Noetcomm Forum 2024: B2C eCommerce data in Italy revealed, the purchasing trends of Italian consumers, the number of companies with active e-commerce and the volume of shipments in the first quarter of the year. B2C eCommerce for products in Italy will reach 38.6 billion euros in 2024 (+6%). The share of the online market compared to total retail purchases in 2024 will remain stable at 11%. 186 million packages were shipped in the first quarter of 2024: an increase of 13.5% compared to 2023. There are 88 thousand Italian companies with their own e-commerce site and 33.7 million digital consumers in Italy.
These are some of the most recent data on the eCommerce market in Italy, according to the latest research byNetcomm B2c eCommerce Observatory – School of Management of the Polytechnic of Milanpresented on May 8, 2024 during the opening plenary session of the nineteenth edition of Netcomm Forum – the reference event for the digital world on the topics of the evolution of eCommerce, digital retail and business innovation at a national and global level -, this year entitled “The Intelligence Commerce: Composable & Fluid, the continuous re-configuration of Retail and supply chains. Retail: from Metaverses to Space Commerce”
Netcomm Forum 2024: online purchases at +6%
During 2024, the value of online purchases made by Italians will increase by +6%, reaching 38.6 billion euros. In particular, the Furniture and home living, Auto and Spare Parts and Food & Grocery sectors show above-average growth (with rates between 8% and +12%), while Beauty, IT and Consumer Electronics and Clothing show a growth in line with that of the sector (with rates between +7% and +5%). The Publishing sector shows stationary growth. The share of online in total retail purchases (online+offline) in products remains stable at 11%, unchanged compared to 2023.
“If the B2C eCommerce market in Italy continues to record constant growth, as does the number of digital buyers in our country, which today are 33.7 million, in this edition of Netcomm Forum we also asked ourselves at what point are Italian companies and how many companies have their own e-commerce site,” he said Roberto Liscia, President of Netcomm “To date, there are 88 thousand, the majority of which (18.6%) are located in Lombardy, Lazio (12.1%) and Campania (12%). We also observed that 24.5% of companies that have their own e-commerce site record a high and medium-high degree of internationalization compared to the 9.7% of others recorded at a national level. It is clear, however, that internationalization is a development lever on which a lot of work still needs to be done: almost 63% of Italian companies that have their own e-commerce site still have a low or medium-low degree of internationalisation, and the percentage rises to over 82% for Italian companies.
Retail is in the daring phase
“In 2024, the B2C eCommerce product market will continue to grow (+2.2 billion euros compared to 2023) albeit at a slower pace. The increase will go from +9% the previous year to +6% this year. The best performing sector in 2024 will be Furnishings and home living (+12%), supported by innovations in user experience, in particular omnichannel, the use of Extended Reality and the offer of value-added logistics services. Followed by Auto and Spare Parts (+10%). Of note is the recovery of Food & Grocery (+8%) after the decline recorded in 2023 (-2%)” he declares Valentina Pontiggia, Director of the B2c Netcomm eCommerce Observatory – Polytechnic of Milan. “In Italy, eCommerce and more generally Retail, after reacting to the numerous shocks and changes in balance in recent years, are now in the daring phase. The online sector is experimenting with the use of technologies (including cutting-edge ones) capable of improving relationship activities with the consumer and optimizing the back-end. Virtual clothing try-ons, AI-based solutions such as advanced product recommendation, image search and chatbot support increase and improve access to shopping for every generation, ensuring a broadening customer base ”.
Netcomm Forum 2024: eCommerce shipping volumes in Italy
According to the latest edition of Delivery Index, the annual research by Netcomm in collaboration with Poste Italiane which monitors the volumes of eCommerce shipments in Italy, 186 million parcels were sent as a result of online purchases in the first quarter of 2024, an increase of 13.5% compared to the same period of 2023. The figure is driven by purchases in the Fashion & Sport sector (23.3%), followed by IT and Consumer Electronics (18.4%) and Health & Beauty (17.6%). The research also shows that 8 out of 10 online purchases take place on the platforms of one of the 10 most popular merchants: publishing appears to be the category with the highest percentage (95.4%) of purchases on the channels of the top merchants in the sector.
Home Delivery, with 81.5%, is the delivery method most frequently chosen by Italian consumers, while only 18.5% used a third-party collection point. The average satisfaction values for the delivery (or collection) service for eCommerce shipments are in fact very high: consumers assigned on average 9 points out of 10 to out-of-home deliveries and 8.9 points out of 10 to home delivery deliveries.
Finally, the Delivery Index photographs the impact of returns on eCommerce deliveries: the average share of returns on total eCommerce shipments in the first quarter of 2024 is equal to 5.9% of total shipments, with maximum values for the sectors Fashion (11.3%) and IT and Electronics (7.9%) and minimums for Publishing (3.1%) and Health & Beauty (2.0%).
