Italy: companies miss the ecommerce opportunity despite adequate infrastructure

In 2014, 98.2% of the companies with more than 10 employees onboard claim to being wired online, out of which 95% have either fixed or mobile broadband connection, according to the Italian market research company Istat. In 2013, there were 94.8% companies with broadband connection, resulting in a 0.2% increase.

69.2% of companies with at least 10 employees and 88.9% of companies with at least 250 employees have a website, as compared to 67.3% in 2013). Additionally, 31.8% of the companies with at least 10 employees and 51.9% of the companies with more than 250 employees use social media, as compared to 24.7% in 2013. The most popular tools are social networks (29.3%) and websites of media sharing (10.3%).

67.4% of the small businesses are wired online, out of which 11.5% triggered systems ordering on their websites, as compared to 7.3% in 2013. However, the percentage of companies active in ecommerce has even declined as compared to 2012, from 44.4% to 42.5%. Even if there had been an increase in companies selling online from 2012 to 2013, with 7.6% and 8.2% respectively, there was registered a decrease in the percentage of items purchased online, with 41.7% in 2012 and 39.6% in 2013. In terms of invoices, 8.2% of businesses claim they prefer it in paper form, 5, 4% use automated e-invoicing and 56.7% use non-automated e-invoicing.

In terms of online shopping index ranking, Milan (18.62%), Rome (6.02%) and Florence (4.3%) are the most active hotspots, according to data issued by the online advertising company MyThings, the source cites. This index measures how active the residents of a specific city are when shopping online and is the result of the average index between the mobile and the desktop index, each of which is calculated by dividing the conversions per capita and average order value.