How Il Conte Improved its Inventory Management with Shopify POS

Since unifying online and in-person selling with Shopify POS, Il Conte has enjoyed 90% fewer online order cancellations, a 50% increase in gift card sales, and spends 40% less time reconciling inventory.

Il Conte is an Italian multi-brand fashion and accessories business with a focus on Neapolitan style custom made products. For over 30 years, customers have frequented the flagship Il Conte boutique store in Terni, Umbria. 

Now using Shopify to run its three physical stores as well as its online store, what was once a brick-and-mortar only business is now an established omnichannel brand. Since unifying online and in-person selling with Shopify POS, Il Conte has enjoyed:

• 90% fewer online order cancellations 
• 50% increase in gift card sales 
• 40% less time spent reconciling inventory 

Challenge: Disconnected inventory systems and accidental overselling

With over three decades of experience as a successful bricks and mortar brand, Il Conte was focusing on curating experiences for its loyal and dedicated customers across its stores in Terni and Rome. When COVID-19 forced them to shut down their store, however, the business had to move online to continue serving customers. 

Launching its first online store on Wix, Il Conte started carving out an online identity for its brand and serving customers across Italy. But Wix was disconnected from their physical stores. As a result, they often oversold products and had to resort to time-consuming, manual reconciliations to ensure inventory quantities were accurate. 

It was a big change going from in-store selling to moving online. We needed our online offering to be scalable.

Gianluca Munzi, Co-Founder, Il Conte

Solution: One source of truth for online and store inventory management

Il Conte needed a solution that would help them run their entire brand from one place and switched everything to Shopify. Now, inventory quantities automatically adjust as they make sales online or in store, which has reduced overselling by 90%. Shopify’s reports also provide a clear and accurate snapshot of stock availability and across each of their three physical stores. 

Il Conte now plans to use Shopify’s ship to customer order fulfillment to further increase store sales. With it, store staff can view stock availability at any store location, finalize the sale, and ship the item directly to customers' from whichever store location has inventory available. This prevents stockouts from hurting sales and improves their customer experience. 

Shopify POS ensures we don’t sell products online when we’re out of stock. It makes it much easier to keep track of our inventory everywhere we sell.

Gianluca Munzi, Co-Founder, Il Conte

Results: A solid foundation to support brand growth 

While moving online has helped Il Conte reach customers across Italy, unifying its sales with Shopify has made managing its online and physical stores much easier. With both of its sales channels speaking to one another for the first time, Il Conte has a world of new possibilities to take advantage of. 

For instance, Shopify’s customer profiles let the brand see each customer’s online and store purchase history in one place. The brand plans to use that data to launch retention marketing campaigns and lift repeat purchases even further. 

Unifying its sales channels with Shopify has also opened up new ways to increase sales that weren’t possible before. With Shopify’s omnichannel gift cards, for instance, customers have the freedom to redeem their gift card either online or in-store. With that added flexibility, Il Conte launched a campaign and saw a 50% increase in gift card sales as a result. 

But most importantly, Il Conte’s brand now has a reliable foundation to support their growth as an omnichannel brand. 

Shopify POS makes it easier for us to run our business’ day-to-day operations. Our sales channels are connected, it takes less time to manage inventory, and customers can shop however they want.

Gianluca Munzi, Co-Founder, Il Conte