E-COMMERCE IN SICILY: SICILIAN OIL AND WINE

Abstract

The expectations about the growth of e-commerce are often discrepant, because it’s not easy to qualify the importance of such a fast developing phenomenon. Beside estimations in which the number of the e- trading sites is constantly growing, we witnessed the failure of many successful companies that were trading by the web (dotcom crash). According to the recent report made by the Tagliacarne Institute about the level of information technologies of Italian small and medium sized enterprises, Sicily is first due to the percentage of companies owning Internet sites and used ecommerce. Our purpose was essentially to 'record' the 'state of e-commerce” concerning some agri-food products in a certain period of time, both between Sicilian enterprises and in a wider context in which Sicilian products can be sold. We operated directly through a simulation on the web, identifying ourselves with a potential user endowed with average capabilities. This study pointed out a cautious and gradual approach by those enterprises operating in the agri-food system respect the new economy.e-commerce, agro-food products, search-engines