E-commerce 2026: 7 Trends for Italian Companies

E-commerce 2026: 7 Trends Italian Companies Cannot Ignore

2026 will not be just another year of linear growth for e-commerce. It will be a rewriting of its rules, a paradigm shift that will reward those who have prepared and penalise those who have stood still. Global e-commerce sales are forecast to reach 6.88 trillion dollars in 2026, up 7.2% on the previous year and accounting for 21.1% of total retail sales (Shopify Global Ecommerce Report).

In Italy the market is consolidating but not stopping. In 2025 the value of online purchases exceeded 62 billion euros, with 35.2 million digital consumers and an 11.2% share of total retail spending (Osservatorio eCommerce B2c – Politecnico di Milano). Figures that describe a mature sector, where the explosive growth of the pandemic era has given way to a more strategic, considered evolution. For Italian companies, this means it is no longer enough to "be online": you have to be there in the right way.

1. Mobile Commerce: No Longer an Option, but the Standard

Mobile commerce will reach 2.4 trillion dollars in 2026, with annual growth of 9.5% forecast through to 2034. In 2024 smartphones accounted for almost 80% of all visits to retail sites worldwide, generating the majority of online orders. Anyone without a mobile-first experience in 2026 will lose market share significantly.

But what does mobile-first really mean? It is not simply a matter of having a responsive website. It means rethinking the entire sales funnel for an environment where the user navigates with a thumb, often on the move, with short attention spans and sky-high expectations around loading speed. It means one-tap checkout, optimised images, forms stripped back to the essentials. For many sectors, the desktop will become a tool for research and comparison, while conversion happens increasingly on mobile.

Companies that still design starting from desktop and then "adapt" to mobile are already accumulating a gap that will be hard to close.

2. Artificial Intelligence Becomes the Engine of Commerce

2025 was the turning-point year for agentic commerce: the use of AI moved beyond simple prompt-and-response interfaces towards agents capable of carrying out tasks autonomously on behalf of shoppers (Digital Commerce 360). In 2026 we will see these services evolve further, with AI no longer merely providing support but deciding: which product to show, to whom, when and at what price.

The most profound change concerns the very way consumers discover products. More and more people are turning to ChatGPT, Gemini or Perplexity for shopping research, asking for advice and comparisons. This means companies will have to optimise not only for Google, but also for the AI algorithms that increasingly mediate purchasing decisions.

On the operational front, AI is transforming inventory management, demand forecasting, offer personalisation and customer service. The new generation of chatbots does not merely answer FAQs: it guides the user through the purchase journey, suggests products, and handles returns and complaints. For Italian SMEs, adopting these tools is no longer a luxury but a necessity if they are to compete with the big players.

3. Social Commerce: Buying Without Leaving the Platform

76% of Gen Z discovers products on social media and 39% have bought directly there. Among American millennials, 56% have bought via social in the last three months. The purchase journey shortens dramatically: from discovery to payment without ever leaving Instagram or TikTok.

This trend represents a radical shift in the customer journey. The traditional model — advertising, site visit, browsing, cart, checkout — is compressed into a few seconds. The user sees a product in a reel, clicks, buys. Done. For companies this means completely rethinking their content strategy: no longer just promotional posts, but engaging videos, live shopping, collaborations with creators, content that entertains before it sells.

Live commerce, which has already exploded in China where it generates hundreds of billions of dollars, is growing rapidly in Europe too. Live selling sessions where a host presents products, answers questions in real time and offers exclusive discounts. A format that combines entertainment, urgency and social interaction — and one that in 2026 will become increasingly common in Italy as well.

4. Omnichannel: Physical and Digital as a Single Experience

The separation between online and offline no longer exists in the consumer's mind. Click & collect, endless aisle, smart fitting rooms: channel integration has become an expectation, not a plus. Italian merchants are increasingly committed to process optimisation and to introducing technological solutions that improve both the user experience and back-end operations.

For the customer, the brand is one and the same. It does not matter whether they walk into the store, browse the site or message on WhatsApp: they expect to find the same prices, the same promotions, the same level of service. And above all they expect the company to "remember" them: what they bought, what they looked at, what their preferences are.

This requires an integrated technology infrastructure: a unified CRM, centralised inventory management, payment systems that talk to one another. It is not a trivial investment, but it is what separates the companies that will grow from those that will fall behind. In 2026, offering a fragmented experience across channels will no longer be tolerated by consumers.

5. The Growing Sectors: Food, Beauty and Made in Italy

Not every segment is growing at the same pace. In Italy the top-performing sectors are Food & Grocery and Beauty & Pharma, both up +7%. IT and consumer electronics is the segment with the highest online share (43% of total spending), followed by furniture and home living (20%) and clothing (18%).

Food & Grocery benefited enormously from the pandemic acceleration and continues to grow thanks to increasingly efficient models of delivery and online grocery shopping. Beauty & Pharma, on the other hand, is riding the demand for wellbeing and personal-care products, with an audience increasingly used to buying online even products traditionally seen as "hands-on."

For Made in Italy companies — fashion, furniture, food and wine — e-commerce represents a privileged channel for reaching international markets. Accessible Italian luxury has enormous global appeal, but a structured digital strategy is needed to capture it.

6. The Challenge of Going International

More than 54% of Italian companies struggle to expand beyond national borders because they lack effective digital strategies. And yet cross-border is an enormous opportunity: emerging economies such as India, Indonesia and Mexico are identified as hotspots for growth in the coming years.

The barriers are no longer technical: modern e-commerce platforms handle multi-currency, translations and international logistics. The real obstacle is cultural and strategic. Many Italian SMEs lack the in-house skills to tackle foreign markets, do not know local purchasing habits, and do not know how to adapt their communication.

And yet global marketplaces — Amazon, eBay, but also Tmall for China or Mercado Libre for Latin America — offer a relatively simple point of entry. 2026 could be the right year to test new markets, starting from the more familiar ones such as France, Germany and Spain, and then expanding towards more ambitious destinations.

7. Automation and Personalisation: Minimum Requirements

Technological innovation — particularly that linked to Artificial Intelligence — is playing a crucial role. Online is no longer just a sales channel, but a relational tool through which brands build authentic connections with consumers. Automation is no longer a competitive advantage: it is the minimum threshold for staying in the market.

Managing marketing campaigns, customer service, inventory and promotions manually is no longer sustainable. The volumes are too high, the margins too tight, the competition too fierce. What is needed are systems that work autonomously: automated emails based on user behaviour, dynamic pricing that adapts to demand in real time, chatbots that handle 80% of enquiries without human intervention.

Personalisation, for its part, is what turns a visitor into a loyal customer. Product recommendations based on purchase history, dynamic homepages that change according to the user, targeted offers sent at the right moment. In 2026, consumers will expect every interaction to be relevant to them — and they will abandon brands that treat them as numbers.

What This Means for Italian Companies

The picture is clear: moderate but steady growth, with a profound change in the rules of the game. The companies that invest now in mobile-first, AI, omnichannel and internationalisation will be the ones leading the market in the coming years.

It is not about chasing every trend, but about building solid foundations: a flawless mobile experience, centralised and usable data, automated processes, a clear vision of where you want to go. The technologies are there, the business models are tested, the consumers are ready. All that is missing is the decision to invest.

Those who wait risk never catching up.