Ecommerce in Italy continues to grow, but competition is increasing at the same rate. To grow ecommerce sales today, having a website is not enough: You need to offer an excellent user experience, simplify the checkout process, use customer data intelligently, and ensure secure payments.

This article will show you how to increase online sales through practical actions, both for individual online stores and ecommerce platforms. We’ll analyze the most effective strategies, including enhancing the user experience, making use of customer feedback, personalizing offers, and using targeted marketing and promotional activities.

We’ll also examine the main trends in the Italian market, including the growth of digital payments and the evolution of customer expectations. Understanding and adapting to these changes is key to increasing ecommerce sales in a sustainable way and strengthening your business’s competitiveness in the digital market.

What’s in this article?

• Ecommerce data and trends in Italy
  
• Strategies to increase online sales: Ecommerce stores
  
• Strategies to increase online sales: Ecommerce platforms
  
• How Stripe Payments can help
  

Ecommerce data and trends in Italy

To effectively increase ecommerce sales, you must first understand the size and direction of the Italian market. Data confirms that online sales are now a key channel for many businesses. According to research by the Netcomm B2C Ecommerce Observatory—part of the School of Management at the Polytechnic University of Milan, the value of online purchases in Italy reached €58.8 billion in 2024, up 6% over the previous year.

At the same time, the number of people shopping online is growing. In its report Citizens and ICT—2024, the Italian National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT) highlights that 46.8% of people over the age of 14 who have used the internet in the past 12 months said they had purchased or ordered goods or services online for private use, an increase compared with 2023.

Another key factor accelerating the growth of ecommerce sales is the widespread use of digital payments. According to the Innovative Payments Observatory of the Polytechnic University of Milan, in 2024, the value of digital payments in Italy reached €481 billion—an 8.5% increase over the previous year—surpassing cash and accounting for 43% of total consumer spending. Also, innovative payments via smartphones and wearable devices have grown by 53%, confirming the increasingly central role of digital payments in online shopping.

This evolution is especially relevant for businesses looking to increase online sales: offering swift, secure, and diversified digital payment methods improves the user experience, reduces shopping cart abandonment, and increases conversion rates.

In this environment, certain metrics can help identify where to focus efforts in order to boost online sales and improve performance:

• 33.7 million digital consumers in Italy—a sign of a broad and mature market
  
• Approximately 88,000 Italian companies operate their own ecommerce websites, resulting in robust competition and a need for differentiation
  
• 78.8% of ecommerce businesses offer multiple payment methods, confirming that flexibility at the checkout stage has become a competitive standard
  

These figures show that the opportunity to increase sales through ecommerce is real, but it requires attention to several factors, including a smooth user experience, simple checkout, and secure payments. Businesses that invest in an optimized purchase process, personalization, and modern payment infrastructure are the ones best positioned to sustainably increase their ecommerce sales within the Italian digital market.

Strategies to increase online sales: Ecommerce stores

If you run an online store, you need to focus on strategies that directly improve your conversion rate and average order value. Let’s take a look at the top strategies for boosting sales for ecommerce stores.

Improve user experience

One of the most important factors in boosting ecommerce sales is improving the user experience. A site that is slow, difficult to navigate, or not optimized for mobile devices drastically reduces conversions.

To improve the user experience:

• Optimize website speed
  
• Use a design optimized for mobile devices
  
• Simplify navigation
  
• Use high-quality images
  
• Clearly display prices and shipping information
  

A seamless user experience helps boost sales on ecommerce sites by reducing friction during the purchasing process, increasing customer trust, and improving the likelihood of repeat purchases.

Simplify the checkout process

An optimized checkout process is one of the most important factors in boosting sales on an ecommerce site. According to research by the Baymard Institute, the average shopping cart abandonment rate in ecommerce is 70.22%, which means that approximately seven out of 10 users do not complete their purchase after adding products to their shopping cart. To reduce shopping cart abandonment:

• Reduce the number of steps in the checkout process
  
• Allow guest checkout
  
• Offer multiple payment methods (in a study conducted by Stripe in 2022, 86% of users surveyed said they would likely abandon their shopping cart if their preferred payment method was not available)
  
• Clearly display final costs
  
• Show an order summary immediately before payment
  
• Use fast payment systems
  

Make use of customer feedback

Customer feedback is a powerful tool for increasing online sales. Positive reviews increase trust and improve conversion rates.

You can use feedback to:

• Improve products and services
  
• Pinpoint issues in the purchasing process
  
• Increase the trust of new customers
  
• Improve the brand’s reputation
  

Displaying authentic reviews helps increase ecommerce sales because it reduces buyer uncertainty.

Personalization and product recommendations

Personalization is one of the most effective strategies for boosting sales for ecommerce businesses. Customers are more likely to buy when they receive relevant recommendations.
You can use:

• Suggestions based on previous purchases
  
• Recommendations based on browsing history
  
• Personalized emails
  
• Exclusive offers
  

Personalization and product recommendations help grow ecommerce sales by increasing average order value and improving the customer experience.

Effective marketing and promotions

Marketing is important for boosting online sales because even the best website cannot generate sales without qualified traffic. Key strategies include:

• SEO optimization
  
• Social media advertising
  
• Email marketing
  
• Special offers and discounts
  
• Loyalty programs
  

These strategies help increase sales for ecommerce businesses by attracting new customers and incentivizing existing ones.

Key strategies for increasing ecommerce sales and their impact

What can be done to boost online sales?

