NRF 2025: Retail’s Big Show Europe Interview: Using Digital To Drive Expansion
Francesco Pinto - Yamamay chair and founder
Italian lingerie, nightwear, beachwear, and fashion specialist Yamamay was founded in 2001 and has built a distinctive market position by offering high-quality, accessible products that combine style, performance, and environmental responsibility.
Integrating eco-design, circular economy principles, and digital transformation across all its business functions, Yamamay was a founding member of the UN Global Compact Network Italy, the brand has over 600 stores across 32 countries; its own ecommerce platform and partnerships with major online marketplaces, including Zalando and Amazon, and has revenues of over €230 million annually.
Despite its size, the company operates in a sector populated by a number of very large competitors and it has used this to drive differentiation alongside its environmental credentials.
“We have 450 stores in Italy, so we have a top-of-mind place with our customers. Of course, it's not easy to replicate this outside Italy but we nicely expanding in southern Europe and the Balkans, because they are closer to Italian customer habits. Also the body shapes are similar, which is very important in underwear and lingerie,” Yamamay Chairman and Co-founder Francesco Pinto said.
Italy remains Yamamay’s primary market, representing the majority of revenue, store footprint, and brand recognition, but the brand also has a strong presence in Greece, the Balkans and is actively expanding in the Middle East, particularly in the UAE. Looking ahead, Yamamay is targeting international markets, including Europe, with a focus on Switzerland and France, Saudi Arabia and other markets in the Middle East and Asia, plus the CIS countries.
Yamamay’s growth strategy is focused on franchise partnerships and marketplace platforms, plus select flagship mono-brand stores in premium, high-traffic locations, serving as physical hubs, while in Italy the network is being optimised with flagship locations and mono-brand formats, including the Yamamay Man concept.
“Yamamay is a challenger company, which means that we've always been facing very tough competition, because the domestic champion is Intimissimi, with thousands of stores. So we fight side by side in the underwear market with them, which means that we learn from each other, from our operations and we've been surviving with such a competitor since the very beginning, with a friendly, colourful brand more sensitive to ESG,” Pinto added.
He said that the company believes that it can grow further, and expand the business, and it has been dealing with a lot of improvements on the digital side.
“We brought that back within our operations after the pandemic, but that then we had to rebuild from zero all of it, database platform, customer platform, CRM, analytics, loyalty program, POS, front end and back end solutions,” he recalled.
“What I think is that by being smart and small, we still have tools to use to grow further. It's a very sophisticated environment because product, innovation, customer centricity, engagement, digital storytelling, are all dimensions that we have to cope with to be successful. So we play the same game as every other big name in the industry. And of course, we try to learn a bit. We try to correct from mistakes, and we try to find our own way.”
Before the pandemic the company focused on its own operations in many markets, although some of them it decided to shut down during the pandemic.
“Now, you need first a good digital umbrella, to build up community, you try to have your own customer database ready to activate, because it's much more difficult to get started just with physical, so now I think you need to prepare the market with digital marketing and then follow with insights about customer behaviours and preferences,” Pinto said.