(Tiper Stock Exchange) – The average commission that catering companies pay to digital platforms to sell their products is 18%, with values above 20% for one company out of three. In tourism the average commission is 16%. Only 1 in 10 businesses pay a fixed commission. This is what emerges from the policy brief “The Economy of Digital Platforms” presented today by INAPP (National Institute for the Analysis of Public Policies) during a seminaror. The work is inspired by the survey “Inapp Digital platform survey”, which for the first time analyzed a sample of around 40,000 companies in 2022, which also includes companies with fewer than 3 employees, representative of the 298,991 companies operating in Italy in the catering, tourism and land transport sectors.
In the rcatering 68% of contracts entered into by companies with platforms (37% in tourism) it provides for dependency clauses for the collection of payments and seven times out of ten the contractual conditions derive from the imposition of unilateral clauses. Just as unilateral are the requests for contractual modifications by the platforms (32% in tourism and 20% in catering).
Furthermore, one in 4 businesses in catering, one in 8 in tourism does not have access to information on its customers, with possible repercussions as regards market strategies.
“The picture offered by these variables assumed as indicators of the risk of commercial dependence of companies on platforms – he declared Sebastian Fadda, president of Inapp – is completed by observing the data relating to the survey of commercial rating systems, which involve potential reputational risks deriving from the commercial relationship established with digital platforms. 32% of catering companies have lost customers at least once due to disservices caused by the platforms they work with, 19% in the tourism sector”.
But that is not all. According to the survey, in the catering sector the deferment clauses for the transfer of receipts from the platform to the company are present in about three quarters of the contracts (37% in tourism). The delay in collection times represents a cost and an intrinsic financial risk factor in the case of payments through the platform. The less advantageous conditions are applied more frequently in the catering sector where in 92% of cases the receipts mediated by the platform are deferred over time.
Data that assume particular relevance if one thinks of the diffusion of the phenomenon: in Italy there are over 57 thousand companies in the tourism and catering sectors that use digital platforms to sell their products and services. The greatest diffusion is recorded in tourism with a percentage of 42% (equal to 38,615 companies), 13% in catering (equal to 18,898 companies). In the two-year period 2020-2021, the turnover intermediated by digital platforms represents about half of the turnover in tourism and almost a fifth of revenues in catering with average commissions of 16% and 18% respectively
“If it is true that a significant share of companies in the tourism sector already used platforms before 2020 – commented Fadda – it is equally true that for 45% of the catering companies that started using digital platforms for take-away during the pandemic, an otherwise unknown market space has opened up, which has also allowed the carrying out of a social function. However, it would be appropriate to rebalance the relationship between platforms and businesses in order not to impose excessive burdens on these and on consumers”.