E-commerce in Italia

Digital is driving businesses. Multi-channel payments win

To date, 87,000 Italian companies have activated an online sales channel. Small companies prevail. Cosmetics in the lead among the sectors

by Camilla Colombo and Camilla Curcio

4 May 2026

6' min read

Translated by AI

Versione italiana

6' min read

Translated by AI

Versione italiana

Strengthening investments in people and technology and transforming online presence into long-term sustainability. One could summarise in this way the state of health of the relationship between companies and digital that emerges from the data of the Observatory on Italian e-commerce sites carried out by Netcomm, in collaboration with Cribis, a company of the Crif Group, which Il Sole 24 Ore del Lunedì anticipates and which will be presented to the public during the XXI edition of Netcomm Forum on Wednesday 6 and Thursday 7 May at the Allianz MiCo in Milan.

The national scenario

The turnover recorded this year - in 2026, almost 22,000 new companies entered the digital scene (of which 12,000 new corporations), but more than 23,000 will no longer be active in 2025 - is important and highlights how the market is progressively concentrating around more structured players: corporations with e-commerce are 47 thousand (54% of the total), but generate 96.1% of the overall turnover. Compared to last year, there was a 4.4% drop in the number of entrepreneurs active in e-commerce: from 91 thousand to 87 thousand. Of these, over 90 per cent are micro (68.4 per cent) and small businesses (23 per cent): micro-enterprises grew by 37.7 per cent, while large ones fell by 14.3 per cent.

"I think that this turnover is congenial to our entrepreneurial scenario and its criticalities," explains Roberto Liscia, president of Netcomm. "Italian companies are for the most part small, they access digital easily because behind them there are young entrepreneurs accustomed to these channels and who have been able to integrate e-commerce into the sales process. However, their small size and lack of ability to make economies of scale fuels their volatility and hinders their survival in the marketplace'.

The primacy of the South

In this scenario, there is clearly room for SMEs, especially in the South. Where we speak, on the one hand, of the 31.5 per cent of corporations that have implemented an e-commerce channel as part of their strategy (in the North-West over 25 per cent and in the Centre around 23 per cent). And, on the other hand, 31.2 per cent of sole proprietorships and partnerships (in the North-West they stand at 26.3 per cent, led by Lombardy, and in the North-East at 21.8 per cent).

"The prevalence of micro-enterprises and the emergence of a new generation of entrepreneurs mean that Southern Italy, which until now has lagged a little behind in digitalisation, is catching up because young people have started to project their companies into a digital perspective and in Southern Italy there is a high concentration of more or less small realities but which carry on the tradition of the Italian handicraft with great effectiveness," Liscia adds. "This, of course, does not save them from the high volatility that crosses the national scene: welcome, therefore, an active and proactive South, but we need a system effort as much to scale up as to make synergy and obtain better and better results.

At a provincial level, on the other hand, the leading hubs of digital commerce are confirmed for both corporations and sole proprietorships and partnerships Milan, Rome and Naples. And as far as company seniority is concerned, the former are between 6 and 25 years in business, the latter between 11 and 25: in both the increase in average age denotes more maturity and a certain stabilisation in digital business.

Sectors: growths and declines

Shifting the focus from the general to the particular, i.e. to product sectors, the survey shows that those most inclined to digitalisation, i.e. with a higher incidence of e-commerce compared to the total number of companies in their sector, are cosmetics (35.3%), which grew by 5.9%, toys (33.5%), which grew by 4.5%, and publishing (24.7%), which fell by 11.9%. furniture continued to grow (+6.5%), while marked declines were also recorded in tourism (-29.7%) and in ticketing (-21.2%). If we look, however, at absolute figures fashion and food & beverage are the most represented areas, respectively with 5728 and 4712 capital companies active in e-commerce.

"The growth segments are those that fully benefit from the digital drive," Liscia notes. "For furniture, think of the use of 3D in the construction of interiors. Or for cosmetics to the leverage of social in the narration of products. And of Ai in the try on. As for the declining sectors, however, one could say that the games are already played: they were born digitally, they have developed platforms that have made history, but today there is no room for an increase in players. New entrepreneurs or those launching start-ups are not investing in these areas'.

Focus on social media

For companies with an active e-commerce platform, communication can only move on social media (in 2026, more than 83% of companies with e-commerce are present on at least one platform). Although Facebook remains one of the most widely used, we note the growth of Instagram, which has risen from 69.6% to 73.8%, and the trend towards strong strategic specialisation: YouTube is the preferred channel for electronics while Pinterest dominates in furniture. "The exploit of some platforms is not only linked to generational centres that shift over time," Liscia explains. "Each social has its own raison d'être and users choose them based on precise needs: on Facebook they look for storytelling and relationships with others, Instagram or TikTok allow them to relate instead to product and consumption experiences".

Payments and Multichannel

With regard to payments, a marked trend towards multicanality emerges, with a strong diversification of solutions to intercept a larger parterre of customers and give them more choice. 79% of companies offer more than one payment method, only 20.8% offer only one: PayPal remains in the lead, followed by credit card and bank transfer.

Among the various options available to potential buyers, the rise of the buy now pay later is interesting. "It depends on various reasons. In the last ten years it has boomed in Europe, changed its skin and is now the ideal medium for planning purchases. Young and more agée groups use it, especially in this phase of erosion of purchasing power, as it allows payments in instalments. Then, with the second EU consumer credit directive, it will soon replace traditional consumer credit, making it accessible to a wider audience. And also confirming itself as an incentive tool for purchases: the seller who does not adopt it risks losing customers'.

A competitive and polarised market

The reduction in the number of active companies in the e-commerce scenario is synonymous with a market shift towards more sustainable and competitive models. In fact, active companies have a higher financial solidity: in 2026, more than 77 per cent of capital companies with e-commerce recorded a profit for the year versus 74 per cent of the average. Not only that: the survey also highlights lower business riskiness (only about 17 per cent have high riskiness, compared to about 30 per cent on average among corporations that do not sell online).

Gradual growth also on the front of the digital attitude: in 2026 more than 24 per cent of Italia's companies have a medium to high level of digital maturity (in 2025 the rate was 22.7 per cent). But the most consistent figure emerges from the comparison: 63.9 per cent of companies with e-commerce reach a high level compared to 7 per cent of those operating only offline. A gap that proves that web presence is a structural symptom ofinnovation and solidity.

The knot of internationalisation remains: 55 per cent of the sample still has little foreign-oriented projection. Electronics is again confirmed as the most dynamic sector oriented towards global markets (with a high internationalisation rate in 55 per cent of cases).

And looking to the future, what solutions should be put in place to stay on the crest of the wave? "You definitely need to have a structured strategy, it is not enough to do e-commerce or focus on a successful product to win," Liscia concludes. "You essentially need to leverage on two things: understanding which markets and customers to focus on, also devising an effective marketing plan capable of intercepting the public and setting a direction that allows you to respond to their needs. And then work on the digitalisation of processes to make them more efficient, more communicative, faster. Also, for example, through artificial intelligence, which will be a real game changer in the years to come'.