Rinascente starts with ecommerce in June

La Rinascente, a department store chain from Italy, will launch its own online store in June. Initially, the idea was to make an online debut last month, but this has been delayed due to the outbreak of coronavirus Covid-19.

“We were supposed to launch or online store in March, but the corona virus stopped us”, Rinascente CEO Pierluigi Cocchini told Fashion Magazine. “We are now in the testing phase and we are using it already internally. Next month we will further improve the service and in June, we will be fully operational.”

The potential is enormous

The CEO says the potential for its online store is enormous. “This is demonstrated, for example, by our on-demand service via WhatsApp, which brings us sales of over 5 million euros.” And when Rinascente is allowed to welcome customers back in their stores after the lockdown is over, the department store will start with high discounts, Cocchini says.

Rinascente is a subsidiary of Central Retail Corporation (part of the major Thai retail group Central Group), which also operates department and retail stores like KaDeWe, Oberpollinger and Alsterhaus.

KaDeWe considers temporary online shop

In Germany, KaDeWe is also accelerating in digital commerce. The famous department store is said to considering opening a temporary online shop. A start date is yet unknown, but fact is that originally, KaDeWe didn’t want to start with ecommerce until spring next year. But the corona virus has changed these plans.