Deflation and slump in consumption don't worry eBay. Neither is the advance of Alibaba. The online sales group sees all growing numbers flow before its eyes: 20,4 billion dollars is the value of goods sold, in the second quarter of 2014, on its global platform, with a growth of 12% over the same period of the last year. Even in our country the market is constantly expanding, says Lamberto Siega, head of merchants strategy and innovation for France, Italy and Spain, and shows a now consolidated double-digit trend. And it sounds like the premise for a future leap forward.
Alibaba has smashed Wall Street with a record IPO, Zalando has caused sparks in Europe, Amazon has put its mobile phone on sale the day before that Apple presented its new iPhone 6. There is a lot of excitement in the world of digital commerce. Are you feeling the competitive pressure rising?
“Alibaba's IPO doesn't scare us. And we are not worried that he could become a threat in Europe where, if he had a specific position, he would still have to crossboard trade. eBay has 19 years of experience in this area. We have created an international network whose mass and development are not easy to attack”.
Let's come to Italy. Has the crisis made itself felt on online sales?
“Not at all. The Italian market is very lively and e-commerce grew by 2013% in 18 with a volume of transactions exceeding 13 billion euros. Also for this year the expected growth will be double-digit: +17%. Penetration of total consumption reached 3% against 12% in England. France is just under 10%, Spain under 5%. The Italian differential should not be viewed negatively, it implies a greater possible growth margin”.
However, 2014 in Italy was another black year for consumption and deflation.
“As we said, online, we don't register any braking. Indeed, for companies, e-commerce is precisely the lever to compensate for stagnation and reach new customers and foreign markets. For consumers, it's a way to save even through discount offers that we call "unmissable" by no coincidence. The result is that there is a lot of interest. We see it both from the market data and from the behavior of the 4 million active customers on eBay to whom we can offer 7.000 different product categories. To give you an idea, we sell one object every second, only in Italy. Globally, in the first three months of this year the value of cross-border sales, those in which the buyer and seller are not in the same country, reached 13 billion dollars. Finally, the number of people in Italy who use the Internet to make purchases of various kinds, products, tickets, services has reached 16 million
banking. Half of them buy physical goods mainly in electronics, furniture, clothing and accessories. It is to them that we turn”.
Is the proverbial Italian reluctance towards the use of credit cards one of the reasons for the lower diffusion of e-commerce in Italy compared to other countries?
"Not anymore. 90% of transactions are made with credit cards or with the PayPal system which gives guarantees of protection and safety to the consumer with a 23% share of online payments. There are other barriers that we are working on to provide some leverage to our sellers. For example, to facilitate the shipment and delivery of the goods, we are also developing agreements in Italy to deliver the products to bars or shops or to the vendors themselves. The agreements already reached with Indabox to develop click and collect must be seen in this light, as well as with Unieuro or DHL. Our goal is to bring small and medium-sized businesses to our platform to help them grow abroad where our marketplace is present in 176 countries. Today only 4% of SMEs are active online but what matters is not so much having a website as having visibility".
Why choose eBay and not another?
“We are a great showcase on the world to make ourselves known and recognized. Doing it yourself is like climbing a mountain”
