The year 2020 was certainly one of the most important years in the history of e-commerce: due to the forced closure of stores and malls, many people found themselves buying online for the first time. As of May 2020, e-commerce transactions reached $82.5 billion, a 77 percent increase over 2019-a growth that is estimated to have taken four to six years in a normal environment.
After this “forced” acceleration, the success of e-commerce looks set to continue unabated: the speed, choice, and convenience of web-based shopping often make it difficult to return to traditional brick-and-mortar stores.
In this article, we tell you everything you need to know about the state of e-commerce in Italy and what are the most important trends to consider for your business. Here’s what we’ll talk about:
- Google Ads and Social commerce: Shopify evolves with partnerships
E-commerce in Italy, SMEs catch up
Netcomm, the Italian Digital Commerce Consortium, has published data on e-commerce trends in 2020 in Italy. The report shows significant growth in the sector, which recorded +31 percent over the previous year-the highest figure in all of Europe. This shows that the Italian business landscape is catching up in digital transformation, reacting quickly and positively to the new challenges posed by the health and economic crisis.
E-commerce has now taken on a fundamental role in the Italian economy, with a turnover of almost 60 billion euros between banks, logistics and all businesses involved. It is an active and fruitful ecosystem that has emerged in 2019 as the third largest economic activity in terms of impact on turnover in the private sector. In particular, small businesses seem to be at the forefront of growth, with about 20 thousand businesses opening an online sales channel for the first time in 2020.
However, there remains a certain mistrust of Italians towards electronic payments, especially for the purchase of luxury products. According to a study by Qapla’, 17% of customers prefer to pay by cash on delivery, and in Southern Italy this trend reaches 27.27% of cases. A trend that is destined to go down in the face of an increasing diffusion of online shopping and well-designed customer care strategies.
How e-commerce will change: trends according to Shopify
Shopify, one of the largest e-commerce platforms on the market, has compiled a paper on new trends in the online market.
At the level of user satisfaction, it shows that for 63 percent of consumers, the main perceived advantage of buying online is the delivery of the product directly to their homes. Moreover, 48.8% of the sample said they will shop online more frequently even after the pandemic.
Never by what criteria do consumers choose products? According to the report, searches no longer take place by brand, but through category selection, by discounts or bargain prices, and by product reviews. Proof of this is the fact that 70% of searches on Amazon do not include a brand name.
This trend, combined with strong competition on the Internet, is leading brands to leverage new factors to improve their reputation and build consumer loyalty. These include a commitment to benefit the environment, a focus on diversity, and charitable activities.
Themes, these, that will be increasingly communicated through digital, as well as advertising. In fact, after an initial halt during the pandemic period, it is estimated that online advertising spending by brands will increase by 13 percent, in part to sustain competition in addressing the same targets. In other words: more e-commerce, more spending to establish themselves in the market.
Blockchain conquering e-commerce
Competitiveness in online sales is increasing every day, and it is becoming increasingly difficult for small e-commerce businesses to keep up with the web giants. Those who want to do business on the Internet must think about the security of their site and have solutions in line with the needs of the moment.
One such solution is blockchain technology, the digital ledger formed by a chain of pages, called blocks, which can bring two key benefits to e-commerce.
First, security: this technology can be used to track, with certainty and security, all steps in the product purchasing process, linking suppliers to buyers without any loss of information. The security of the system comes from the use of cryptography and the fact that the content of blocks cannot be changed without compromising the entire blockchain structure.
Blockchain also leads to a significant reduction in costs: thanks to the automated transaction, the cost of the middleman is eliminated for each order placed by the user, which, on average, can be up to 3 percent per transaction.
Blockchain technology has already been tested in the food world to achieve greater assurance of product safety and quality. Through association with other technologies such as IoT, it is indeed possible to monitor important requirements for food transportation such as maintaining the cold chain and geolocation of products.
Google Ads and Social commerce: Shopify evolves with partnerships
Amazon is investing more and more in advertising, major social is taking steps to integrate sales directly from the platform, and Shopify is not lagging behind. In a short time, the e-commerce giant has forged major partnerships with Pinterest and Google.
The agreement with the search engine will allow merchants registered with Shopify to integrate their products even more tightly with Google’s shopping network, thanks to paid smart shopping campaigns that will determine the best time of day and place to show products to their target audience.
And why the partnership with Pinterest? First of all, the important pool of “Pinners”: 459 million monthly active users worldwide, growing 37 percent in the last quarter of 2020 alone. Second, very interesting for the e-commerce world are the habits of Pinterest users, who in 97% of cases search for products without referring to specific brands. Factor, this, which therefore gives the possibility even to small brands to emerge among searches.
Thanks to the partnership with Pinterest, Shopify ecommerce stores will be able to take advantage of two important new features: dynamic retargeting and the ability to include up to 20 product feeds per catalog.
If you are planning to open an online store on Shopify, therefore, now is the best time!
To conclude.
The world of e-commerce is increasingly growing, so much so that – it is estimated – in the next 10 years the online sales model will come to represent 30 percent of the world economy.
If you have a business, it will therefore be crucial in the next few years to understand how to optimize your strategy in a scenario where offline sales will also not be able to do without digital. Integrated user experience, technological innovation and social dynamics will be the keys to success in an increasingly competitive environment.
