The transfer of ownership was completed (with 100% of the capital acquired a month ago by the Italmobiliare investment holding of the Pesenti family) and the pre-Covid turnover levels recovered, Perfume-Pharmaceutical Workshop Santa Maria Novella engages the turbo and prepares to grow in Italy and abroad. For the cosmetics, fragrances and liqueurs brand, which has become an international symbol of glamor and history thanks also to the shop-museum in Florence, it is a strategic transition from a family business to a complex organization.
The new CEO (and “nose”) Perris
The helm of CEO was entrusted to the nose Gian Luca Perris; much of the frontline of managers has been renewed; new shops and products are coming, including a line based on iris, the symbolic flower of Florence, whose preview took place yesterday in the Tuscan capital with an event which celebrated its 800th anniversary from the start of the cultivation of medicinal herbs by the Dominican friars (who then founded the brand in 1612). For the occasion, a special edition of eight fragrances was created called Firenze 1221.
“We want to put quality at the center – explains Perris – carrying on tradition and 800 years of history with a modern interpretation, without keeping the workshop as a museum”. The company – which produces everything in the Florence plant – has just opened a shop in Rinascente Milano Duomo and will open a boutique in via Tornabuoni in Florence within the year, as well as a second store in Doha and one in Sidney by April. Meanwhile it is landing in China through he cross-border ecommerce, thanks to the quality certification of the Florentine production plant, and is accelerating in the USA (where it has a branch and four direct sales points) and in the United Kingdom (where it has just taken over the distributor).
Santa Maria Novella, the Officina celebrates eight centuries of perfumes
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Direct Ecommerce in the UK and the USA
In these two countries, as well as in the rest of Europe, online sales take place through three directly operated Internet sites. «In the US, ecommerce is worth almost 50% of turnover – explains Perris – and it is a channel that we see in great growth. But now I think it makes little sense to speak separately of online and offline experience, omnichannel is valid ».
In the first nine months of 2021, the turnover of Officina Santa Maria Novella reached 20.1 million euros (+ 21.8%) with a mol of 6.9 million (+ 32.7%), an operating result of 4.4 million (+ 69.2%) and encouraging signs from the retail channel. «The shop in via della Scala in Florence, which before Covid absorbed 30% of turnover, has not yet recovered the 2019 volumes – continues Perris – but is growing. We are the third most visited museum in Florence», He says referring to the store housed in the complex of the basilica of Santa Maria Novella.