Rodolfo, the Made To Order Couch
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Rodolfo, the Made To Order Couch

A SOFA DESIGNED WITH THE INPUT OF CUSTOMERS IS A BESTSELLER ON LOVETHESIGN, THE ECOMMERCE PLATFORM CREATED BY CANNATA, A BOCCONI GRADUATE

Ten million visits per year, more than 1,200 partners, 20,000 furniture items available in the online catalog, half a million fans on Facebook, almost €5 million in funding from United Ventures. These are LoveThEsign's numbers in brief, the Italian online platform  which specializes in the sale of design objects. Founded in 2012 by Vincenzo Cannata, Laura Angius and Simone Panfilo, today it has offices all over Europe. Vincenzo Cannata, who graduated in Business Administration from Bocconi in 2002, explains how e-commerce is building a new logic in which consumers are co-actors in the production process, at the same level as companies and designers. "Online selling platforms," he says, "are an extraordinary point of observation for market trends. They are able to collect data on visits and sales that enable companies to identify which items are the most requested, but also the sizes and colors that are most in demand."
 
Can we talk about a production process that takes better into account the needs of consumers?
Yes. To be customer-oriented means to be offering excellent delivery services, but also to meet individual market desires with targeted products, reasonable prices and effective content, such as storytelling, that stimulate buying. The sharing of videos that tell the craft process or the value of an original product, can help explain the final price tag put on an object.
 
What is the link between sales and social media?
Social media are sources of inspiration and vectors of dissemination of the brand to promote customer loyalty. It defines a community that generates content through likes, pins or pics, and disseminates them in a way that is alternative to that of traditional channels. Users have become influencers. In the US, Polyvore.com and Fancy.com were able to bring together in a single selling tool the logic of e-commerce and the logic of social media. In fact, these are social networks where posted content is directly linked to e-commerce networks.
 
In which countries does e-commerce of design products work best?
The US is the most mature market. Then there are China and India that require constant work on storytelling. These are people that before making a purchase look for information on quality, by crossing information gathered on the Internet with that found on social media. In Europe, Britain is the most influential country and Poland potentially the most attractive market: the country is heavily digitized and has the cultural potential.
 
Once it was entrepreneurs who created needs. And today?
Consumers are fast becoming actors in production, so much that it is not hard to imagine a future in which products will be less and less defined in their specifications, and more and more customized to fit individual needs. Already, according to information collected through our platform, a company produced a table without fixed measures so that they could accommodate those wanted by consumers. Under the LoveThEsign brand we have designed a couch and a closet. These two additions to our product catalog are precisely born from the desire to meet increasing demand for modular objects that customers can configure as they need. Currently, our bestseller is the made-to-order Rodolfo sofa.

by Allegra Gallizia
Translated by Alex Foti


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