Italian eCommerce hit €90.6B — and got less Italian

Italian B2C eCommerce reached €90.6 billion in 2025, up 6% on the year, according to the new eCommerce in Italy 2026 report from Casaleggio Associati.

While the market is bigger than ever more international platforms are absorbing the top of funnel, breakout categories are being shared with global brands, and the country's biggest DTC players are increasingly export businesses themselves. AI agents loom as the next disruption.

Here are four more takeaways from the report:

International platforms own Italy's top of funnel

Casaleggio's overall ranking of the most popular eCommerce sites in Italy is led by Amazon, Temu, Subito, and eBay — three of the top four are foreign. The wider top 10 includes Booking.com, Apple Store, and Leroy Merlin alongside Italian players Sisal, Mediaworld, and Trenitalia.

Temu's has climbed to #2 in under two years of operating in Italy, and eight of the ten fastest-growing eCommerce players in 2026 are non-Italian, led by Agoda, Temu, Trip.com, Backmarket, and Shein. The marketplace category as a whole grew 15.7% in 2025, but only 10% of the top 10 marketplace operators in Italy are Italian-owned.

Health & Beauty is the breakout category

Health & Beauty grew 24.2% in 2025, the fastest of any major Italian eCommerce sector, with turnover exceeding €2 billion. Casaleggio attributes the acceleration to influencer marketing, social-led content, and the early rollout of AI tooling.

But the breakout is being shared with global brands: just 40% of the category's top 10 are Italian-owned. Douglas, Notino, and Sephora occupy the top three positions, with Italian players Tigotà, Bottega Verde, KIKO Milano, and Pinalli holding ground alongside cross-border players like MyProtein and Marionnaud.

Italian DTC is crossing borders

While international brands are leading growth in Italy, Italian brands are also exporting more, with 39% of Italian companies now selling internationally (up from 36%), and international revenue averages 34% of the top 1,000 Italian eCommerce companies. Sales abroad grew at 53% of operators surveyed.

The top export destinations: Germany (13%), France (12%), Spain (10%), followed by the Netherlands, Switzerland, Portugal, and the UK at 7%.

AI agents and the new top of funnel

The report's central long-term thesis is that AI agents are about to replace consumers as the buyer at the top of the funnel. Three central data points Casaleggio used to underpin the argument are:

• AI referral traffic to eCommerce sites grew sevenfold in one year, from 6 million monthly visits in October 2024 to 41 million in December 2025.
• During Holiday 2025, AI-generated eCommerce traffic was up 693% year-on-year, with AI referral conversions up 1,247% in H2.
• Morgan Stanley models AI shopping agents capturing 10–20% of US eCommerce by 2030 ($190–385B); Bain estimates 15–25% ($300–500B); McKinsey models $3–5T globally.

The infrastructure is already shipping. OpenAI's Agentic Commerce Protocol went live to all US users in February 2026 with Shopify, Etsy, and Stripe as launch partners. Google's Universal Commerce Protocol launched at NRF in January 2026 with Walmart, Target, and Shopify.

The full report can be accessed here: Ecommerce in Italy 2026 — Casaleggio Associati.