The ICTs have enabled the transformation of processes of production, access, transfer, use and, in recent years, the sharing of information (email, forums, and social networks), reducing the spatio-temporal barriers. However, despite the fact that investments in new technologies have increased in recent decades, Italian agri-food and agricultural enterprises have still not bridged the digital divide. Nevertheless there are interesting potentials for growth, with the advent of Web 2.0 (and the latest web 3.0) and with social media. The aim of this study is to provide a brief overview of the developments in the Digital Economy and of the changes that have occurred in business to consumer models. In particular, the state of the art for agri-food products in relation to the evolution from “e-commerce” to “social commerce” will be analysed, through a specific survey, consisting of two complementary phases, related both to online businesses and to the web consumers.
In the ICTs sector, innovations follow each other swiftly,as it is a very dynamic market, where Web 3.0 represents the latest phenomenon, after Web 2.0 that had revolutionised the global world of information (Bethon et al., 2012;Neison et al, 2010) . There has been an evolution of sites and services in the Web, such as wiki sites and social networks, where interaction and sharing of content by users are fundamental. The web has become a “web ecosystem” in which users create value by sharing and creating experiences in the Web (through e-mail, blogs, networking, forums, communities, chat, etc.). The Internet has become the global platform for exchange, the space where an economic force of global dimensions operates, which has radically modified social and economic behaviour ( (Brush et al., 2010; Kumar et al., 2012; Sturiale, 2000; Whang et al., 2012)
In the European Union the digital economy is growing seven times faster than the rest of the economy, but its potential is currently hindered by an inconsistent strategic framework across European countries.
With regard to the Italian food market, specific studies on the Digital Economy refer to surveys on the size of the phenomenon, on “e - commerce” in individual sectors, on web marketing, and on B2B1).
The objective of this study is to provide a first contribution to the knowledge of
the recent phenomenon of social commerce in the Italian agri-food economy, and to
the analysis of the social media marketing used, following the 8 Ps approach
The size of the Digital Economy is particularly relevant given the growing importance of the ICTs as a policy tool. There is a high level of interest in measuring the Internet economy as a way to understand the effects of various investment strategies, regulatory rulings, and policy decisions.
In 2014 the world digital market continued its growth, registering a + 3.6%
increase, with a global value of 4,538.6 billion dollars.
ICTs are making companies’ business ever more efficient: enterprises are looking more and more to technology to reduce costs, creating an ever growing demand for technological services and products.
According to the OECD (2012), the American market is the most important in terms of number of employees, with a share of 30%, followed by Japan (16%) and Germany (9%). According to the Boston Consulting Group, in 2016 the net economy of the G20 countries will reach 4.2 trillion, 3 billion people will be connected to the Internet on various devices. For the G20 countries, an annual rate of growth of 10% is estimated, while that of the emerging markets will almost double (approximately 18%).
The EU is also focusing on ICTs as a strategic lever to relaunch the European economy through the economic advantages and social sustainability that are offered by a unified digital market2).
The main elements of the #ContinenteConnesso proposal are open Internet, strengthening the consumer rights, abolition of additional roaming costs in the EU, coordinated spectrum frequency allocation, adding certainty for investors. 1 From among the various contributions to be found in the literature, we cite a few: Sturiale L., 2000; Sturiale and Scuderi, 2001; Bucca et al., 2006; Canavari, Pignatti, and Spadoni, 2008, Brush and McIntosh, 2010; Neilson, Madill, and Haines, Jr., 2010). 2 As reported by the Digital Agenda (2012), in the EU the digital economy is growing by 12% each year; employment in the field of ICTs is approximately 7 million, and it is estimated that this will increase to 16 million by 2020. It is estimated that half of the productivity growth results from investment in this sector.
