B2C e-commerce market in Italy: we need vison, courage and perseverance!

We expect the value generated from online purchases worldwide to be over 2 trillion euros in 2017 and that the main markets will be China, USA and Europe. A number of factors significant for e-commerce have been making their mark in 2017. First of all, many alliances were struck between e-commerce merchants and a variety of operators (other non-e-commerce merchants, traditional retailers and technological service providers). In second place, 2017 was the year when a number of technological trends took hold, having the aim of simplifying the online customer experience. In addition, many e-commerce events have gained “sacred” status, including Single Day in China and Black Friday and Cyber Monday in the USA. Lastly, this was a year of fierce debate about the implications of online commerce on the traditional sector.
Our perception is that we are at a momentous juncture of discontinuity that is not simple to interpret or, as a consequence, to overcome. This is especially true for the Italian market.
In 2017, online shopping by Italians grew by 17% and is now worth more than 23.6 billion euros. Products (worth 12.2 billion euros) grew by 28% in 2017, and, for the first time, this sector is above services (+7%, 11.4 billion euros). Tourism confirms its place as primary sector (9.2 billion euros, +7%), followed by Computing & Consumer Electronics (4 billion euros, +28%) and Clothing (2.5 billion euros, +28%). There are now 22 million web shoppers, 10% more in 2017 than previously.
In 2017, one third of e-commerce purchases, value-wise, were made on a smartphone or tablet. The share of purchases using these devices has increased five-fold in just five years and mainly comes from smartphones, which generated over 5.8 billion euros, up by 65%.
A particular aspect of the Italian market is the dominant role played by dot-coms, which in 2017 make up 60% of total e-commerce sales and are growing at more than double the rate of traditional companies.