Wine: Italian wineries land on the web
Staff Writer - December 29, 2003
Wine and Internet are moving ever more to the same beat and, at long last, Italian wineries are landing on the web. The e-commerce for the sector though, is still very sketchy when compared to other European realities and, especially, when compared to the US and Asian markets.
According to "Winenews", in 2003 a large number of Italian wine producers launched a company web site, but it is definitely premature to define the Italian wine industry as Internet oriented.
In fact, there are still to many enterprises that have not understood in full the importance and potential of the Web, thus taking minimum advantage of it and using the Net simply as a static online brochure. Many company presidents and managers believe that once a site has been launched, one can forget about it and leave it alone in cyberspace to work its magic.
The bottom line is that the vast majority of wineries and commercial farms alike are not investing enough on the Internet, both economically and terms of collateral marketing, If we consider the worldwide constant raising of sales volume on the Internet for product of all kind, it appears clear that sooner or later Italian wine entrepreneurs need to dedicate more attention and funds to this media if they want to remain competitive and, possibly, gain an edge on the worldwide market.
As an indicator for the need to embrace the Internet as a communication and marketing media, it should suffice considering the amazing US market share gain of Australian wines in the last few years.
| 
