Mondadori Retail

Mondadori Retail, the company that runs the largest network of bookstores in Italy, continues to develop with an expansion plan for the opening of new Mondadori Stores, an enhanced offer and an increasingly distinctive positioning embracing physical stores, e-commerce and social media.

“The ongoing work to renew and enhance the network and to focus on the book core business has enabled our network to consolidate its leadership still further,” said Mondadori Retail CEO Carmine Perna. “We are moving ahead with the opening of 13 new stores planned by the end of 2022, for an overall total of 25 openings during the whole year. Our bookstores are designed to inspire future readers and as meeting places where local communities can make new discoveries: so we are paying ever greater attention to the new generations, with dedicated formats in the stores and on the social channels, and the organisation of initiatives involving the local area,” Perna added.

FORTHCOMING OPENINGS

On the bookstore front, three new Mondadori Bookstores under direct management will be opened in the second half of the year, in the regions of Lazio, Lombardy and Umbria. They follow the two openings in Genoa and Montenero di Bisaccia (Campobasso) in April and May.

The expansion of the franchising network is also moving ahead, with 10 new bookstores due to open by the end of the year in Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Veneto, Sicily and Marche, after the start-up of 10 affiliated outlets in the first half of 2022. A nationwide presence across Italy, from North to South, with medium-size locations where books are the real protagonists.

The Mondadori Store development plan is also supported by the continuous renewal of directly managed stores: by the end of September, the Mondadori Bookstore in Padua will open in its new location in Piazza Garibaldi, and in Vimercate the outlet in the Torri Bianche shopping mall will undergo a restyling; during the winter, the new Mondadori flagship will open in Milan, on the corner between Piazza Duomo and Via Mazzini.

THE NEW FORMATS

The Mondadori bookstore offer for children and adolescents is enhanced with the new “We are junior” section, an area designed to welcome even the smallest children, with books and educational games to stimulate the imagination for the 0-13 age group. With its yellow and green colour scheme and origami decorations inspired by nature and the world of animals, which have great appeal for children, the section has an immediately recognisable visual identity.

The process of continuous innovation has also led to the development of the “Just Comics” format, for manga, graphic novels, superheroes and the great Italian authors. Planned as a comic store in the bookstore, “Just Comics is a flexible space that adapts easily to the specific dimensions of the individual outlet. The project began in Milan with an entire floor in the Rizzoli bookstore in the Vittorio Emanuele Gallery and the Mondadori Megastore in Piazza Duomo, and has since been extended to all the bookstores under direct management and to a growing number of stores managed on a franchising basis, establishing itself in just under a year as a point of reference for lovers of the genre.

EVENTS

The events calendar has been enhanced with meetings with writers and figures from the world of entertainment and initiatives with schools and libraries. Bookstores play a vital role in promoting reading, thanks in part to the passion of local booksellers, who are able to build productive ties of cooperation with local institutions. Events include the literary festivals “Ad alta voce” in Mestre, “Come un libro all’aperto” in Fano, “Velletri Libris” in Velletri. For information about all the events: https://eventi.mondadoristore.it/it/news/2022/07/19/estate-in-festival-tutti-gli-eventi-letterari-delle-nostre-librerie/115/

DEBUT ON TIKTOK

From the physical to the digital, relations with readers are also consolidated on social media, with initiatives and content to support purchasing on all channels: from today Mondadori Store will also be on TikTok , as well as Instagram and Facebook, to talk about books, local events and meetings.

A journey to explore the Mondadori bookstores in Italy, through the testimonials of people with close connections to bookstores: from booksellers, who organise content on the TikTok profiles of local Mondadori bookstores, attracting numerous followers, to booktokers, young men and women who love reading and have built up huge followings. A communication format that valorises books and bookstores, making them a point of reference for people who want to follow the latest literary trends on social media.

Mondadori Retail continues the plan to develop its network of bookstores across Italy from north to south, and kicks off a new training project for the network’s booksellers.