In spite of the developments that have affected the ICTs and that are reflected in all areas of social and economic life, a digital divide still remains. In the “Connectivity Scorecard”3 ranking, which assesses the impact of the Web on national economies, in 2014 Italy was in 22nd out of 26 countries, which were considered as innovation-driven economies (Denmark, Sweden, and the United States were in the lead, while ranked behind Italy were Greece, Portugal, Hungary, and Poland).
At the same time, a study conducted by Google4 showed that online searches for Italian products in 2014 increased by 13% compared to 2013; amongst the most clicked categories of the “Made in Italy”, the top searches were in the fashion and car sectors, followed by tourism, agri-food, and furniture.
In the Italian agri-food economy, since the 90’s many companies have implemented new “e-business” and web marketing organisational models, to adapt to the new competitive environment. They have adopted new strategic tools for market knowledge, brand awareness of their product, and customer interaction (from one-toone marketing, to social networking, to storytelling). The last frontiers are represented by social commerce, Apps5, and the developments of the mobile and content marketing, to name just a few.
Despite these developments, in Italy we are far from both the European average and from the goals set by the Digital Agenda. According to recent surveys, in Italy mistrust of online purchase still persists due to the following reasons (in decreasing order of importance): preference for physical contact with products; payment deemed unsafe; high shipping costs; long shipping times.
In 2012, 29% of Italian Internet users bought online, while the European average was 59%. With regard to the types of goods and services purchased, by far the largest part were for tourist services, books, and clothing, while only 1% was dedicated to food products (compared to a European average of 6%). Therefore there would be a lot of room to develop agri-food “e-commerce”, if that was supported by an adequate web marketing and by utilising the latest web technologies. 3The Connectivity Scorecard is the first index to examine quality and quantity of ICT usage and infrastructure, and to link it to a country’s social and economic prosperity. The research focuses on 52 countries. These have been divided into two scorecard groupings according to their economy type as defined by the World Economic Forum. - Resource-driven economies: Resource and efficiency-driven economies are less well developed than the innovation-driven economies; - Innovation-driven economies: Innovation-driven economies are more highly developed than resource and efficiency-driven economies. (http://www.connectivityscorecard.org). 4 Analysis by Google has evaluated the behaviour of users from 10 foreign countries, with different characteristics: from the United States to Germany, from the UAE to Brazil. 5 Start-up technologies are growing rapidly in Europe; the European App market generates revenues of €17.5 billion and boasts 1.8 million jobs (Digital Agenda, 2012).
The spread of the Internet, whilst not changing the fundamental rules of the
economy, has led to an amplification of the information revolution
Information Systems are being enriched by tools and areas for interaction that are designed to respond to the emerging needs of businesses and of consumers, thanks to the tools of Web 2.0 and of the latest Web 3.0. Among them, social networks, a worldwide phenomenon that is changing the way of doing e-business, assume a very important role, fully considered as a valid support for corporate strategy through an omni-channel approach. This provides the synergy of different channels to obtain a widespread and pervasive presence, with the primary objective of listening to the customer and his needs.
Companies are internalising the new market culture and technologies, changing
their business models passing through different phases, from “e-trade”, to
“ecommerce”, then onto “e-business”6 and, the latest frontier of “social commerce”,
following the development of Web 2.0 and the social network
Italian companies should seize the opportunities offered by social networks, using them as a primary instrument for relating with the customer (Tab. 1), considering the fact that more than 70% of Italian Internet users (more than 38 million in 2014) are social network users7. 6 In detail, “e-trade” is understood as the electronic channel complementary to the traditional ones, “e-commerce” allows the interaction with the market; “e-business” uses the integrated technological elements in the internal and external processes of the enterprise to obtain a sustainable competitive advantage (Scott, Murtula, Stecco (eds), 1999). 7According to the Facebook Observatory, in 2014 Facebook had 1.39 billion subscribers worldwide, Italy ranked ninth in the world, with 28 million Italians enrolled, of whom 20 million were daily users. The other social media (Google, Twitter, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Pinterest) reached a total of approximately 28 million enrolled users. This is a far-reaching social phenomenon that has led to the opening up of social advertising and social commerce.
