(Finance) – Nel 2024 The Online product purchases are worth approximately 38.6 billion euros+6% compared to 2023. TheFurnishings and home living stands out as the top performer in 2024, recording a growth of +12%supported by the improvement of the customer experience, in particular omnichannel, the use of Extended Reality and the offer of value-added logistics services. The Automobile and Spare Parts sector follows (+10%) with the sale of cars and spare parts online. The Food & Grocery sector recovers (+8%) after the contraction recorded in 2023 (-2%).
The product penetration rate remains stable: the incidence of online consumption on total consumption is, also in 2024, equal to 11%. Information technology and consumer electronics is the sector with the highest incidence of online, equal to 42% of overall spending, growing compared to 40% in 2023. the overtaking of Furnishings and home living on Clothingthanks to an increase in the incidence which goes from 17% to 19% in 2024 while fashion remains stable at 18%.
These are some of the data presented yesterday byNetcomm B2C eCommerce Observatory – School of Management of the Polytechnic of Milan, on the occasion of the conference “B2c eCommerce in Italy: the main product sectors“, which aims to analyze the B2C eCommerce product market and delve deeper into the product lines evolution of product sectors Clothing, Furnishings and home living, Cars and Spare Parts, Beauty&Pharma, Food&Grocery and IT and Consumer Electronics.
Among the representative sectors of Made in Italy, L’Furnishings and home living (indoor and outdoor furniture, objects and decorations, kitchen accessories, textiles, lighting) recorded growth (+12%) and reaches 4.4 billion euros. The most innovative projects being tested focus above all on improving the customer experience thanks to tools based on the use of Extended Reality to design spaces online and the offer of value-added logistics services such as floor delivery services.
Continued Auto and Spare Parts with +10% on 2023 reaching 3.2 billion euros regarding the sale of cars and spare parts online. The sector of Food&Grocery in the three segments – Food Delivery (home-delivered dishes), Grocery Food (online shopping from supermarkets) and Food and Wine (niche foods and drinks) – recorded growth of +8% over 2023 and it is worth 4.6 billion euros. The percentage of Italian municipalities covered by at least one service will also grow in 2024 Food Delivery (+2% compared to 2023), thus allowing the service to reach 76% of the inhabitants in 2024. Furthermore, the activation of the delivery service, with a coverage of 30% in small municipalities with less than 20,000 inhabitants. In 2024, the process of rationalizing the offer of food delivery services continues: restaurants entrust delivery, in fact, to the large platforms dedicated to this type of service, while they manage take-away in-house with orders received online and collection in the room.
As for the Grocery Food the percentage of inhabitants potentially covered by the online supermarket shopping service remains constant compared to 2023 (94%): in 2024, among the over 60 online supermarket shopping initiatives active in Italy, the majority (87%) are initiatives launched by large-scale retail trade.
The sector Beauty&Pharmawhich brings together both pharmaceutical products and those intended for personal care and hygiene, reaches the 2.8 billion euros, +8% compared to 2023. Both segments are increasingly committed to providing customers with purchasing assistance and personalized advice, also with a view to sustainability of the experience itself.
L’IT and Electronics of consumption records a growth of +6% on 2023 And it is worth 9 billion euros, while Clothing (clothing, shoes and accessories) closes the ranking, growing by +5% compared to 2023 and reaching a value of 5.8 billion euros. The main areas of work for operators in the sector concern in particular the optimization of the second-hand market and the launch of new marketplaces.
“During these first months of 2024, product eCommerce shows different aspects. On the one hand, investments inoptimization of activities and processes to remain competitive in a highly unstable context. On the other hand, bolder and more sophisticated projects are being experimented with: the most innovative retailers dare with cutting-edge technological innovations and rediscover the value of the physical store alongside the eCommerce initiative”, he declares Valentina Pontiggia, Director of the B2c Netcomm eCommerce Observatory – Politecnico di Milano. “To be noted as particularly the growth of the Food&Grocery sector was positive: a small step in a sector as important (main expenditure item of Italian families) and not very mature (low penetration) as Food & Grocery generates a large contribution to total eCommerce. To conclude, the Auto and Spare Parts sector should also grow very well under the pressure of expected incentives for the purchase of electric cars.”
“Confirming the growth trend of eCommerce is also thelatest edition of the Delivery Index which monitors the volumes of eCommerce shipments in Italy, according to which they are 186 million parcels sent as a result of online purchases in the first quarter of 2024, up 13.5% compared to the same period of 2023″, comments Roberto Liscia, President of Netcomm. “If the growth of the market is constant, as is the number of digital buyers in our country, which today there are 33.7 million according to NetRetail research, companies and stores are still behind in the process of integrating online and offline sales channels. Infrastructure and system investments are needed that allow an evolution of the skills of professionals and the investment capabilities of Italian SMEs”.