One statistic tells the whole story: 58% of Italian SMEs have a website, but only 21% receive contacts or orders online. And among those who opened an e-commerce store, a significant share has shut it down — or keeps it alive as a fixed cost that doesn't perform.
The problem isn't e-commerce itself. It's that stores get opened as an act of faith ("we must sell online!") instead of as a business decision. Before investing €3,000–12,000 in an online store, there are three calculations to run. Literally three.
Calculation #1: does the margin hold?
E-commerce has costs a physical shop doesn't: payment fees (1.5–3%), shipping, returns, packaging, possibly marketplaces. The question is brutal:
After subtracting shipping, fees and returns, does your average product keep at least a 30% margin?
If you sell €15 products at a 20% margin, every order costs more than it earns. If you sell €80 products at a 50% margin, the picture changes completely. E-commerce rewards a high average order value and healthy margins — or volumes an SME rarely has in year one.
Calculation #2: who brings the traffic?
The most expensive mistake we see: assuming the online store sells by itself. An e-commerce site without traffic is a warehouse in the middle of the desert. The realistic numbers:
- Average conversion rate: 1–2% (yes: 98 out of 100 visitors don't buy)
- For 10 orders a day you need 500–1,000 visits a day
- That traffic is bought (ads), built (SEO, content) or already owned (customers, social, newsletter)
If today you have none of those three sources, your first-year marketing budget must be