After the 10 bookstores inaugurated in the first half of the year, another 10 stores will open to the public by end 2021. The plan brings the offering of the most extensive network of bookstores in Italy even closer to readers, with the directly-managed medium-size stores located in the larger cities, and the franchised ones in the smaller populated areas.

Two new directly-managed Mondadori Bookstores will open over the next few months: the first in Lombardy, inside the Fiordaliso mall in Rozzano (Milan), which will be inaugurated on 11 November 2021, followed by a second opening in Emilia Romagna.

Eight new franchised Mondadori Bookstores and Mondadori Points are expected to open in the final part of the year in Emilia Romagna, Latium, Campania, Apulia, Calabria and Sicily.

Mondadori Retail also enhances the services dedicated to franchisees with the new training program called Percorsi. The new courses are meant to provide the over 500 affiliated booksellers with additional tools and guidance to enhance and increase their daily bookstore activities, through insights into the evolving landscape of the publishing world in recent years and the relationship between booksellers and readers in the digital age.

“We have built a training path to be alongside our affiliates in an even closer way, providing them with an opportunity for in-depth analysis and discussion that will help them nurture their relationship with readers even more. Bookstores are outposts of culture that can add value to the local area and its communities; today, they are turning more and more into vital gathering spots where people converge for the pleasure of discovering new stories. Our new openings bear further proof of their importance for the buoyancy of the sector, which is also driven by the dedication and hard work of booksellers throughout Italy, key figures in the promotion of reading in our Country”, says Carmine Perna, Managing Director of Mondadori Retail.

Percorsi is divided into four sessions covering several topics, from market scenarios to the enhancement of books and their assortment inside the store, from customer relations to exploring the synergies between the physical and digital world, with industry professionals taking the floor.

“The present and future of Bookstores” is the focal theme of the opening session, graced by the address from Prof. Paola Dubini from the Bocconi University. The publishing market in Italy is constantly evolving; the last 18 months, in particular, have marked a true watershed, with a few major aspects coming to the fore. The session will explore the dynamics of the sector, how to promote peculiarity in the local area, the bookseller role and the next steps to be taken.

The Percorsi cycle continues in November with the second session dedicated to “Assortment, catalogue, local area: building value for the customer“. Building an assortment is crucial to meet the needs of readers and to cover the local area: what are the pillars for building the right offer? How to enhance readers and the local area? What role do categories hold and how can choices be guided?

In 2022, Percorsi will continue with two training events that will address how to manage customers and their satisfaction and the new opportunities offered by cross-channel marketing, which will be followed by new training workshops next year.

Mondadori Retail, the company that manages Italy’s most extensive chain of bookstores, continues its development strategy with the opening of con 10 new sales outlets across the country.

The new Mondadori Bookstores – both directly managed and franchised – that will open in the coming months will be supported by a plan to strengthen the offer, digitization and the launch of a training programme for booksellers.

“In a year that has been characterised by great dynamism in the book sector, we think that it is a real priority to invest in both the development of physical stores and the enhancement of services,” declared Carmine Perna, chief executive of Mondadori Retail. “Preference will be given to medium-sized shops, managed directly in the larger towns and cities and as franchises in smaller centres, with the aim of responding to the cultural needs of the local communities with an offer the corresponds to the customer. We will also offer specific training to our booksellers and new digital tools to encourage and expand the relationship with readers across the country,” Perna concluded.

A new Mondadori Bookstore has opened in Milan, within Bicocca Village. This directly-managed shop will be a point of reference for book lovers with over 10,000 titles available, from fiction to non-fiction, classics and comics, a sector dedicated to kids and young adults, with films and toys, and s selection of quality stationery, gift boxes and gift cards.

Another new opening took place at the end of May in Pontecagnano (Salerno): where the nee Mondadori Bookstore will enhance the offer of the Centro Maximall with the best of Mondadori’s offer of culture and entertainment.

