Golden Goose chief executive officer Silvio Campara kicked off his discussion at Tuesday’s FN Summit by addressing the unexpected postponement of the company’s initial public offering (IPO).
“The financial market and the real world are quite disconnected,” Campara said. “What is happening now in Europe, with elections in France and the UK, will soon happen here in America. So, elections are freezing the world for the next couple of months, and we are waiting for a much more calm and steady market scenario to go public. I don’t think now would be a good time to be represented in the market. But we will be back.”
On June 18, the Italian luxury sneaker company’s highly anticipated IPO was postponed just days before it was set to hit the Euronext Milan on Friday.
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Aside from touching on the company’s latest headline-making news, Campara doubled down on how Golden Goose is elevating its experiential marketing and innovation through a U.S. lens.
“Everyone is talking about experiences, but what is their retention rate in their stores,” the CEO said. “It’s quite easy to do customer acquisition but very difficult to maintain retention. When we first investing in customer acquisition on Google years ago, it would cost $24 a customer in the U.S., and now its $78 a customer in the U.S. – which even comes with a low retention rate.”
“So, that’s why we invested 10 million euros in building our Haus of Dreamers in Venice and building out our Forward store concept,” Campara said. “These new stores offer consumers a way to interact with our footwear in all aspects of a shoe’s life – from initial sale, to offering repairs and have a place for them to recycle their shoes.”
As for what specific experiences Golden Goose is focused on building out is its new Younique café store concept. “Coffee culture, especially in Asia, has grown in popularity over the last few years,” Campara noted. “That’s why we recently opened our first Younique café Bangkok. Our first store has been a terrific success. We will nurture and build this concept down the road and in the coming years.”
