It is Outlet Time
Interview with Cesare Nonnis Marzano, McArthurGlen Italia
Moschino started with it an entirely new trend, and now more than ever receives confirmation of having being the most farsighted Maison. When it comes to style, and even more to shopping, cheap&chic is, indeed, the option that satisfies every taste. Luxgallery interviewed Mr. Cesare Nonnis Marzano, Marketing Director of McArthurGlen Italia, the group that bet on, in Italy as well, the “outlet phenomenon”.
Serravalle, Castel Romano, Barberino and from September 2008 also Veneto Designer Outlet di Noventa di Piave: four centers dedicated to high level shopping at reduced prices, four destinations not to be missed by fashion addicts.
However, McArthurGlen, does not only mean “outlet”. The group, in fact, recently expanded with the inclusion of a new division McArthurGlen Luxury Retail, aim of which is to bring full price retail into airport departure lounges, into shopping malls and other strategic locations. The first of these new projects is called Collezioni: it gathered an exclusive portfolio of luxury brands in a single location, at the Venice Marco Polo Airport.
How did the McArthurGlen phenomenon spread out in Italy?
The path that McArthurGlen traced in Italy from 2000, year in which the Serravalle Designer Outlet was launched, to 2008, year in which the fourth Designer Outlet was inaugurated in Noventa di Piave, was marked by important growth and expansion factors. Four real shopping cities, equipped to offer such a wide range of fashion and luxury brands so to guarantee an annual growth of over 10%.
A formula that works…
The McArthurGlen Designer Outlet formula privileges, since always, service and quality both in terms of leisure and product range, thanks to the presence of brands considered top player on the international market. The high quality of services is supported by the care of architecture and by the stricter and stricter liaison with the territory, so to transform a cult shopping location into a real tourist destination.
A few months after its opening, what have been the responses of the public in Noventa di Piave?
Veneto Designer Outlet of Noventa di Piave is a project to be evaluated in the long run. It was born in September 2008, and it already recorded an extraordinary number of visitors, more than half a million, and it is expected to experience another important phase between 2009 and 2010.
That is?
The 11,000 m2 realized in phase I will be followed by a second stage with a further 10,000 m2 for retail activities. The stores, currently 60, will increase their number to 120, together with a proportional increase of parking spaces and food areas. The goal we set when we projected the opening of this Center was, indeed, that to offer the best to our public. For instance, the main square was conceived to be in harmony with a classical style, homage to Palladian art, displaying a central fountain lined with porticos and animated by high level brands’ stores.
What is the catchment area of the Noventa outlet?
The outlet became, very rapidly, the flagship of our Group in Italy, able to satisfy the need of a geographical area inhabited by over 4 million people, spreading from Venice to the provinces of Mantua and Brescia, and stage of important tourist flows: Jesolo, for instance, in on the way.
As far as it concerns architecture and services, Veneto Designer Outlet represents excellence, also in terms of facilities, though, as I mentioned before, the project is still underway and has to be evaluated in the long run.
If it is true that “cheap” is more and more “chic”, how do luxury customers approach the shopping idea of an outlet?
The standard consumer is very variable. The hard core is made of women aged between 25 and 45, characterized by a strong predisposition to shopping; then, of course, there are families, driven by a different approach to shopping, but having in common the search for quality and why not, for quantity.
Regardless of the item they can afford, in an outlet they can choose the brand they like among a wide-ranged offer.
Other types of consumers?
Sure the outlet does not lack mix and match consumers, that is, those that shop in McArthurGlen Centers and also in boutiques in Via Montenapoleone, in the heart of Milan. If we consider that to reach our outlets, visitors travel an average hour and a half and stop off for at least three hours, to have a very wide range of products is a condition sine qua non. What we must never forget, when we talk about this sort of shopping, is that visitors are offered with 100-120 stores concentrated in an enclosed location. Whoever comes to our Centers looks for and finds an unequalled mix of products, a high number of stores and a concentration of big brands that hardly could find anywhere else.
What is the relationship between big names and outlets?
Thanks to the reliability of our name, McArthurGlen, big names choose to open their store in one of our Centers. Our Designer Outlets offer, in fact, an excellent product handled directly by Top Brands owning selling points within the Centers, able to guarantee to the consumer the chance to purchase high quality items at reduced prices. Very often the maisons engage into loyalty marketing operations, so much so that inside the stores you can find collections catalogues that you only find, elsewhere, in leading branches. Obviously, to own a space in an outlet gives the chance to the maisons to sell off unsold items of the previous season, avoiding unsold stock, representing thus the best answer to financial crisis. Among the “big brands” present at the outlet there are Ferrari, Burberry, Polo Ralph Lauren, Ferrè and since very recently also Valentino, Bulgari, Dolce&Gabbana, Salvatore Ferragamo, Ballantyne and Roberto Cavalli; and many more will be the surprises for our visitors.
What is your conception of luxury?
To define luxury is hard. In “The experience of luxury” it is defined according to its geographical origin, culture or from a design or financial viewpoint. What is certain is that, for us Italians, luxury is still strictly linked to an artisan-like quality.
Original in Italian by Francesca Zottola
Leisure, People And Brand, Shopping, Showroom, Stories Of Achievements,
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