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Pitti Immagine asserts virtual show leadership with e-Pitti
The CEO of Pitti Immagine, Raffaello Napoleone, was not afraid to claim that "We are leaders in digital shows," when he spoke at the results’ presentation for e-Pitti, the site launched in 2011 by the Florentine show organiser with the objective of extending on the web the activity of the Pitti Uomo, Pitti Bimbo and Pitti Filati (dedicated to the yarn industry) shows. "Many trade shows tried to extend their activity on to the web, without truly achieving it. We showed great determination and consistency with our web project, and this has paid off. Nowadays, all our users are satisfied," he added.
As shown by the figures disclosed in Milan on Tuesday, the overall assessment of e-Pitti's results is exceedingly positive. In the course of six years and 13 editions, e-Pitti claimed it has attracted 17,000 exhibitors and 48,000 buyers. e-Pitti's summer 2017 edition, covering the menswear, children's and yarn shows for a total of 11 weeks, featured 1,355 brands, of which 926 for Pitti Uomo alone - altogether 90% of the total number of brands physically exhibiting at the shows - and 8,018 products.
The virtual show attracted buyers from 109 countries, the majority of them from Italy (60%), followed by those from Japan, Spain, Germany, the USA, the UK, Turkey, Russia, France and the Netherlands. Nearly 31% of the website's visits came from smartphones, 8% from tablets and the rest from PCs.
In the period in question, the number of buyers who did not come to Florence but visited the website alone grew by 15% compared to the June 2016 edition (+14% for Pitti Uomo, +24.3% for Pitti Bimbo, +5.9% for Pitti Filati), while the number of buyers who went to the shows and then followed up by visiting the virtual events grew 7%.
"For exhibitors, e-Pitti is a valuable tool, since they can use the website to track the behaviour of buyers with much greater accuracy than they are able to do at the booth. They can trace who came to see them and what they looked at. They can also choose whether or not to let buyers into their virtual space," said Anna Mazzer, e-Pitti's Marketing and Digital Director.
"The website acts as a bolster for the physical show. We firmly believe in the combination of these two elements. It's worth reminding that, following the economic crisis, the retail teams travelling to Florence have greatly shrunk in numbers. e-Pitti allows all of them to gain an understanding of the market," said Francesco Bottigliero, the CEO of e-Pitti.
"Another benefit for exhibitors is that, thanks to their collections' pictures shot by our staff at the show, they have visual material at their disposal on e-Pitti which they can show buyers right after the event," he added.
e-Pitti's senior management also emphasised the success of the virtual show's Ready-to-order app, available to exhibitors since last year. The app is accessible via the e-Pitti website and allows companies to manage all their orders digitally and directly on an iPad, throughout their sales campaign and even outside of the Pitti shows. For the Spring/Summer 2018 season, a total of 66 collections benefited from this tool, generating transactions worth €4.5 million.
e-Pitti is available in Italian and English, and it is run by FieraDigitale, a company in which Pitti Immagine has a 75% stake, the remaining 25% belonging to Francesco Bottigliero, its founder and CEO. In the 2016-17 fiscal year, closed on 30th September 2017, FieraDigitale generated a revenue of €1.6 million.
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