2011 will be the year of ecommerce in Italy

The Polytechnic of Milan wrote it.

Estimates for 2011 speak of approximately +20% for a turnover of approximately 8 billion euros.

Based on the performance of the first quarter and estimates up to the end of 2011, Italian e-commerce will see an acceleration that will lead it to grow by 20% compared to last year with 8 billion euros in turnover. If 2009 suffered a setback on the e-commerce front, 2010 saw a growth of 15% settling at 6.65 billion euros, growth which confirms the estimates declared a year ago. This is the photograph traced by the Netcomm B2C Observatory - School of management of the Polytechnic of Milan, now in its tenth edition. It is Roberto Liscia, president of Netcomm, who claims that this will be the year of e-commerce, at least for the figures involved.

“According to the trends of the first quarter of 2011, the estimates of Italians who declared their willingness to purchase online in the second quarter of this year have increased. And they will do it thanks to new models and search tools, such as social commerce which is growing rapidly driven by social networks. What are the levers to increase the propensity to purchase?” - Liscia asks - “Prices, greater clarity on the rules and mechanisms for returning goods. A situation reversed, however, compared to last year, among the reasons for the refusal to purchase online by Italians. If until last year data security stood out in first place, today - explains Liscia - the vision of the goods and the knowledge of the seller for the solution of any problems stand out. Unfortunately, this desire for a direct relationship is holding Italy back, which remains far behind Europe in terms of the percentage of products sold compared to services. If we want to overcome the fracture that exists between those who buy online and those who don't, we must resolve the emotional relationship with the product and the merchant.""

In essence, after the recovery recorded in 2010, a new acceleration is expected for Italian e-commerce in 2011 (+19% which will bring the overall value of sales from Italian sites to almost 8 billion euros). This year too, products will grow more (+23%) than services (+17%), driven by social commerce. Last year the forecasts spoke of a +21% in products and +19% in services.

On an annual basis, all the main product sectors will grow. In 2011, the clothing sector prevailed (+41%), followed by Publishing, Music and Audiovisual which accelerated the race to +30% in 2011. Followed by information technology and consumer electronics which will double its growth rate from the +11% recorded last year, to +21% in 2011. Photography also resumes tourism and insurance with growth of +13 and 15%.

Liscia goes into detail about the data and states that ""in 2010 Italy was the weak link in the European system, last after Spain, Holland and France (+24% compared to the previous year) and Germany, which never stopped the race, recorded a +17%. The popularity of e-commerce is also demonstrated by the performance of the stock market values ​​of the companies that have gone public. One piece of data that surprised me from the research we conducted with ContactLab – explains Liscia – is that there were 62 thousand people who responded to the questionnaire we submitted. We certainly noticed that e-commerce is not just for young people because 30% of the responses concerned those over 50. Furthermore - he continues - 3% purchased via mobile phone or smartphone while 48% of online buyers did so in the evening or at night"".

And on this last point, Liscia explains how the e-commerce channel does not take business away from traditional channels but, rather, develops business and enhances the traditional.

Finally, Alessandro Perego, scientific director of the B2C eCommerce observatory, in addition to highlighting how social shopping channels have helped the sector a lot, highlighted how credit cards and PayPal are on the increase.