By the end of July other new Mondadori Bookstores will be opened in Portogruaro (Venice), in the Adriatico2shopping mall and in San Martino Buon Albergo (Verona), inside Le Corti Venete, to be followed in the autumn by another three directly-managed stores in central-north regions.

Also franchised openings will continue: following those in March and April in Cava de Tirreni, L’Aquila, Avella, Naples and Frascati, new affiliated booksellers will open another three Mondadori Bookstores in the centre and south of Italy before the end of the summer.

As well as reinforcing the shops, the Mondadori Retail strategy is focused on enhancing specific market segments, expanding the in-store assortment with the introduction of the Just Comics format: an in-store comics factory, to give more visibility to a publishing area that is meeting with increasing public interest.

Just Comics is already present in Milan with an entire floor dedicated to the segment in the Rizzoli Galleria book shop and the Mondadori Megastore in Piazza Duomo, in the Mondadori Bookstores in Arese, Padua, Bologna, and  both the Via Appia and Fiumicino stores in Rome, and with an extensive section in the main shops of the chain, as well as on www.mondadoristore.it. With a selection of over 10,000 comic and illustrated titles, that go from manga to graphic novels and superheroes, it will be a new point of reference of all comics fans and everyone who wants to discover a world full of stories.

Mondadori Retail has also launched an extensive training programme for booksellers, which aims to reinforce the skills of the teams in the directly-managed stores, by enhancing important aspects of the relationship with readers, from when they arrive in the shop until they make a purchase. For the franchise chain, a series of meetings will begin in the autumn aimed at providing booksellers and the entrepreneurs who have decided to affiliate with the chain with the tools and knowledge necessary to develop their skills.

Particular attention is also being given to digital services, which are increasingly central in the relationship with readers and the buying process, which have been designed around the needs of new consumers. The entire Mondadoristore.it catalogue – with over 1 million titles, including books in Italian and in original languages, school textbooks, eBooks, eReaders, films in DVD and Blu-ray, music of every kind, toys, gift ideas and stationery products – is accessible also through free multichannel services, selecting between the Pick Up Point, Prenota e Ritira (Order & Collect) and Invia a casa (Delivery) options.

There is also an expansion of the range of new cashless services, such as Scalapay, available from June, which enables customers of the online channel to pay by instalments, and a  pay by mail solution, which will be up and running by the end of the year, to pay remotely for purchases made in store.

The logistics area – essential to ensure an increasingly efficient service for both customers and booksellers – is also being upgraded, with the optimisation of the entire process – from orders to delivery– with the autumn introduction of dropshipping, an innovative distribution model that makes it possible to reduce delivery times.

The Mondadori Group announces that, effective today, Carmine Perna is the new managing director of Mondadori Retail S.p.A.

In his functions, Perna will work towards launching a new phase of development and transformation in a multi-channel perspective of the company that operates in the retail segment of the Mondadori Group, led by CEO Ernesto Mauri.

Mondadori Retail, chaired by Mario Resca, generated revenue of € 191.8 million in 2018 and manages the largest network of bookshops in Italy. The company operates across the Country through approximately 600 directly-managed or franchised points of sale and online with mondadoristore.it.

Carmine Perna – 49, born in Serino (AV) and a graduate in business administration at the Bocconi University of Milan – joined the Mondadori Group in 2006 working in the Administration, Finance and Control Department, before holding positions of increasing responsibility. In 2007, he was appointed CFO of Mondadori France and, in 2010, Executive Director of Finance & Operations of the French subsidiary, before becoming General Managing Director in March 2013, a position he kept until completion of the sale.

Under his leadership, Mondadori France has strengthened its position as one of the top French magazine publishers: in recent years, Perna implemented a major transformation that led to the review and re-launch of all magazines and to a strong plan for brand diversification, including in the digital segment.

Prior to that, Perna worked with the SISAL Group, in H3G S.p.A. and for the Ventaglio Group, holding various roles in the finance area.

