Middle East or China. This is thanks to a platform capable of automatically managing 200 different large operators, each with its own logistics and different systems from each other”.
The formula works. Giglio, which counts the Japanese telecommunications giant Docomo among its shareholders can already count on a hundred brands against 70 at the end of 2018, constantly growing as are the users (300 million) and over 100 e-commerce projects in 57 countries. The latest, in chronological order, concerns the exclusive management of e-commerce activities and an innovative omnichannel project within the points of sale Harmont & Blaine which will provide the brand with functions capable of integrating all physical points of sale with the virtual store.
In November Giglio will open “the first three sites completely managed by us in China: Stefano Ricci, Trussardi and Bric's. And we will also take care of the shop in shop, i.e. the virtual windows on the large market places and We Chat, the large social network which also includes the video part".
"From a digital point of view - adds Giglio who is fluent in Mandarin - China is much more advanced than the West: I can order a product, pay for it, receive it in one day and in the meantime all my friends know that I made that purchase because I share the choice with them via social media”.
But it's not just in China, as demonstrated the opening of the fully automated warehouse in New Jersey which strengthens the logistics of the group which has three other poles: Milan for Europe, Hong Kong for Asia and Shenzhen dedicated to China. “A system – comments Giglio – capable of negotiating one million pieces a year, but which we intend to increase shortly, because we no longer deal only with fashion, but also with design and food” thanks to the agreements which, among other things, have involved a historic name in design, Kartel, and in food, such as Riso Scotti, which will soon be followed by other important brands (“at least a dozen”) to be started along the Digital Silk Road where the total value of goods sold grew by 2019% in the first half of 15 compared to the previous year, approaching 130 million euros.
