The new online comestero.shop store marks out a further stage in the innovation course of Gruppo Comestero Sistemi. It is a tool conceived to meet the requirements of customers increasingly used to buying online, ensuring rapidity and a support that stands out for the particular proximity to customers.
Gruppo Comestero Sistemi has reached a new milestone in its digitalization and innovation course. The setup of the online comestero.shop store is in fact a further strategic choice with which the company confirms to keep pace with times, providing customers with a tool that is the fruit of an important research work to satisfy the different requirements at best: from the B2B target to B2C. The e-commerce site stands out for the capability of offering the typical assistance of the offline purchase process also to those who decide buying online, providing a broad range of information and an efficacious support in the choice of products due to the Group’s large know-how. Together with Matteo Laboccetta, Marketing & Sales Director, and Serena Rota, Marketing Assistant, we enter comestero.shop with a sort of “virtual tour”, to know its peculiarities and its highlights.
How was the idea of the online shop born?
We had already been assessing the e-commerce possibility for a long time now, but the changes occurred in the pandemic period have induced us to think the right time to enter this channel had come. People’s more acquaintance with online purchases and the spreading of a new way of working, also in our sector, have led us to concretize the project of the online shop, which we have established in July 2021. Moreover, the situation regarding provisions has further favoured this decision because we had already started widening our warehouse and having more stock than in the past.
For what reason have you decided setting up a new site instead of a dedicated area on your institutional site?
Because comestero.shop addresses different customers. Through the institutional site, in fact, we propose the whole package of products and services made available by our Group which includes, besides Comestero Sistemi, also other companies like Penta Group (wirings/assemblies) and PHI Drive – Driving Technology (consulting). Gruppo Comestero Sistemi mainly supplies productions, then companies that demand large product quantities; the online shop addresses instead smaller customers.
What is in detail the target of the online shop?
The target is both B2B and B2C and, in particular, comestero.shop can be an ideal tool for those companies that search for a fast contact for the pre-production, with immediate availabilities, as it can then benefit from Gruppo Comestero Sistemi’ s know-how for the successive manufacturing stage.
How do you succeed in enhancing the interaction with the public online? Do you provide a support to customers for the product choice?
We intended to stand out from conventional e-commerce, completing the advantages of the online purchasing with the benefits deriving from having a rapid direct contact with our customer service. We put at disposal a dedicated telephone number and e-mail address, which customers can use if they need to receive assistance or consulting in the product choice. In this way, they can manage orders autonomously and quickly, but they know they can always rely on the competences and on the support our Group can offer.
We receive manifold assistance demands, from the simplest to the most complex ones, like those searching for an alternative to a determinate product or those that contact us to have an advice about the most suitable solution for a specific need. To manage the most complex demands, the customer service interfaces with our technical office, providing customers with our Group’s whole heritage of knowledge.
What is the survey of electromechanical products’ offer in Italy? And how do you succeed in standing out from competitors?
We have always tried standing out, staking on innovative solutions. We were established as distributors (although of big quantities) but then we sought a differentiation from competitors with the takeover of companies able to supply services in both the pre-production and the assembling phase. Becoming a Group, we could widen our offer, proposing ourselves as single partner, able to satisfy different requirements. In the case of comestero.shop as well, we have tried to stand out: from both those that sell electromechanical components only in conventional channels (manufacturers or distributors), and from the e-commerce that offer such products exclusively online but often do not provide a customer support that is not comparable to the one achievable with the offline sale.
Through the online shop, do you aim at reaching prevailingly Italian customers or foreign ones, too?
In this first year of activity, we have mainly focused on Italy but our target is making us renowned on a European scale and for this reason the site is already available both in Italian and in English. Moreover, to increase our visibility, we are going to operate on various channels: from the specialized press (both online and on paper), to social networks (mainly LinkedIn), to AdWords, SEO and SEM campaigns. Through the analysis of the researches carried out online about the product typologies of our competence, we try understanding users’ real needs, to be able to provide a suitable answer and to be found easily.
A blog is present on comestero.shop: what type of contents is proposed?
We propose a set of in-depth articles about products, with the aim of providing information that can be useful to the various user typologies. We constantly work to implement this site section, to be able to offer as many information as possible to customers and also a constant update about product novelties.
Do you carry out the analysis of surfing data to improve the customer experience?
Yes, we analyse users’ surfing modalities on our online shop, in order to understand their requirements better and to improve the site constantly. According to collected data, for instance, we have modified the product visualization, giving more room to contents and decreasing images’ size, because we have understood this was more comfortable for users and better satisfied their needs. Moreover, we have created some filters to facilitate the product search and we have simplified registration and purchase processes as much as possible, to make them user-friendly and fast. Finally, we analyse surfing data also to understand what are the most interesting products. More in general, I can state the constant improvement of the customer experience is the focus of the activity of the whole team who takes care of the online shop: from those who implement contents to those committed to AdWords, SEO and SEM campaigns, up to developers.
How does the management of online orders differ from the one of offline orders?
Concerning the online, we have streamlined and automated the process as much as possible: the course “order receipt-logistics-invoice issue” is direct and very fast and this allows us to fulfil orders very quickly, satisfying the expectations of online buyers, nowadays acquainted with quick times. Regarding the online order management, we rely on dedicated staff in both the warehouse and for the invoicing and in the next future we aim at automating also the latter aspect, to further streamline the process.
How do you manage the logistics of products sold online?
From packaging, to labels, to the gift of some gadgets, we have tried dedicating a special care to the way our customers will receive our products, because this affects the customer experience, too. Moreover, some further aspects on which we have focused are prompt deliveries (generally in 24/48 hours) and the possibility of monitoring shipments through the parcel tracking.
Are you expecting some future evolutions for the online shop?
Yes, we do. We are going to enhance the site visibility on European scale and to increase the number of products that can be bought online. Moreover, we would like also to propose some services offered by the Group, such as the wiring and the prototyping through 3D printing.
