In 10 years, 140 thousand shops have disappeared in Italy

“The relaunch of local businesses is another front on which government action should be concentrated. In fact, a vicious circle has been established between demographic decline and commercial desertification. Many areas, especially small towns, internal and rural areas but not only, they suffer the impoverishment of the territory and the consequent reduction in the offer of services”. The president of Confesercenti, Patrizia De Luise, said this during the association’s national assembly at the Eliseo Theater in Rome.

“Between 2014 and 2024 – he underlined – over 140 thousand retail businesses in fixed locations disappeared from Italian streets and squares, of which almost 46,500 basic neighborhood activities, from food shops to newsstands, from bars to fuel distributors”. For De Luise: “This loss of access points to essential services reduces the quality of life of the population and contributes to strengthening the trend towards demographic decline in vast territorial areas. Investments are therefore necessary to stem the commercial desertification of Italy. We must start initiatives for the resilience of the neighborhood business network. Those who open in desertified areas, a subsidized regime accompanied by bureaucratic simplifications is to be considered a priority”.

“Black Friday is an emblem of competition distortion”

“There are enormous distortions in the competition between web giants and local businesses. In ten days Black Friday will arrive, the ‘Black Friday’ which has become synonymous with promotional sales and discounts. A North American tradition, imported by the giants of online commerce to attack the diligence of the Christmas market”, underlined De Luise again, “the objective of the web platforms – he added – is to bring forward the purchases of Christmas gifts to have them concentrated in a useful period to guarantee deliveries, clearly subtracting quotas of the market to shops and offline retail. We conducted a consumer survey with IPSOS to evaluate the impact of Black Friday: 86% of Italians will evaluate the offers. he has even already decided what to buy.”

For De Luise, Black Friday “is shaping up to be one of the most important commercial promotional events of the year, with a value comparable – if not superior – to that of end-of-season sales. Almost a third of these, real autumn sales, not limited to clothing, which however risk drying up Christmas in the shops”. The Confesercenti president underlines: “Over 70% of those who participate in Black Friday will use the opportunity to purchase gifts to put under the tree, and one in four intends to buy more than half of the estimated gifts. Overall, according to the our estimates, over a third of Christmas gifts will be purchased in advance with Black Friday. Mainly on the web, where 6 out of 10 purchases will take place, and at large chains and single-brand stores.”