More than two thirds of Italians buy online

The long march of B2c e-commerce reaches another milestone and wins new customers. More than 35.2 million Italians are buying online, more than two thirds of the population, while this year the value of purchases will exceed 62 billion with a growth of 6% over 2024. Services grew by 8% over the previous year to a value of EUR 22 billion, while product e-commerce grew by 6% to over EUR 40 billion. Within product purchases, the Food & Grocery and Beauty & Pharma segments show above-average growth, with growth rates of around 7%, while clothing, IT and consumer electronics, furniture and home living show growth in line with the sector with rates of between +5% and +6%. The progression of the car and spare parts sector is slowing down. Online penetration of total retail purchases (online+offline) in products is 11.2%, an increase of half a percentage point compared to 2024. These are the latest figures on e-commerce in Italy emerging from the survey by the B2c Netcomm E-commerce Observatory - School of Management of the Milan Polytechnic presented during the opening plenary session of the 20th edition of Netcomm Forum - in its special edition entitled "The next 20 years in 2 days".

"E-commerce is a key tool to foster SMEs' exports, and internationalisation remains a significant challenge: more than 54% of Italian companies struggle to expand beyond national borders due to the lack of effective digital strategies and the technological innovation required to compete on global markets," comments Roberto Liscia, president of Netcomm. Further complicating the picture is a broader scenario of challenges on a global level, such as the possible introduction of duties by the United States, and it will be primarily SMEs that will suffer, whose access to the US market will be made even more complicated by costs and bureaucratic management. Nevertheless, the climate of mistrust and tension caused by this scenario leads to an intensification of digital protectionism, which threatens the free movement of data, which is essential, among other things, to intercept customers' needs and meet their demands'.

According to the data of the Netcomm Observatory in collaboration with Cribis, the number of Italian companies with an e-commerce website has increased by 3.4% since 2024, reaching 91 thousand companies, with a marked growth (+8.5%) of capital companies. A sign of the maturation of the sector and the integration of advanced digital strategies. "In Italy, e-commerce and retail in general is now in a consolidation phase and market values confirm a slightly less lively online than in the past," reports Valentina Pontiggia, director of the B2c Netcomm - Politecnico di Milano e-commerce Observatory. However, these data do not reflect the great work done behind the scenes by many merchants, who are increasingly engaged in process optimisation, in introducing technological solutions to improve both the user experience and back-end activities, and in experimenting with different ways of interacting with consumers and new business models, very often platform-based. While in the past the focus was exclusively on selling products, now through e-commerce brands are trying to establish a relationship with the customer by offering increasingly interactive and engaging experiences'.

Italian e-commerce companies are mainly distributed in Lombardy, Lazio and Campania, with Milan, Rome and Naples as main hubs. The sector is dominated by micro and small enterprises, but also by larger companies, with an increasing average age, a sign of a stabilising market. The most relevant sectors are trade and services, with strong involvement in the beverage, publishing and food sectors. "In such a variable and uncertain scenario, skills become the real key to the future," Liscia points out. "We are no longer talking only about technical or digital skills, but about a complex and integrated set of knowledge, attitudes, and behaviours that determine the ability to adapt, innovate, and generate value, which will increasingly make the difference in organisations.