The Mondadori Group wishes to thank Pierluigi Bernasconi – who has decided to leave Mondadori Retail for personal reasons and in agreement with the company – for the valuable contribution and professionalism he has shown during his tenure.

The Mondadori Group announces that Pierluigi Bernasconi will be proposed at the next meeting of the Board of Directors of Mondadori Retail S.p.A. as the new Chief Executive Officer, effective from 5 June 2017.

Born in Milan in 1954 – after ten years at Hitachi, holding increasing responsibilities until becoming director of the audio-video division – in 1989 Pierluigi Bernasconi founded Mediamarket S.p.A., the consumer electronics chain, which operates in Italy under the Media World, Saturn and Media World Compra On Line brands; appointed CEO, in 1991 he opened the first Media World store in Curno.

From 2013 to 2015, he was CEO of the Mercatone Uno Group, leading distributor in Italy of furniture, accessories, household products and jewellery. In 2016 he was appointed Chairman and director of B-Retail, a strategic advisory firm in the distribution field. Subsequently was appointed vice president of Iper Montebello S.p.A., the company which manages the chain IPER La grande I.

Since 2016, he has been board member of ePRICE.

In 2010, he received the honour of “Cavaliere del Lavoro”.

Mondadori Retail manages the largest network of bookstores in Italy. It operates through more than 600 stores (megastores, bookstores, points and clubs) and four sales channels: directly managed and franchised stores, web and bookclubs.

This year Mondadori Store is launching a special competition for customers who buy, during the Christmas season, books, music, films, toys, gift boxes and stationery at one of the 600 stores across Italy or from Mondadoristore.it.

The prizes available include, a book “for life”, with which a lucky reader, drawn from all those who participate in the Mondadori Store initiative, will be able to enrich his or her personal library. The winner will receive directly at home one book every month for 30 years, a total of 360 books,  chosen on the basis of the reader’s preferences.

The Mondadori Store competition also aims to reward Italian families with a gift of one year’s shopping and a year of petrol, two important elements in the family budget. For the first name draw, a coupon worth €8,000 to spend at a preferred supermarket, and, for the second name drawn,  a coupon worth del €4,000 in petrol that can be used at a petrol station chosen by the customer.

Finally, there are also 1,000 Mondadori Store €5 gift cards.

The promotion will run until 8 January, when you buy using the PAYBACK card, one of the products in the 2016 Mondadori Store Christmas Gift Guide, available in stores and online. For full information and rules, please go to Mondadoristore.it.

St-Art, artist of the month is the latest cultural project by Mondadori Store, developed in collaboration with Milo Goj’s Art Relation, which aims to present and enhance the reputations of young artists while also expanding the audience for contemporary art.

From 8 September, and then every month, until March 2016, a young exponent of the contemporary art scene will be the protagonist of an month-long exhibition at the Mondadori Megastore in Piazza Duomo in Milan. The first seven artists are three Italian – Marco Abisso, Giovanni Manzoni Piazzalunga and Stefany Savino – and four non-Italian – Alban Met Hasani, Jang Sung An, Kalina Danailova and Lucia Guadalupe Guillen, all of whom have trained in Italy at the Brera Academy of Fine Arts.

The cycle of seven exhibitions will begin 8 September at 6pm with Marco Abisso, a Milanese sculptor and painter, with a music-inspired show that will run until 11 October 2015. In his work Abisso tries to re-establish a symbolic value in the romantic gesture of creating an manufactured object. The artist will also use a live performance to interact with the public using his artistic language to bend and beat sheet metal.

Each show will be inaugurated with a performance by the artist who will complete, in front of an audience, a work-in-progress – a painting, installation or digital form – inspired by a specific theme: from music to fashion, to literature, to travel. The finished works will then be put on sale in an effort to bring a wider public closer to art.

