"If you don't know who your customers are, you don't know how to react".
Sergio Schiavone has built his career in wholesale apparel and footwear, working closely with sales colleagues and supporting retail buyers. Based in Italy he began his career building fan websites before rising to senior digital and leadership roles at PVH (Tommy Hilfiger) and VF Corporation, where he was responsible for providing digital products to support wholesale buying across large product ranges. That background gives him a clear understanding of how buyers actually engage with brands in real commercial contexts.
In this conversation with Steve Borges on The B2B Experience from London-based UX design agency Biglight, Sergio focuses on how digital showrooms can improve B2B buying experiences in wholesale distribution. But a central message of the episode is that digital only delivers value when it is grounded in a deep understanding of customer needs and real buying journeys.
Sergio describes the complexity of wholesale buying in apparel and footwear. Buyers manage large assortments multiple seasons and tight timelines. Traditional selling relies heavily on physical showrooms travel and samples which can introduce friction and inefficiency into the buying process.
Rather than starting with technology Sergio emphasises the importance of customer research. Understanding how buyers prepare for meetings access systems and move through the buying journey reveals where experience breaks down. Without this understanding digital risks amplifying existing problems rather than solving them.
A key insight from this project completed by Biglight, Sergio discusses is how journey mapping exposed unmet needs and pain points that were blocking progress. One of the first and most important findings was basic but critical. Customers struggled to log into the system. This single issue created friction before buyers could even begin to engage with products or ranges.
This discovery changed priorities. Instead of investing immediately in sophisticated features the organisation focused on fixing fundamentals. Improving access and removing basic blockers drove tangible action and created momentum internally. It also demonstrated the value of starting with real customer pain points rather than assumptions.
Sergio explains how customer journey mapping made these issues visible. The work to map the end-to-end journey created a shared understanding across digital commercial and sales teams. It aligned everyone around what actually mattered to buyers rather than what looked impressive on a roadmap.
This work with Biglight played an important role. Sergio talks about how the structured approach to customer research and journey mapping helped the organisation prioritise effectively. By identifying unmet needs and moments of friction the team could focus on incremental improvements that delivered immediate value.
An important part of the solution centred on the role digital showrooms could play. They helped buyers explore ranges understand products and prepare more effectively for conversations with sales teams. Digital became an enabler of better interactions rather than a distraction.
Sergio is clear that this incremental approach mattered. Progress came from fixing one problem at a time and steadily improving the experience. This avoided overwhelming the organisation and ensured that each change was grounded in real buyer needs.
Another important dimension of the conversation is sustainability. Sergio highlights how better digital experiences reduce reliance on physical samples printed materials and travel. These environmental benefits emerged naturally as a result of improving the buying journey rather than being pursued as a separate initiative.
He also reflects on the importance of alignment. Digital showrooms required collaboration across teams and clarity of purpose. Journey mapping and customer research helped create this alignment by providing a common reference point for decisions.
Throughout the episode Sergio returns to the importance of empathy for buyers. Understanding their pressures timelines and constraints is what allows digital experiences to support rather than disrupt relationships.
Customer research and journey mapping reveal unmet needs that organisations often overlook. Fixing basic pain points can unlock progress faster than launching advanced features. Incremental improvements build momentum and trust. And digital showrooms deliver the most value when they are built on a clear understanding of the customer journey.
Experience-led digital change in wholesale apparel and footwear succeeds when it starts with insight prioritises fundamentals and uses technology to support real buyer needs.
Topics connected to this episode
Customer research and journey mapping
Identifying unmet needs and pain points
Incremental experience improvements
Digital showrooms in wholesale B2B
Sustainability through better digital journeys
Customer journey mapping in B2B
Identifying customer pain points
Digital showrooms for wholesale
Experience-led digital transformation
Improving B2B buying experiences
The role of digital showrooms in wholesale strategy and B2B commerce
How customer journey mapping and personas shape effective digital selling
Overcoming sales team resistance with clarity, trust and small‑scale pilots
Sustainability and efficiency gains from reducing physical samples
Why digital evolution relies on cross‑functional alignment
How building Lufthansa’s first Italian website sparked Sergio’s digital career
His first encounter with digital showrooms and their potential
A three‑month pilot that increased sell‑in by 20%
Using self‑service and automation to improve wholesale customer experience
How working with Biglight influenced VF Corp’s wholesale portal evolution
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