Among them, social commerce is becoming ever more strategic. This is a new
category of e-commerce activated through the use of social media platforms and
social network services
Since social media have become readily accessible, more consumers use it as a
source of information about companies, brands, products, and services by social
networks and e-WOM (electronic word of mouth) (Sturiale, Scuderi, 201
Today it is possible, to distinguish different types of social commerce
In order to analyse the state of the art for agri-food products in relation to the evolution from e-commerce to social commerce, a specific survey was conducted in two complementary phases, relating to businesses and consumers.
The first phase provides a brief overview of the relationship between the
agrifood economy, ICTs, customers, and marketing. This analysed and assessed the
leading agri-food SMEs present on the Internet to understand, firstly, what the
strategic goals of the business are and, secondly, to evaluate the effectiveness of their
marketing strategies when applied to social media, following the framework of the
recent 8 Ps approach
The second phase aims to assess the consumer’s ability to convey their purchasing intention to the community and social media, as a strategic element of social-commerce (Stephen et al., 2010; Scuderi et al., 2014 (a); Zou et al., 2013).
A specific questionnaire was used to interview 1,000 “followers” of the Facebook pages of the 100 agri-food enterprises that have been analysed. The questions given to the participating units, according to a specific experimental design, provide a number of scenarios that could generate three possible evaluations (of positive, negative, and neutral values) relating to consumer preferences and to the 8 Ps of companies’ marketing strategies (that were previously assessed in the first phase).
The collected data was processed by applying the technique of multiple regression analysis, in order to capture the influences from multiple independent variables on a dependent variable, according to the following base model in which all the variables analysed are contained:
SOCIAL probi= β0+ β1PRODUCT + β2 POS+ β 3 NEG+ β4MED+β5GENDER+ β6 POSTi+ β7WHYi+ β8AGEi+ β9EDU+ β10 PERS.f + εt
In which the various elements indicate the following: “SOCIAL probi” - the probability of transmitting the shopping experience to third parties; “i” - the individuals; “PRODUCT” - the type of product; “POS” - a positive experience; “NEG” - a negative experience; “MED” - a neutral experience; “GENDER” - the sex; “POST” - the activity of posting online by the participating entity; “WHY” - the motivation for posting online; “AGE” - the age; “EDU” - education; “PERS.f” represents the variable that recognises the individual characteristics of each respondent; and “εt” represents the forecast error/residue.
The results of the first phase of the research, following the 8 Ps marketing
approach, has enabled the opportunities and limitations of the “e-business” models of
in the agro-food system to be highlighted. Through the survey, some case histories of
agri-food enterprises that have been able to maximise the opportunities offered by
social media have emerged. In fact, they have adapted their methods of dealing with
the customer, who, from being a simple content user, is becoming the author of
content and experiences (a creative consumer), according to the interaction model
between the web, social media, and consumer, as shown in the following image
From the data obtained, it can be noted that marketing has transformed according to the characteristics of the new tool, and has focused its attention on “information” as a business asset, and on the business-client relationship in an integrated vision that can create value, transforming into societing. In this context, in the process of buying, the social media have become the most important instrument for directing both the online and off-line choices of buyers, also in the agri-food market (Scuderi, Sturiale, 2014(a); Sturiale, Scuderi, 2013).
In a competitive and highly dynamic environment, the essential sources of competitive advantage constituted by intangible factors are becoming increasingly important, since they allow companies to evolve, satisfy consumers, and anticipate change. For agri-food products, social media strategies have become an integral part of the development policies for the companies’ products, with an additional attraction determined by the extent of investment, contact between the company and the consumer, and potential initiation of word of mouth in the community.
In summary, the objectives of the marketing strategies adopted by the companies analysed are to build, engage, and expand direct relationships with customers through the social network, to increase brand awareness, to gain more and more information in order to develop targeted communication, and to activate social commerce.
