Tosano, who was he?

Italian retail is dying.

Not slowly. Not because of inflation. Not for Amazon.

He is dying because strategically he no longer knows who he is.

It is sandwiched between two models that have brutal coherence:the discount store, with 600–1,500 SKUs, very high rotations, very low costs and price as a religion; eonline, with infinite assortment, unlimited depth, global long tail.

In the middle, traditional Italian retail tries to survive by pursuing a model that no longer exists: proximity with reduced assortments and higher prices than discount stores, weakened hypermarkets that are no longer hypermarkets or markets, premium supermarkets that promise experience but fight on price.

It's a strategic no man's land. And in this no man's land, only one seems to have understood something that the others refuse to see:Tosano.

The Italian large-scale retail tradeover the last twenty years has chosen an apparently rational path: simplifying the assortment, reducing references, cutting complexity, increasing control. It is the defensive response to compressed margins and rising costs. The problem is that this choice positions the brand exactly where it shouldn't be: it's not cheap enough to beat the discount store, it's not deep enough to compete with online, it's not distinctive enough to become a destination. The result is a progressive slide towards irrelevance.EsselungaeCoop, to quote two big names, pursue a fragile hybrid model: less complexity, fewer references, more efficiency.

But in doing so they structurally approach the discount without having the cost structure. It's an impossible chase.

In a context that preaches rationalization,Tosanodoes the opposite: large surfaces, very broad assortment with tens of thousands of references, real depth of category, aggressive prices, explicit communication of convenience with "Bomb Prices" and "Screaming Prices". It is a model that many define as anomalous. It's actually just consistent. While the discount wins for extreme simplification, Tosano wins for extreme abundance. It doesn't reduce choice, it amplifies it. It doesn't narrow the depth, it extends it. It doesn't try to be all things to all people: it becomes a regional destination. And the numbers, with productivity beyond12,000 eurosper square meter in over twenty points of sale, demonstrate that the hypermarket is not dead. The mediocre hypermarket is dead.

The contemporary market is polarised. On the one handtheefficient minimalismof the discount store, on the otherthe digital hyper-abundance of online. There is no room for ambiguity in between. The consumer today chooses between buying quickly and spending little or finding exactly what he wants, even rare, even expensive. The traditional supermarket with 8,000–12,000 items excels at neither. Tosano, on the other hand, intercepts both: low prices on many categories and breadth and depth that include rare products, niches, high-margin references. It is a model that intercepts both the family, the restaurateur and the assortment-hunting customer. It is a model that also monetizes the excess production supply of the Italian industrial system, offering space and visibility that are progressively reduced elsewhere.

The heart of the model is not the surface, it is the purchase. Tosano builds profitability in the relationship with suppliers, in the ability to buy well, a lot and in an opportunistic way. This allows real aggressive prices, not just communicated ones, a broad sustainable assortment and sufficient rotations to maintain economic balance. While others compress the offering to defend margin, Tosano expands the offering to generate traffic and scale.It is a strategic reversal.

The rest of Italian retail will continue to lose not because the market is difficult, but because it is conceptually positioned in the wrong point of the competitive map. Proximity with reduced assortment and non-competitive prices is not a long-term model, it is a transition phase towards irrelevance. When discounters improve quality and online speeds up logistics, what is left for the average supermarket? Inferior perceived convenience, inferior choice, non-distinctive experience: an unsustainable strategic triangle.

They say that the bumblebee shouldn't fly, but it flies anyway. The hypermarket, we are told, is dead. Tosano demonstrates that it is not the format that is outdated, it is the mediocre interpretation of the format.In a polarized world, those who choose one end survive, not those who stay in the middle.

And then the provocative question becomes inevitable: in ten years, when many traditional supermarkets have been downsized or absorbed, we will ask ourselves of Italian retail "who was he?" or we will realize that the only one who had correctly read the transformation was before our eyes.Tosano.