Mariangela Marseglia

Interesting debate this morning on the Startup and Scale up Strategy with Andreas Schwarz, Head of Commissioner Zaharieva's Cabinet. ✅ Need for a change in mindset to seize the opportunities of 🇪🇺 EU talent, R&D and existing good companies. ✅ Recognition of the demand side through corporate networks - and hopefully #retail and #wholesale will be seen as a partner (something EuroCommerce has been calling for). ✅ Simplification of regulation is a key part of encouraging investment. Find out more about how retail and wholesale can contribute to 🇪🇺 competitiveness 👉 https://lnkd.in/ea763sHN

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Why Retailers Should Stop Asking “How Many Stores Can We Open?” It sounds like a straightforward expansion question. But after years of working with retail networks, I think there is a better one: “How many stores can the market sustainably support?” Because market capacity is not a fixed number. It changes. And sometimes, it changes because you changed the market yourself. I learned this from a market where our analysis identified a clear opportunity within a particular district. Based on market size, consumer demand, competition and expected store economics, the area appeared capable of supporting a certain number of profitable stores. We opened them. Initially, the performance supported the thesis. The market reacted to our expansion. The new stores created traffic, increased awareness and demonstrated demand in the area. That attracted another type of competitor: small local operators. They could move faster, require less investment and operate with a cost structure that would not work for a larger retailer. They started opening around the same catchments. The market hadn't disappeared. It had become more fragmented. The most important lesson was this: The investment horizon was longer than the market's ability to change. The stores could still be profitable, but the future growth potential was changing faster than the original investment assumptions. This changed how I think about expansion planning. A market isn't simply something you enter and measure. Your expansion becomes part of the market dynamics. Every new store can: 📌 create new consumer traffic 📌 validate demand for competitors 📌 attract new operators 📌 change the competitive balance 📌 accelerate market saturation That's why I am cautious about treating “market capacity” as a single number. A district may support 20 stores today. But can it support 20 stores after new competitors enter? Can it maintain the same sales productivity? What happens to the economics of the 15th, 18th or 20th store? And how much of the new store's sales is genuinely incremental? For me, expansion planning should connect: Market capacity → competitive response → network density → sales productivity → cannibalisation → CAPEX → payback → ROIC. These assumptions need to be revisited after the first stores open, because that's when the market starts giving you new information. Sometimes the right answer is to accelerate. Sometimes it's to pause. Sometimes it's to change the format or move into a different catchment. Because store count is an output of a successful expansion strategy. It shouldn't be the strategy itself. The objective isn't to build the biggest network. It's to build the largest network the market can sustainably support — with attractive returns on capital. #RetailExpansion #RetailStrategy #LocationStrategy #RetailInvestment #NetworkGrowth #SiteSelection #UnitEconomics #MarketEntry #APACRetail

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Retail and food production undergo substantial pressures from commodities to geopolitics. Exactly this challenging environment creates enormous opportunities to reset traditional playbooks and take bolder unconventional decisions. Level of M&A‘s, brand spin offs and corporate restructurings have been more intense than ever. Uncertainty of local and global markets leads to few universally relevant conclusions for retailers and food: - Know your values and religiously stick to them. Concepts of unclear or floating values are doomed. - Efficiency and productivity first. In environment of inflation and disruptions only efficient models will strive long term. Move units, rest will follow. - Invest and expand in local assets close to customers and cultures. Don’t be fooled by haze of the day. It’s an opportunity to build new models and production assets. For more wisdoms follow me on social 😜 #retaildemocratization IP Retail Consult

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The middle class is shrinking — and that changes everything for retail. In a recent discussion with omnichannel expert Olga Bressers , we explored how brands are increasingly being pushed to choose a side: high volume and low price, or low volume and high margin. The “comfortable middle” is becoming the most vulnerable position. As incomes polarize, consumer behavior follows — some trade down aggressively, others trade up selectively. This is exactly why affordable luxury is growing: brands that offer premium perception and emotional value, but remain within reach. The real strategic question is no longer how to serve everyone — but who you are willing to build for. Link to the full interview in the first comment!

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Building on the important new research released this week on European consumer review behavior, I’ve been reflecting on what this means for the future of trust and transparency in e-commerce. The data is clear: customers are more informed, more selective, and more dependent on credible signals of quality than ever before. When 60% of consumers consult reviews and nearly 80% say those reviews meaningfully influence their decisions, trust isn’t a “nice to have” — it’s a core part of the customer experience. That’s why the work we do at Amazon to protect the integrity of our store matters. Last year alone, we stopped over 200 million suspected fake reviews from ever reaching customers in Europe. It’s work that doesn’t always make headlines, but it shapes customer confidence in every purchase. If you’re interested in the full findings, you can read the report here: https://lnkd.in/e49h3Rn3

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Brand loyalty is about experience, not discounts. During a roundtable I hosted with Fosca Sassi, Nicolò Ammendola, and Francesca Berretti at Experience-Led Commerce 2025, we explored three very different approaches to customer loyalty. And yet one truth emerged: the most effective loyalty today isn’t earned through points—it’s earned through experience. → PassioneBeauty built a €60M DTC brand without a formal program. Instead, a 180K-strong Facebook community became their loyalty engine. Now, they’re dismantling the program they launched to embed loyalty directly into the experience. → LUISAVIAROMA made loyalty work in luxury. Not with discounts, but with curated experiences: spa retreats, fashion shows, exclusive perks. 73% of orders come from loyalty members, who spend 3x more than average. → Velasca earned loyalty through product quality, strong service, and offline expansion. If they ever launch a loyalty program, it will be invisible, brand-aligned, and focused on long-term connection. Loyalty isn’t something you layer on. It’s something you build in. It’s quiet, consistent, and rooted in every touchpoint of your customer experience. So if your loyalty strategy starts with points and cashbacks, maybe you’re starting from the wrong place? #ecommerce #brandstrategy #customerexperience #loyalty #retention

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