Italian companies that have activated their own eCommerce site
According to the Netcomm Observatory in collaboration with Cribis, to date in Italy there are 88 thousand Italian companies that have their own e-commerce site. Analyzing in particular the joint-stock companies – which generate 95.7% of the total turnover -, the majority have been around for between 6 and 10 years (33%) and between 11 and 25 years (30%); while only 2.5% of the youngest companies, less than 2 years old, and 3% of those with more history behind them, over 50 years old, have their own e-commerce site. In terms of geographical distribution, the majority of companies (18.6%) with their own e-commerce site are located in Lombardy, followed by Lazio (12.1%) and Campania (12%). Rome and Milan are the cities with the most companies that have their own active e-commerce channel (almost 10%); Naples follows with almost 7% of companies.
Almost 80% of the companies analyzed have at least one social network. Facebook is the most widespread (90.8%) of these, followed by Instagram (76.2%), YouTube (21.1%), Linkedin (18.1%) and Twitter (17.3%).
Netcomm Forum 2024: eCommerce and payment methods
78.8% of companies with their own e-commerce site offer more than one payment method: specifically, 20.8% have 2 payment methods, 28% have 3 and 30% have 4 or more.
Among companies with only one payment method, 47.7% adopt PayPal, 33.54% the possibility of paying by credit card and 10.37% by bank transfer. Among the companies that offer two payment methods, once again the majority adopt PayPal (71.87%) and credit card (72.23%), and 38.5% offer the possibility of paying by bank transfer banking.
As for companies that offer three payment methods, credit card and PayPal remain in the lead with, respectively, 91.66% and 91.19%, and bank transfer for 82.6% of cases .
Growing revenues for Italian eCommerce companies
More than 2 out of 3 companies have had a growth in revenues in the last two years and about half have had a growth in Ebitda and compared to the average of Italian joint-stock companies, eCommerce companies show a lower share of companies with high risk (17 .3% vs. 21.2%).
The touchpoints that most orient online purchasing
Netcomm has also analysed, through Netcomm NetRetail research, the path towards the online purchase of products and services. The touchpoints that most influence online purchasing are search engines (for 55.9% of Italians); the website or app of the brand of a specific product (for 50.4% of Italians); product reviews (for 48.2%) and sites or apps that sell this type of product (for 43.3%). A secondary, but still important, role is maintained by social media (for 31.7% of Italians); of push notifications (for 30.5%) and from points of sale (for 24.9%).
The majority of online purchases (62.9%) pass through eRetailers or merchants born online; followed by the manufacturers’ websites (18.6%); traditional retailers (12.2%); comparison sites (5%) and followed by private sales and coupon sites which are worth 1.1% and 0.2% of online purchases respectively. Digital touchpoints influence in-store purchases more than in-store purchases influence online purchases. Over a third of offline purchasing decisions (38.9%) are influenced by digital touchpoints. They are mainly buyers of products such as smartphones (95.5%), electronics (76.5%), household appliances (76%), sports equipment (69.6%), food delivery (60%), physical contents (59 .7%), furniture and housewares (55%) and toys (53.3%) to have consulted at least one digital channel before making the purchase in store.
The influence also applies from offline to online, albeit in a smaller percentage: the physical store, in fact, directs a quarter of online purchases (25%) and in particular the visit to a point of sale of the product/service is particularly relevant in influencing online purchases of household appliances (53.6%); furniture and housewares (44.4%); footwear (43.5%); food delivery (42.6%), sports equipment (41.9%).
How Italians who buy online pay
The majority of online purchases (92%) are paid for at the time of the order, while only in 8% of cases payment is made upon delivery or collection or when using the service, for example in a hotel. The use of cash continues to decrease and is currently used by only 2.1% of Italians to purchase online. While the most used payment methods are Digital Wallet by 32.7%, the prepaid card by 26.6% and the credit card by 25.2%. The bank transfer is used only in 1.4% of cases but with amounts 4 times higher than the average.
Note
The 2024 Edition of the B2c eCommerce Observatory is created in collaboration with: Main Partners: Accenture Song, BRT, GLS Corriere Espresso, Poste Italiane Partners: Banca Sella, Concentrix, DHL Express, Drop | e-business & love!, GS1 Italy, Indigo.ai, LIFEDATA, Nexi, PayPal, Shopify, Unicredit Sponsor: Blue Reply, Fiege Logistics, Gruppo Mediobanca, OMG Transact, Qapla’, Retail Reply, San Marino Mail, Shopware, Swisslog , Syskoplan CX Reply Teleperformance Italia Tinext UNGUESS Sponsors: Alsea
Netcomm NetRetail is a research by Netcomm in collaboration with BRT Confcommercio Milano Lodi Monza and Brianza EDI Confcommercio FiloBlu Magnews Oney and Banca Sella.