“In the contemporary world it is important to support the creative explorations of young artists with fresh ideas and hopes,” said Giacinto di Pietrantonio – curator and art expert who will introduce the Marco Abisso exhibition tomorrow. “This is what is at the heart of St-Art, Artist of the month, promoted by Mondadori Store, a project that brings young artists into direct contact with the public and offers a space to discuss and debate new ideas and forms also for the future. And also to understand, through exposure to the work, the and emerging new trends.”

Patron of the St-Art, Artist of the Month project is the artist Marco Lodola, who, for the Mondadori Megastore in Piazza Duomo, created Eden, a neon installation that can be seen on the façade of the store and which represents a luminous, a female symbol of an uncontaminated Eden holding a red apple, the colour of passion. A precise reference to the large illuminated advertising signs that from 1915 onwards appeared on the facades of the buildings around Piazza Duomo until they were forcibly removed in 1999.

ST-ART, ARTIST OF THE MONTH

Mondadori Megastore, Piazza Duomo Milano

Open from: 9am – 11pm

Entrance: free

For a complete calendar of the exhibitions go to: mondadoristore.it

#StartInStore

Tomorrow sees the opening, in centre of Milan, of the new Mondadori Megastore in via San Pietro all’Orto 11. A place for encounters between people and with books where the buying experience becomes a voyage of exploration and discovery: as well as books, the core of the store’s assortment, visitors will also find a range of entertainment offers, services and a Café area.

The Megastore in via San Pietro all’Orto is the first example of bookstore with an innovative concept in the layout and a different formula in the assortment. The opening of this new outlet, alongside the Duomo and via Marghera stores in the city, is a continuation of the consolidation plan for the Retail activities of the Mondadori Group, which has the most extensive network of bookstores in Italy, with over 600 outlets around the country.

“The launch of the new format Megastore in San Pietro all’Orto is an important step in the development process of our activities in the Retail sector, one of our core businesses,” declared Ernesto Mauri, chief executive of the Mondadori Group. “We are leader in the book market and, for a publisher like us, being able to depend on a such an extensive chain of bookshops across the country is certainly an enormous strategic asset and a privileged way of being in direct contact with consumers, given that, every year, over 20 million people come into our stores and speak to us.” Mauri concluded.

“The development of the offer, the buying experience, the enhancement of the product, services and a comfortable environment: these are the key elements that have inspired us in the work of innovating the traditional bookshop and making it a model that enables us to get closer, and with greater frequency and satisfaction, to the worlds of culture and entertainment,” explained Mario Maiocchi, managing director of Mondadori Retail.

The design and layout of the Mondadori Megastore in San Pietro all’Orto was overseen with Mondadori Retail by the Milan-based design studio Migliore + Servetto Architects. On three levels and with a total floor space of 750 square metres, the store is characterised by a display system that with a light-touch design and rich chromatic feel and materials, highlights the real protagonists, books, which visitors are invited to touch, open and look through. A broad central staircase creates a vertical link between the three levels and leads the visitor through a ambience marked by the contemporary and the traditional where the red of Mondadori – the distinguishing element of the staircase and all of the signage – mixes with the green and the white of the metal fittings.

The design combines welcome areas with displays to create an innovative relationship with visitors who are free to move around according to their needs and interests. The Mondadori Megastore is a place to spend time and to return to, for those who love reading with comfortable chairs and a wide assortment that ranges from literature to comics and foreign-language books, organised as follows:

• the ground floor is home to the MARKETPLACE, with the most recent publications, stationery and gift box selections, as well as technology products, alongside a new customer assistance and after-sales service Help;

• the first floor is devoted to BOOKS&CAFÉ, where the store’s extensive book offer is located, with the Comics area and stationery store, as well as the Mondadori Café, developed along with Cibiamogroup, a leading company in quality fast food services: an area of encounter, inside the store, where adults and children, from 9 am until 11 pm everyday, will find selected products and simple recipes, all reflective of the best Italian tradition. The Café will also host meetings with authors and book presentations;

• the lower-ground floor also has a KIDS zone for children and teenagers: an area that brings together the physical and digital dimension thanks to touchwalls, designed to amuse and stimulate the imaginations of young readers through drawing and group games.