In summary, to increase online sales, you can optimize the user experience, simplify the checkout process, offer secure payment options, use effective marketing strategies, and personalize your offerings. Furthermore, it’s important to analyze customer data and continuously improve your website.

Strategies to increase online sales: Ecommerce platforms

Ecommerce platforms—such as marketplaces, software-as-a-service (SaaS) platforms, or multiseller ecosystems—play a distinct role compared to individual online stores. Not only do they sell products directly, but they also create an infrastructure that allows other sellers to operate, grow, and boost their online sales. As a result, strategies to increase sales must focus on scalability, operational efficiency, and the quality of the overall user experience.

A successful platform must attract sellers, support them in their development, and offer buyers a secure, seamless, and reliable experience. By enhancing these aspects, you can increase ecommerce sales at the individual seller level while also increasing the overall value of the platform itself. Below are the key strategies to consider.

Optimize platform usability

Usability is one of the most important factors in the success of an ecommerce platform. If the platform is complex or difficult to use, sellers will encounter obstacles in managing their inventory, orders, and payments. This can hinder their ability to grow and, as a result, limit the platform’s overall ability to drive ecommerce sales.

With an easy-to-use platform at their disposal, sellers can focus on their business instead of technical issues. In addition, a well-designed interface reduces operational errors, improves efficiency, and accelerates the time-to-market for new products.

To improve platform usability, it’s important to offer:

• Intuitive, easy-to-navigate dashboards

• Guided onboarding for new sellers

• Simple management of products, orders, and customers

• Automated tools for updating inventory and prices

• Simple integrations with external tools

These elements help sellers increase sales on their ecommerce sites through effective platform use.

Support seller success

The success of a platform depends directly on the success of its sellers. If sellers manage to grow and increase their online sales, the platform also benefits, in the form of higher commissions, increased traffic, and greater appeal.

For this reason, platforms need to provide tools and infrastructure that help sellers manage and scale their businesses. This includes not only technical tools, but also operational and financial support.

An effective platform should offer:

• Integrated marketing tools

• Tools for managing customers and relationships

• Systems for managing orders and shipments

• Detailed sales reports

• Integrated payment infrastructure

Solutions such as Stripe Connect enable platforms to manage multiseller payments, commissions, and automatic transfers, simplifying financial management and helping sellers increase ecommerce sales. This is particularly important for platforms that want to implement tools to drive scalable sales growth within the B2C ecommerce sector.

Ensure secure transactions

Payment security is one of the most important factors in building trust between users and sellers. If customers perceive a risk during the payment process, they are much more likely to abandon their purchase.

Platforms must ensure high security standards to protect both customers and sellers. This not only reduces the risk of fraud, but also helps increase ecommerce sales by improving user trust.

To ensure secure transactions, platforms must implement:

• Fraud prevention systems

• Strong customer authentication (SCA)

• Compliance with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS)

• Protection of sensitive data

• Monitoring of suspicious transactions

Broaden the product range

Variety in your product offerings is a key factor in attracting and retaining customers. The more products available on the platform, the more likely it is that customers will find what they’re looking for. A platform with a broad and diversified offering can attract more traffic, increase time spent on the platform, and improve conversion rates.

Platforms can expand their product range through:

• Onboarding of new sellers

• Expansion into new sectors

• Support for international sellers

• Integration with suppliers and partners

• Tools to simplify the listing of products

Expanding your product range can increase ecommerce sales by improving the competitiveness of the platform.

Implement advanced analytics

Data is one of the most powerful tools for increasing ecommerce sales. Platforms that use advanced analytics can identify growth opportunities, enhance user experience, and optimize seller strategies.

Analytics enable you to understand user behavior, identify potential issues in the purchasing process, and improve overall performance.

Platforms should offer:

• Dashboards showing sales data

• Customer behavior analytics

• Reports on seller performance

• Sales forecasting tools

• Conversion analytics

These tools help sellers and platforms understand how to increase ecommerce sales using concrete data.

How do you persuade customers to buy?

You can persuade customers to buy by increasing trust and reducing uncertainty during the purchasing process. Display verified reviews, clear return policies, and transparent pricing and shipping information. Offer a simple checkout and secure payment methods, as a complex or unreliable process can hinder conversion. Personalization—such as product recommendations and targeted offers—also helps to make the experience more relevant and boost ecommerce sales.

How Stripe Payments can help

Stripe Payments provides a unified, global payments solution that helps any business—from scaling startups to global enterprises—accept payments online, in person, and around the world.

Stripe Payments can help you:

• Optimize your checkout experience: Create a frictionless customer experience and save thousands of engineering hours with prebuilt payment UIs, access to 125+ payment methods, and Link, a wallet built by Stripe.
  
• Expand to new markets faster: Reach customers worldwide and reduce the complexity and cost of multicurrency management with cross-border payment options, available in 195 countries across 135+ currencies.
  
• Unify payments in person and online: Build a unified commerce experience across online and in-person channels to personalize interactions, reward loyalty, and grow revenue.
  
• Improve payments performance: Increase revenue with a range of customizable, easy-to-configure payment tools, including no-code fraud protection and advanced capabilities to improve authorization rates.
  
• Move faster with a flexible, reliable platform for growth: Build on a platform designed to scale with you, with 99.999% historical uptime and industry-leading reliability.
  

Learn more about how Stripe Payments can power your online and in-person payments, or get started today.