Milan: E-Commerce in Italy
First of all we have to distinguish two big areas:
1.BtB - Business to Business (commercial operations from company to company)
2.BtC - Business to Consumer (direct sales to consumers)
Concerning the BtC, the "Sole24ore" databank reported that in 1999 the volume of Italian sales online reached 455 billion lira, an increase of 64% compared to 1998. As to BtB, there are no precise estimations, but the experts say that this business is calculated as at least 4-5 times the BtC. In Italy more than 50,000 companies have their own websites, but only 1,000 offer sales online, while only 300 companies are really finalizing sales transactions. Generally speaking Italian companies are still investing prudently in e-business and their websites are not so attractive and functional yet. Last but not least, Italian companies do not believe yet in the great potentiality of Internet as a new commercial net, so they do not grasp its strategic impact.
E-commerce is particularly far away from the small and medium size companies, most of which have stopped with the opening of websites or e-mail addresses. Big groups, such as Fiat, Pirelli and Merloni (home appliances maker) have seriously entered the Internet world. The most used functions are: orders and warehouse management, invoicing, sales and promotion, marketing, competitors monitoring, creation of special brands and special products for ecommerce.
For example, Fiat created a special car called "Barchetta Web" which is sold only online and it can be booked online for a real driving test on the street (www.barchettaweb.com) and Merloni created a group of home appliances for digital kitchens (www.merloni.it).
According to a European survey conducted in 1999 and reported by "Corriere della Sera", 40% of Italian companies declared that Internet did not have any influence on their turnover, while the interviewed big Italian groups said that 7% of their turnover has been made through Internet.
Italian Internet navigators are at present 8 million people (up 35% compared to 1998), so there is already a critical base of consumers for the acceleration of the ecommerce. The number of ecommerce consumers in Italy is very limited: between 300,000 to 500,000 people tried e-shopping in 1999. These numbers are expected to double within 2000, thanks to the arrival of free-of-charge Internet accesses, flat rate accesses and faster connections ( 10 times ISDN).
The point is that e-commerce in Italy is still limited to a few sectors and products: 41% for software and hardware products, 29% for books and videos, 18% for CDs of music and 9% for travel or free time services E-commerce for clothing and food, at present, is not so successful in Italy, mainly for 2 reasons: because Italian consumers need a direct approach to these products (see, touch, try), and, also because there are very few websites active in ecommerce for these two categories. (For example only 3% of Italian clothing retailers of medium-high level have started e-commerce).
The prevalent styles of ecommerce in Italy are: virtual stores, virtual shopping centers, the shopping web seekers of and virtual auctions.
Virtual stores are concentrated mainly in selling one category of product. Hardware products, audiovideo products and portable phones are the protagonists.
For these products, the most successful virtual store in Italy is Centro HL (www.chl.it) selling computers, audio-video, phones. The concept is clean and simple: to let people build a made-on- measure computer online, by selecting its components online and picking up them at the store nearest to home. Payment can be done by credit card but even at the store where ordered products are picked up. Centro HL is offering special prices, bonuses and special discounts for customers who are declaring their personal data. Centro HL started in 1998, and its turn-over during the first eight months was 1 billion lira, while the forecasted turn-over for 2000 is 85 billion lira.
As to virtual shopping center, one of the most popular in Italy is Casa Rossi (www.casarossi.it), where there is almost everything: more that 3,000 products, from home to the care of animals. Every day there are superdiscounted products and people paying by debit cards can have an additional 10% discount. Deliveries are very quick ( from one day to maximum one week). Even Flashmall (www.flashmall.it) is a new- born shopping center selling thousand of products. Its power points are its special discounted offers of 50% from the full price.
Among Italian web seekers, one good example is Go Italy (www. goitaly.it), a vertical seeker, containing 40 stores, five shopping malls and more than 200 websites with shopping online. Every retailer has different payment forms and its own personal presentation. A special section called "Agora" is informing the latest news. The field of web seekers is becoming more and more important, as we can see from the latest new entries: Il Sole 24 ore (www.shopping24.it), Yahoo! (www. it.shopping.yahoo.com), Excite (www.excite.it/shopping) and Kataweb (www.katalogo.kataweb.it/ store), which prepared their accesses like real windows shops for shopping online. Finally auctions, like QXL (www.qxl.com), Aucland (www.it. aucland.com), Yahoo! (www.it.auctions.yahoo.com) and I Bazaar (www.Ibazar.it). Each visitor can sell or buy products thanks to the commercial services of these sites and by paying generally only a commission on each sale.
