industry, which suffered from stagnating European demand and from increasing
international competition (ANCI 2001).
What follows is based on the findings of a questionnaire survey presented in
Rabellotti (2001). n Riviera del Brenta the main market has traditionally been Europe,
particularly Germany, and to a more limited extent France, Great Britain and the rest of
the EU. Among sample firms, 35 per cent sell between 50 and 90 per cent and 17.5 per
cent more than 90 per cent of their production to Europe. Sales to Italy are less than 10
per cent for the majority of the sample (53 per cent of firms) and less than 50 per cent
for another 23 per cent of firms.
In the European market, Brenta’s companies are selling to a variety of customers. In
the UK they typically sell to large buyers or department stores, in France and Italy they
supply mainly to independent retailers and in Germany to buying groups10.
Regarding the rest of the world, Brenta’s market penetration is more difficult due to
the small size of local enterprises, geographical distances and the large investments
involved. Only nine firms (23 per cent of the sample) export between 10 and 50 per cent
of their production to the USA and 12 (30 per cent) to other countries, mainly in the Far
East, Russia and the Middle East. It should be added that exports to the USA have
increased considerably in the past years, boosted by the weakness of the Euro.
Recently, many firms in Brenta have recently begun to work as subcontractors to
some leading global fashion firms, which have become a category of increasingly
important customers for the district - the high fashion companies.
The top brand value chain can be regarded as a sub-type of the ‘buyer-driven’ chain
because the lead firms are the owners of top global brands, controlling activities
connected with intangible characteristics of the products such as design, brand name,
marketing and distribution. Gereffi’s work is more focused on ‘buyer-driven’ chains ‘in
which large retailers, branded marketers, and branded manufacturers play the pivotal
roles in setting up decentralised production networks in a variety of exporting countries,
typically located in the Third World’ (Gereffi 1999: 41-42). Although he discusses the
importance of the creation of brands, he is more concerned with global brands in mass
markets, such as Liz Claiborne, Nike and Reebok. In the luxury market, barriers to entry
10 In another paper (Rabellotti, 2001), we present an analysis of the main characteristics of the German
chain. A key feature of this is that independent retailers are organised in large, powerful buying groups.
These groups are network organisations supplying credit and information to their members, helping them
to reduce transaction costs and risks.
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