In contemporary entrepreneurial environment based on customer retention,the growth of the Internet has pushed the most dynamic businesses to compete in the electronic market.The recent evolvement of the Internet as a new major distribution channel has obtained much attention,as the online channel calls the viability of traditional stationary retailing into question.Today,since innovation is a key factor in the Digital Age,the presence in the digital marketplace is essential for retailers,also in the food retailing.The paper aims to analyze the online commerce for food groceries and compare the evolution from 2017 to 2019.The sample represents the 99%of Italian brands of brick and mortar supermarkets and hypermarket.The first study was conducted in 2017,after two years the paper has analyzed the same sample and reported how many groceries retailers have adopted the online selling.Through the visit of every Internet site and some interviews to managers,this paper proposes the reasons why only a limited number of grocery brands sell food over Internet.Moreover,this paper calculates the cost(in Italy)to prepare the expense and satisfy the order of a customer.Characteristics of goods(freshness,perishability,cold chain warranty,etc.),expensive operations needed to prepare the delivery,the cost of delivery,and difficult reverse logistics are the main causes of low adoption of e-commerce.Online groceries retailers are concentrated around big cities in particular in the north Italy(Milan,Turin,Genoa,etc.).Expense is prepared inside the retail by the employees.Some shops use the drive-in model and only a limited number of cases deliver to home.The few cases of food e-commerce offer the delivery only in a limited area of big cities.At the end,this paper demonstrates the logistics cost(picking,packing and transport)in Italy is higher than the price of the service and this strategy isn’t profitable for companies.
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