As already said before, it is not so easy to sell food online in Italy. However there are very specialized Italian websites, like Esperya (www.esperya.com). Here there is a forum, a virtual file and links with other websites for recipes and food. It is possible to choose to research single products like oil, wine, rice, etc, or to choice the various Italian districts foods. The research is very smooth, payment by credit card and delivery comes the day after order placement. This site is also famous for their approach to eventual claims. They do not put any limit in case of replacements or refund requests.
A famous website in Milan is Peck (www.peck.it), offering its various specialties currently sold also in its well-known Milanese store. On this page products are listed up by category, and prices are given in different currencies.
The latest news in Milan is RunnerPizza (www.runnerpizza. com). On this page it is possible to create (using 50 available ingredients) a personalized pizza. It has just started and it is covering only one part of the city right now, but the efficiency and the taste are surprising.
An example of a supermarket on line is Spesa online (www.spesaonline.com). This website is also very new. Here virtual shopping for daily food is possible. The products include frozen and fresh food of well known brands which are picked up every day from a chain of small supermarkets well distributed in Milan. Delivery is every evening at home, so it is very convenient for workers to order through the web during their lunch time brake and to receive the goods at home without loss of time.
As far as the fashion field is concerned, the number of Italian companies opening websites is increasing constantly but very few of them are active in e-commerce. So in most cases, the right expression which best explains how the world of fashion is living in its relationship with Internet is "coming soon".
The fashion world seems to have been caught off guard with the unexpected development of Internet. So there are designers such as Dolce&Gabbana (www.dolcegabbana.it) who did not go beyond a home page till the end of 1999. The same thing happened however with foreign designers, such as Donna Karan (www.donnakaran.it), while other Italian big names had pages which were under preparation (www.Valentino.it, www.Prada.com, www.Gucci.com) until the end of 1999.
Perhaps these pages are a waiting game, until the right idea as to how to present a fashion line is hit on. More and more pages can be found on the web which are full of content and not used as simple show cases or repetitions of a printed catalogue, but which are trying to discover and experiment with the new language of the web. These pages are achieving a relation with visitors, as prime targets, rather than trying to sell clothes or products, and they create real works of art on the web. Some of these are: www.moschino.it, www. laperla.it, www.mandarinaduck. com and www.benetton.com.
Among well-known Italian designers/brands, Armani is one of the few examples active also in e-commerce (www.ArmaniExchange.it), and other cases are Belfe (www.belfe.com), Mariella Burani (www.selene.it) but only for perfume and accessories, and Sergio Tacchini (www.sergiotacchini.com). Benetton and Rinascente are under preparation.
Among clothing retailers, ecommerce is not so widespread, but there are some interesting cases like Marco Bracci (www.marcobracci. com), where it is possible to order a made-to-measure shirt on line, selecting favorite fabrics and receiving its delivery at home. Among website offering services linked to the fashion field, an interesting example is Fashion Research (www.fashionresearch. it), which is offering informative answers/services to press offices and marketing offices and whose targeted consumers are working in the fashion field. Born four years ago, it is a division of Moda & Servizi and it offers services like collecting and filing magazines/articles and linked data, report preparation, up-dating information, comparisons with competitors, electronic filing, creation of digital video and management of show-rooms.
Observing the analysis of ecommerce you can see that the market on the web which is dedicated to high technology and service activities such as plane reservations has already taken off. One example of websites successful for travel sales is Tour Operator Orizzonti ( www.orizzonti.com), where consumers can reserve online more than 2000 hotels in the main Italian cities. Or ClupViaggi (www.clupviaggi.it),where it is possible to set up a personalized trip online, and even ask advice by email.
Today we are seeing an extreme development of banking services, as trading online and bank account information with lower costs and higher rates than the standard services (virtual bank). All the major, medium or new companies of different fields quoted on the Italian stock exchange are immediately enjoying a rise in their stock value, even by simply declaring their interest in ecommerce or web services. This is mainly due to the high future expectation towards the Internet.
 |
