Italy

Amazon has started selling fresh fruit and vegetables in Italy through its Prime Now service. For now, the fresh produce can only be ordered online by people living in the city of Milan and 34 municipalities in the back country, but if it happens to be a big success, more cities will probably follow.

Amazon has launched its one-hour delivery service, called Amazon Prime Now, in Italy. Consumers who are Amazon Prime members can schedule a same-day delivery for free and have goods delivered within the hour for 6.90 euros. Italy is now the second European country to offer this Amazon service, after the United Kingdom got the scoop in July.

Chinese ecommerce company Alibaba is about to open offices in Europe, in an attempt to attract more sellers to the platform. The ecommerce player wants to be the ‘gateway to China' for merchants from Europe and wants to achieve this by opening offices in Italy, France and Germany.

Lots of companies rely on digital marketing, so it's important to understand how customers behave online. A new study shows that although direct traffic is the most popular source of visitors in general, visitors of fashion websites come more often through search engines. This is especially noticeable in the United Kingdom and France.

Europe is a very complex entity. Similarly, in the area of ecommerce. There are many differences between the nationalities that are spread across the continent. And that's something Zalando, Europe's biggest online fashion retailer, loves to utilize. Now they've shared what they think are the differences between online shoppers in Europe.

A survey among several European countries shows that it's especially the Dutch and Irish consumers who are interested in fashion deals. Italians on the other hand, aren't that keen on such deals. Of all 17 discount categories, coupon codes for women's clothing didn't make into the top 5 of most used discount codes for this country.

B2C Europe, a Dutch company that helps ecommerce businesses to operate over its countries borders, received 7,3 million euro from NIBC. With the money the company aims to continue its growth in target countries such as Italy, Germany, Switzerland and China.

Made.com, a large furniture seller that is already active in the UK, France, Italy, Germany, Belgium and The Netherlands got funding to accelerate its European growth. At first to 'agressively grow in those markets' in which it sees plenty of room to continue it's growth.

In Italy, 16.9 million people have bought something online during the first three months of this year. This corresponds with 55.1% of Italians who have access to the Internet. Individuals who bought something at least three times during this period, e.g. 11 million Italians or 36% of Internet users, are responsible for 88% of the value of all online purchases.

ePrice, one of the biggest online retailers in Italy, has launched a new marketplace. The ecommerce company wants to improve its product selection and growth in the Italian market as well as in Europe. It is now opening the marketplace to European merchants, who will be able to sell their products to Italian customers.

Online retailer Yoox just has been named global e-retailer of the year during the Internet Retailer Conference and Exhibition. The awards ceremony that took place in Chicago, honors online retailers from all over the world whit outstanding achievements across multiple categories.

The ecommerce industry in Italy was worth approximately 24.2 billion euros in 2014, which means an overall increase of 8% compared to 2013. Marketplaces and foreign players are positioning themselves in the Italian market and seem responsible for the transformation that's noticeable now.

Home design ecommerce platform Lovethesign has announced it has received more than 3.7 million euros ($4 million) in Series A funding. The round was led by United Ventures and has also attracted some private investors from the Italian fashion and design industry.

It's not a secret Italy is lagging behind in terms of ecommerce, but data shows that only 5 out of 100 companies in Italy sell online. This is in stark contrast with the European average of 14% of companies selling online.

Online retailer Yoox posted a 15 percent rise in revenues to 524 million euros last year. The strong performance in its struggling home market has helped the luxury online retailer to meet the analyst's forecast revenues of €525.7 million.