And the focus on the customer doesn’t end with the physical space of the Megastore, but also comes alive through an integrated system of digital services and tools linked to the web site Mondadoristore.it and, from today, with the new Mondadori Card app, available for both Apple and Android smartphones, which allows Mondadori Card holders to manage, even more conveniently than before, their profile and with the new store locator function, to receive information about events and initiatives in their nearest Mondadori store. Customers of the store will also soon be able to access the new book on demand service which offers readers a catalogue of over 7 million titles from across the world.

Arnoldo Mondadori Editore S.p.A. has today announced the appointment, with immediate effect, of Mario Maiocchi as chief executive of Mondadori Direct S.p.A., a company of the Mondadori Group – led by chief executive Ernesto Mauri – that operates in the retail sector.

Mondadori Direct, which operates across the country through a chain of over 550 shops – either wholly owned bookstores, of which 8 are multicenters, or franchised outlets – and online with the inMondadori.it site, which in 2012 generated total revenues of €245 million.

The board of directors of Mondadori Direct S.p.A. has at the same time appointed Mario Resca as chairman. Resca who, among other things, boasts an extensive and consolidated experience in Italian and international retailing was the man behind the McDonald’s phenomenon in Italy.

Maiocchi, 57, who was born in Bolzano and has a degree in economics and business administration from Milan’s Bocconi University, has had a significant career in different companies, both in Italy and abroad. He began his career at 3M Italia, moving in 1985 to Control Data Corporation, then Nashua and, in 1990, EMI Music. From 1998 Maiocchi occupied a series of positions with growing responsibility at the Metro Group, until 2008 when he was appointed chief executive of Unieuro, part of the European Dixons Retail Group where, in 2010, he was appointed managing director for South Europe.

Mondadori warmly thanks Renato Rodenghi, who leaves his operating responsibilities after having, in a long career in the Group, made a significant contribution to the development of Italy’s largest bookshop chain and the birth of a multi-channel system for the offline and online sale of mainly media products.

Following appropriate authorisations from the Italian competition body, Mondadori Retail S.p.A., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Arnoldo Mondadori Editore S.p.A., today finalised the definitive agreement for the acquisition of the entire share capital of Messaggerie Musicali S.p.A.

The operation was completed in line with the preliminary agreement signed on 22 November and previously announced to the market. The value of the transaction is €24 million.

The acquisition of Messaggerie Musicali will allow Mondadori to add to its existing network the two megastores – which will be managed directly by Mondadori – in Via del Corso in Rome and Corso Vittorio Emanuele/Galleria del Corso in Milan, further developing its position in two cities of particular relevance and expanding its assortment of books and multimedia products.

In addition, Milan will also see the opening in the spring of 2007 of a new megastore – the Duomo Center – in Piazza del Duomo, in a prestigious location of architectural value.

The inclusion in the Mondadori chain of outlets of this new sales outlet and the store in Corso Vittorio Emanuele/Galleria del Corso will result in a significant increase in the sales space dedicated to books and multimedia products, which, including the existing Multicenter in Via Berchet, in the centre of Milan alone will rise from 2,500 to over 10,000 square metres.

Overall the network of retail outlets operated by Mondadori in Milan and Rome will amount to a floor space of over 25,000 square metres.

In the context of the Group’s development plan in the retail sector and the optimisation of its presence in the Milan area, Mondadori Retail has also reached an agreement for the sale, to Corso Vittorio Emanuele 2428 Retail S.r.l., at a price of €14.25 million, of the business activity in the retail space currently occupied by the Libreria Mondadori bookstore in Largo Corsia dei Servi in Milan.

The activities of the bookstore will move to the nearby Messaggerie Musicali store in Corso Vittorio Emanuele, and will provide customers with an expanded offer along with a marked continuation of service.