E-commerce in Italy 2020

E-commerce in Italy

12% of Italian companies are active in e-commerce, 79% of them in the consumer field. Compared to offline commerce, which has witnessed the disappearance of around 63-thousand stores (-11%)¹ over the past 10 years, the Companies Register confirms the e-commerce trend in Italy: in the whole of 2019, the number of active companies that registered under the ATECO 47.91.1 code applicable to online commerce amounted to 6,968, or 20% more than those registered in 2018. Businesses that registered under the primary code, in other words businesses that indicated online sales as being their main business activity, or whose main source of revenue is e-commerce, amount to 68% (in 2018 this percentage was 54%). ²

In Italy, the spread of online shopping amongst the population from 2 years of age upwards hit 70% with an average of 41.5 million individual users recorded in December 2019, which is in line with last year. Desktop access continues to decline (down from 28.4 million individual users to 25.7 million. This figure has declined by 10-thousand users in two years)³. The average spend per user per year is 668 Euro.

As regards the legislation, since 2019 it has been compulsory for businesses that sell goods online within the EU via marketplaces and other platforms to provide the Department of Inland Revenue with certain information regarding suppliers and online sales. More specifically, they are required to provide the personal details of the suppliers, as well as the total number of units sold in Italy by each supplier and the selling price.

The first return, scheduled for October, included sales made in the previous five months, with subsequent returns being required on a quarterly basis. This operation enables the authorities to better monitor the online sales of all the platforms and, in the event of failure to submit the applicable returns, the party is deemed to be a tax debtor⁴.

A new so-called Web tax came into effect in 2020 and it is estimated that this tax will add a further 700 million Euro per year into the Italian Government coffers. This tax amounts to 3% on the service revenues of tech-companies with a global annual turnover in excess of 750 million Euro, of which 5.5 million is generated in Italy⁵. A sunset clause provides that this tax will remain in force until such time as an international accord is reached for the introduction of a standard tax, which is expected to be in place by the end of 2020.

76% of Italian e-commerce users made an online purchase within the past year, as against the European average of 64%. 98% of users purchased goods via a marketplace during the course of the past year and 31.6 million people made online purchases from foreign websites, in particular from China, the UK, the United States and Germany⁶.

E-commerce turnover in Italy

The value of e-commerce turnover in Italy is estimated to be in the order of 48.5 billion Euro, reflecting a growth of 17% compared to 2018.