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A very interesting conference at the University of Milan on “eCommerce B2c in Italy” unveiled today quite unexpected surprises that come a few days after the approval of the new EU Directive on Consumers Rights which will better protect eCommerce buyers.
An increase of 20% in the turnover of the e-commerce sector has occurred in 2011 in Italy compared to 2010 with € 8 bn of turnover that is coupled with +17% occurred in 2010 which shows that – despite of the Italian financial crisis and even if other markets have an aggregate turnover considerably higher – during the next years the Italian market will increase its volumes at a much quicker pace than most of the Western countries.
The reason of this growth is partially due to the new entrants in the market that include Amazon and Groupon (and the other websites adopting the same model of business), but also the consolidated players in the market increased their turnover. Also, in the country of fashion it is not a surprise that the clothing sector registered the largest increase (+38%). And another non-surprise is that in the country with the highest penetration of mobile devices per citizen, the increase of mobile-commerce is + 210% still representing only 1% of the online sales, but with enormous growth potentials.
This growth will shortly be accompanied by additional protections for consumers. The approval of new EU Directive on Consumers Rights will mainly bring:
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a higher level of transparency on costs, contractual proposals and features of digital products also with the banning of pre-ticked boxes;
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the extension of the withdrawal period to 14 calendar days from the receipt of the item and its applicability also to online auctions such as those offered on eBay with refunds occurring within 14 days and to be performed through an EU-wide withdrawal form; and
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no surcharges for credit card transactions and hotlines.
EU Member States shall implement the Directive by the end of 2013. This means that businesses have almost a year to make their Ts&Cs and model of business compliant with the new regime.
Do you want to discuss the above? Feel free to contact me, Giulio Coraggio.
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