Fig. 1 The impact of maketing mix (8P's) for agrifood firms productivity and
quality physical evidence process
However, the results highlight (Fig. 1) that businesses are open to the new “8 Ps”
marketing approach in different ways. The majority of companies (63%) are still
predominantly oriented to the original 4 Ps, even though they show an interest in the
people element. On the other hand, the remaining Ps are largely unexplored or
undervalued. There is, therefore, an interest in the new elements of the marketing
model, but the process is still at its beginning. Therefore, both the actions and the
results of the application of such elements are still to be assessed for “Made in Italy”
agri-food products
Moving on to analyse the results of the second phase, that is the intention of transmitting the knowledge and the experience of purchasing through social media, it can be noted that the purchase of “Made in Italy” agri-food products generate a significant level of reporting. A positive experience generates more SOCIAL compared to a negative experience, and the latter induces, in turn, a greater desire to transfer such an experience than a mediocre one, for which, for both samples considered, all the statistically significant coefficients are negative. This means that the presence a mediocre experience has a negative effect on the desire to report information relating to the product or to the experience to a third party. The results are reported in detail in Tab. 2. Tab. 2 Estimated structural parameters of opinions deriving from virtual and how they affect consumers on their intention to buy (buy_prob).
Estimate Std. Error t value Pr (>|t|) (Intercept) 19.752 7.101 1.125 0,0351517 med_on 3.815 2.874 1.015 0,235897 pos_on 13.567 3.983 3.125 0,001125 no.rev 5.871 3.528 1.127 0,242931 post 4.285 1.584 2.985 0,000984 gender - 904 2.154 - 858 0,115874 age - 1.987 2.154 - 1.125 0,228754 edu 1.985 2.368 1.224 0,265287
The results obtained from the statistical analysis enable the following considerations to be singled out, for the products concerned: - the perception of “Made in Italy” exceeds the value of the shopping experience, as it incorporates an intrinsic value of tradition, capable of generating emotion, which induce purchases that go beyond the purchase threshold of the individual; - the intention to transfer their own buying experiences to third parties varies depending on whether it refers to products already known by the purchaser; - the intention to refer their own buying experience to third parties varies depending on the origin of the message, in many cases preferring to spread the message in offline channels as well, as this makes it possible to generate a comparison between infinite consumers.
These assessments confirm that word of mouth on the net (e-WOM) on agri-food products acts very effectively. Social commerce, which is based on communication, should therefore be included among the strategic elements of a social media marketing plan, integrated with the omni-channel strategy of companies, and assume a significant place in the sales strategy for agri-food products.
The environment created by the Internet has led to selection mechanisms for products that are very fast, with the elimination of competitors that do not have an appropriate business model.
To this end, it is essential to refer to an active and interactive model of web presence, which through analysis and review of business processes as a whole, takes into account the characteristics of the company, in this case the specificity of agrifood products and their local dimension, in order to generate a real source of competitive advantage in a global context. The ICTs offer great opportunities to the enterprises concerned, especially the tools of Web 2.0 and social media, as the survey reveals.
The social commerce for agri-food companies will become strategic for broadcasting the purchasing experience of “Made in Italy” foods, strongly anchored to territory, transforming into “glocal social commerce” (Scuderi et al., 2015) .
On one hand, the EXPO 2015 global event , and on the other hand, the trend of the international media towards broadcasting a format that is focused on cooking and food, which are becoming a global viral phenomenon, are establishing food as the challenge of the future.
This is a historic moment that offers great potential for “Made in Italy” food enterprises, both in terms of image and of the tools offered for the communication of products on a global level. Focusing on social media, networking, and appropriate marketing strategies (8 Ps ) and on societing will enable them to be more competitive in the marketspace. To this end, it will be important to develop appropriate models of omni-channel “e-business”, in which constructing a targeted social media marketing will become strategic, to support “Made in Italy” agri-food products.