Last year, around this time, I traveled to Florence to visit The Mall Luxury Outlets with a close friend and enjoyed it so much that I came home here and wrote about why you deserve to buy groceries for a vacation in Italy.
I seriously will do it this year.
As online grocery shopping continues to grow, The Mall Luxury Outlets has figured out how to make its two sites, The Mall Firenze and The Mall Sanremo, highly sought-after destinations. Unlike any shopping mall you’ve frequented, these host unforgettable reports for their visitors, from driving race cars to olive oil tastings, and even arranging hotel reservations and places to eat. Because they do so much more than just buy, they’ve been able to gain an unwavering visitor base and keep them coming back.
Intrigued by its unique retail technique and still thinking about my own reports there a year later, I reached out to Giorgio Motta, general manager of The Mall Luxury Outlets, to learn more about his concept and how he made the physical mall so popular. succeeded at a time when the Internet reigns.
Although we enjoyed shopping for groceries at Mall Firenze last year, it’s the reports you presented to us (truffle hunting, fragrance making, cooking) that we still talk about. You are like a tailor-made agency, creating personalized itineraries that go far beyond buying food. It’s a bit mind-blowing for a mall. Tell us about this approach.
We are part of an amazing destination and we want to show it. We invite others from all over the world to come and share unforgettable reports that normally can’t live anywhere else. We work hard to create reports that are unique to the region.
Surprisingly, sales are not our number one priority. It’s not enough to send someone home with just one luxury item. When you come to Tuscany and buy, for example, a special bag, you are buying much more than the bag. You buy a wonderful story.
This stand gives us the opportunity to introduce visitors to the culture, traditions, art and architecture of Tuscany. We need other people to come here to revel in the genuine look of fashion. It means being excited about the good looks of a luxury item. and the hobby involved in its creation. It’s not simply anything you buy to prove you’re rich. We need other people to rediscover the wonders of life through experiences that make them aware of the good looks around us. This can take position through food, music and nature. This context adds a lot to their scale and any acquisition they make.
Explain the procedure for an American traveler who needs to make a stopover at Mall Firenze or Mall Sanremo.
Just drop by in line or give us a call. We ask questions to know your tastes. We want to know in what season you plan to visit, if you come in a group, as a couple, with friends or for a special occasion. We will be offering you a portfolio of reports and we can even organize your hotel, restaurants, transportation. We act as a kind of personal tourist advisor and invite our visitors to look at Italy above all else. At Mall Firenze, we like to start with a hot air balloon to inform you of the destination from the city. We are the facilitator, coordinating our components to create a normal visit. We organize experiments, which we would like to do ourselves, that make you say “Wow”. We want to be part of our customers’ stories.
Mall Luxury Outlets offers an antique tour with the Alfa Romeo Spider Duetto.
I was going to ask him to describe a typical itinerary, but I don’t think it exists!Everything you do at Mall Luxury Outlets feels so private and designed in a traditional way. We felt that the other people who helped us organize our reports understood what they cared about and cared about our happiness. When we arrived here we already felt like family.
That is our goal. I have been very fortunate to be all over the world for my paintings and the most productive trips are when I know someone is waiting for me. We need to be that place for our guests. When you come to make a stopover with us, we are waiting for you. You can relax and feel satisfied and when you leave, you think, “This is a position I need to get back to. I need to be here. “
It’s an ambitious goal for a shopping mall, but I must say it did it.
We don’t consider ourselves a shopping mall. We are a place to meet and share experiences. Every time they come here, they give us their valuable time and we feel guilty for them. Time is a greater luxury than anything our consumers can have. Buy and we are committed to making this moment something special.
How do you continue to make this moment special for visitors who return again and again?
We are constantly transforming the food, the stores, the reports we offer. First, because we need to keep improving. But we also need the environment to be new every time a guest returns. The first time you come, we exceed expectationsand you fall in love. But in the moment, your expectations are higher. Then, if we fulfill them, we do not overcome ourselves and love ends. We continue to raise the bar.
Plus, you never know what to locate during your visit. We like to surprise guests. We invited the Florence Orchestra to play in the mall, we created spaces for local artisans to demonstrate their knowledge in Florence and we did something similar with local chefs in Sanremo.
Every time, we offer our consumers something new. The concept is to make them fall in love with this destination so that they want to return again and again and be pleasantly surprised. This is the dynamics of the fashion industry. And also to fall in love.
What do the points of sale think?
To be at The Mall Luxury Outlets is to be in the main venue, a place in line with its values and vision of fashion. They strive to make in-store enjoyment as exclusive as the one we offer outdoors. They organize personal sales or cocktails and other occasions for members of our loyalty club.
We work a lot with our outlets, as we are all subject to our overall goals. The outlets we choose to be part of our truth are not necessarily the most productive selling brands, although they are, but rather the ones that give the most performance. a contribution to the overall delight of our customers at The Mall Luxury Outlets. It’s not, “Oh, we have a place available, who will pay more?”
The Luxury Outlets mall is a place in itself.
After all, The Mall Luxury Outlets is a business. How does this translate into sales?
As in the luxury market, the goal is to build long-term relationships and retain visitors, not just sell one more piece. The experience builds visitor loyalty. Receiving a good deal and having access to exclusive occasions and products helps to build loyalty. In our shopping center they feel that this technique is expanded and when they seek to buy certain items they decide to come to us. We need consumers to love our destination as we do. Whatever we do, it is not to generate sales yet to advance in the destination. The more popular the destination becomes, the more other people communicate about it and we gain new consumers. We spend a lot of time and money on tourism marketing.
Tell us about your loyalty program.
It has only existed for a few years, but it is temporarily cultivated and has been very successful. We organize special occasions for members of our The Mall Club and they enjoy it very much. For example, we invite our most productive consumers to participate. in a personal concert with André Bocelli: an exclusive and unforgettable experience!
Customers like to know that they have a private appointment with us and that they can contact us for everything. We keep in touch with them and invite them to return, with special gifts.
Most people come back. It’s gratifying when other people come back after a few years and say, “Wow, this is even more beautiful than before. “This confirms that we are doing the right thing. We also have locals who visit us several times a month.
How much of your visitor base is the community?
They play a vital role and have it even more so after Covid. They enjoy our cooking categories and tastings at local farms and vineyards. We also organize reports for children.
The Mall Luxury Outlets showcases some of the brands from around the world.
Do you offer the same reports in Florence and Sanremo?
Some but, as Mall Sanremo is so close to the French Riviera, we offer more personalized reports to our very exclusive visitors coming from Cannes, Monaco and Nice. We organize luxury picnics on the beach and personal yoga sessions in wineries. Attend to the express tastes of each client.
What are the maximum requests you have received?
We respond to many non-public requests. Some other people need us to open the mall just for them at night, and that’s what we do. If it’s legal, we’ll look for a way to do it!
We also hosted university academics to learn more about retail. We have wonderful conversations and it’s wonderful to see the enthusiasm and love of this new generation.
What do you foresee for the long term of The Mall Luxury Outlets?
We need visitors to spend all day here. At this time, they spend there between 3 and 4 hours. Part of our strategy is to become a luxury experience stand, of which buying groceries is only one part. Because we have been so successful, our team has the opportunity to make a decision on how to manage it. We love what we do so much that every day we paint it, and that’s a real luxury for me.
Come here. You will fall in love too.