Quick Take — Product e-commerce rises by 6 per cent to over EUR 40 billion by 2024

In the ‘product’ cauldron, one finds practically everything: the Food & Grocery and Beauty&Pharma segments show an above-average increase (with growth rates of around 7%), while Clothing, Computers & Consumer Electronics and Furniture & Home Living are in the average range, at around 5%/ 6%.

Overall, according to theNetcomm B2c eCommerce Observatory – School of Management of the Milan Polytechnic, online penetration of total Retail product purchases (online offline) is11.2% of the total and this marks an increase of just half a percentage point compared to 2024.

Quick Take — Italy with the US to oppose ‘discriminatory’ technology taxes: a bad signal to Europe and a favour to Amazon

Italy applies a 3 per cent levy on Internet transaction revenues for digital companies with a turnover of at least €750 million ($853.35 million), which is worth less than €500 million in revenue to the state each year.

“We agreed that a non-discriminatory environment in terms of taxation of digital services is necessary to allow investment by cutting-edge technology companies,” Rome and Washington … Reuters

But Europe’s weak point is the Irish tax haven, which, as of September 2024, has a tax revenue surplus of €8.6 billion from multinationals and Meloni should, in my opinion, have concerted on this sensitive subject with her European partners (also because big tech regulations also have other implications concerning, possible e-commerce dumping by Chinese companies, privacy, etc.).

Updated 22 April 2025

Quick Take — US: US buyers flock to Chinese apps for fear of duties

After the panic in supermarkets with consumers looking for items produced in Europe it is now the turn of Chinese non-food products to be found on e-commerce giants like Temu, Shein or Alibaba.

“Together with DHgate, known as ‘Dunhuang’ in Chinese and nicknamed ‘Little Yellow App’ by some shoppers, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. Taobao and Shein were among the most downloaded shopping apps in the US App Store….

Last week, DHgate released an open letter to merchants on its ‘Tariff Escort Plan’, pledging to provide traffic, subsidies, logistics and other support to merchants to help them reduce cost pressure and stabilise sales. The platform claims to now host more than 2.6 million registered suppliers producing an average of more than 30 million products online per year. It covers around 200 countries and regions, has more than 10 warehouses abroad and provides over 100 logistics routes.

DHgate was founded in 2004 by Diane Wang Shutong, co-founder of joyo.com, one of China’s first e-commerce platforms that was later acquired by Amazon.com Inc. Nicknamed the ‘female Jack Ma’, Wang previously worked for Microsoft Corp. and Cisco Systems Inc. before founding her own company.

Of course everyone fears inflation and recession.