E-commerce in Italy 2019

Italian e-commerce is one of the markets with the most potential. This is shown by the comparison with foreign markets. Although e-commerce in Italy keeps steadily growing every year (18% this year), the overall market penetration is still very far from the other northern European countries.
During these years, however, foreign companies have been the ones who have gained the most interesting sectors and created the online market. Selling online means first of all to manage economies of a significant scale, that allow to invest on service and acquisitions. Throughout the years, Booking and Expedia have done it in the tourism sector, Amazon in consumer electronics and publishing, Just Eat in food delivery and Zalando in fashion (despite YOOX’s opposition). Today, new players are entering the most protected sectors, such as the pharmaceutical one. Access to loans is what makes the difference, so that Italian e-commerce companies can become those that expand at an international level rather than those that are bought, or worse put out of business.
The key factors that influence the investors’ choice, however, can also help companies to increase their value. The business scalability, the clients’ return rate, the sector they belong to, their position in the international market are only a few of the factors that companies can look at to diversify themselves. In this study we analyse some examples of how companies can stand out by adopting some simple strategies.