Towards the marketplace, Mashfrog partnering with portaportese.it
Andrea Caccamo, CEO of portaportese.it, tells us about the digital transformation of the long-established free classifieds newspaper.
Davide Cecca, Sales & Client Manager of the Mashfrog Group, and Andrea Caccamo, young CEO of portaportese.it, talk about the objectives and vision of the partnership signed between the Mashfrog Group and the Rome-based company.
Who hasn't heard of PortaPortese? PortaPortese was the first free classifieds newspaper dedicated to individuals and professionals searching for and selling products and services from any category and market sector. It all began in 1976, in Rome. The name was not chosen at random; Porta Portese is the city gate used in days of old to transport goods into the capital. It is also the name of the famous flea market that still today crowds the streets of the adjacent neighbourhood.
PortaPortese was founded on 6 May 1976 to be exact. Rosario Caccamo founded the company. He was a real estate agent who was conscious of the need to equip the market with a more dynamic tool to increase sales. PortaPortese was the first newspaper in Italy and abroad dedicated to the publication of promotional advertisements completely free of charge. Its identity, as well as its mission, were clear from the beginning, as explicitly revealed in the message published and autographed by the founder on the first page of the 1st issue:
"It is a new flower in the garden of our human and social relationships. A flower that we entrust to the sensitivity of all our readers in the everlasting unspoken agreement and in the continuity of a relationship and a connection now validated by the facts and positively matured over time. Always at the service of all and in the interest of everyone."
PortaPortese was founded as a tool to support merchants, professionals and small brick-and-mortar businesses. It is an instrument at the service of local trade and territorial development. A tool "at the service of all and in the interest of everyone", aimed at consolidating virtuous and productive relationships between fellow citizens. It was a visionary mission for the time, greatly anticipating the revolution of sales channels and strategies that occurred with digitalisation. Today, PortaPortese is confronting this revolution by planning a significant technological transformation.
Now Andrea Caccamo, 29 years old, is at the helm of the classifieds newspaper publishing company and its online version, portaportese.it. He is a young entrepreneur who has chosen to bet on his grandfather's vision and is planning the company's evolution to ensure coherence and continuity, not only with its founding values but also with the original business model. The need to change strategy became evident when the leading online commerce companies imposed new market rules and new competitive logics on the local business network, which still plays a key role in the economy of a territory.
Therefore, Andrea Caccamo imagined a new phase in the history of portaportese.it, the online portal that has been accompanying the printed version for some time, and chose the Mashfrog Group as the technological partner for its execution. The Mashfrog Group's programmers, developers and UX/UI designers are taking care of the graphic restyling and optimising the platform from a functionality and user experience perspective. Together with the Roman company, they will plan the evolutionary path towards a veritable marketplace dedicated to businesses and end-users for the sale/purchase of multi-category products and services.
Together with the Mashfrog Group, the PortaPortese model will not only become 100% digital but most importantly, it will also be internationally replicable and scalable.
