WINE2WINE SURVEY: ONLY 35% OF ITALIAN WINERIES USE E-COMMERCE. CONFIDENCE IS GROWING, THANKS TO THE TAX CREDIT FOR THOSE WHO INVEST IN ON-LINE BUSINESS, SAID PAOLO DELLACÀ (FINANCIAL CONSULTING LAB)

Over the years online trading has experienced a real boom. In 2015, according to Netcomm E-commerce Forum forecasts, Italy alone will exceed 15 billion euros in value, an increase of + 15%. But the food and wine sector still represents little more than a drop in the ocean, since web sales reached just 260 million euros in 2014. What about wine? The Wine2Wine survey, the business-to-business Observatory of Vinitaly (www.wine2wine.net), which sampled more than 450 wineries in Italy, clearly showed that 65% do not use e-commerce to sell their wines. Of the 35% who believe in online sales, however, 51% use their own Web site, 22% use specialized sites (most often, in order, Svinando, Wineverse, Tannic, Vinix, Winetowine and Winezon), and 27% use both.
Among the reasons why most Italian wineries have not yet used e-commerce, 21% say there’s a lack of focus and know-how in their company, 14% believe that this channel is in conflict with traditional sales channels, 13% say they are not interested, 7% say payments and deliveries are too difficult and 6% said they do not need the e-commerce channel because they sell their products through traditional channels. But there is also 11% saying they are ready to sell online and are fine-tuning the final preparations.
What is certain is that it is still a marginal channel, if you look at the turnover: 42% of the wineries online business accounts for 2-3% of total sales; 37% from 4-10% and only 21% of the wineries sell more than 10% of their wine on the web.

Nonetheless, there is confidence in the channel, as 51% of the wineries expect a10% growth or, at least, stability, and 38.2% expect an increase between 10 and 50%. Geographically, the survey reveals that the most active wineries are in Tuscany, Lombardy, Abruzzi and Sicily. Below average are producers of Emilia Romagna, Trentino Alto Adige, Veneto and Piedmont.
An incentive for wine producers and agribusiness in general to develop this channel may come from one of the measures in the Ministry of Agriculture decree "Campolibero", which is “a tax credit up to 50.000 Euros, and a maximum of 40% of the total project, to producers or consortia that will invest in online sales of its products, from 2015, and for the following three years”, Paul Dellaca of Financial Consulting Lab (www.financialclab.it), specialist consultancy in grant awards, told WineNews.