THE WINE SECTOR IN THE DIGITAL ERA: AN EMPIRICAL EVALUATION IN A ITALIAN CONTEXT

Electronic commerce is fundamentally changing the way consumers shop and buy goods and services. The aim of this research is to analyse the online environment in the wine industry. We chose the wineindustries of a North Eastern Italian Region (i.e. Friuli Venezia Giulia) because this region has becomea food and wine area of great interest. After a brief discussion of the main strategies adopted by small producers in response to the competitive conditions on the global wine market, thepaper analyses the main advantages and challenges associated with the implementation of anonline marketing strategy. An exploratory data analysis was conducted in this in order to understand the complex dynamic of the e-commerce in the regional wine sector. Then a network analysis wasperformed to examine the special structure of the relationship between companies and exports, categories associations, regional consortia, authorities, and with the regional, national and international events. The network analysis shows that the companies have relationship with theauthorities. The companies participate more in regional and national events while there is a lowerparticipation in international events, although in recent years we can detect a contrary tendency. The analysis points out that there aren’t adequate incentives or motivations to activate a real e-commerce business by the majority of companies. The main obstacle in adopting E-commerce appears to be thementality of the producers and their reluctance to change and adopt new technologies for the sale oftheir products.

کلیدواژه ها:

Electronic commerce ، Wine ، Italy ، Network Analysis ، Agribusiness